Mack Reynolds 35 min read

To everyone in the Solar System Jak was a big shot, everyone but the two who counted most: Suzi, who tells him flat out he's a phony, and Jak himself, who half-knows it's true.

Mack Reynolds's 1952 story is a wry first-contact and space-opera tale of a self-made fraud. Clever, character-driven golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where a celebrated big shot who knows he's a humbug must, at last, make good on his own reputation when a real cosmic bluff is called.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

35 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry