George O. Smith 4 hr 26 min read

James Quincy Holden is five, and celebrates not with noisy kids but with cocktails, a Kipling volume, and a build-it-yourself geiger counter, sipping ginger ale among the grown-ups.

George O. Smith's 1959 novel is a gripping psi-powers and social-SF tale of a super-intelligent child. Sharp, engaging golden-age SF. Read it for a tense story where a boy educated far beyond his years must survive alone against those who would exploit him, in one of SF's classic super-child adventures.

In its time

Published in 1959, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

4 hr 26 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).