Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger 27 min read

Pinlighting is a hell of a way to earn a living, and Underhill is furious, cut by a girl's scornful 'Meow' in the corridor, though every half-hour at the pin-set costs him two months in hospital.

Cordwainer Smith's 1955 story is a landmark of the field, a strange and beautiful psi-powers space opera. Visionary, poetic, unforgettable. Read it for one of the great SF stories ever written, human telepaths and their partner cats defending starships from the Dragons that lurk in space, in Smith's incomparable voice.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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