Edward W. Ludwig 19 min read

It all began on a Saturday night at The Space Room in Marsport, a picturesque oasis of old Martian charm, its stagnant-canal scent and vanishing money rather less advertised than its charm.

Edward W. Ludwig's 1954 story is a wry, comic psi-powers and social-SF tale. Clever, genial golden-age SF. Read it for a breezy story set in a seedy Martian bar, where a mysterious man named John Smith and his talent for making holes appear set off a delightful chain of trouble.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

19 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Kelly Freas