George O. Smith 2 hr 29 min read

A well-dressed man sits in a psychologist's chair with no memory at all, not even his own name, the latest in a baffling series of total amnesiacs whose minds have been utterly wiped.

George O. Smith's 1947 story is an intriguing psi-powers and social-SF mystery. Sharp, clever golden-age SF. Read it for a well-turned puzzle of mysterious amnesia and hidden mental powers, where investigators must uncover what force is erasing men's minds, in an idea-rich golden-age tale where, among the mind-blind, a strange few can see.

In its time

Published in 1947, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

2 hr 29 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).