Frederik Pohl 1 hr 8 min read

With one suitcase as his domain, Arthur badly needs armed henchmen, for his keys to a kingdom are typewriter keys, and nobody lives in Philadelphia any more.

Frederik Pohl's 1958 story is a wry, inventive post-apocalyptic social-SF adventure. Clever, funny golden-age SF. Read it for a genial tale of a ruined America where an electronic brain named Arthur, carried about in a suitcase, schemes to make its bearer king, in a sharp and comic vision of the aftermath.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

1 hr 8 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Don Martin