William W. Stuart 26 min read

You could say Jonesy and I were not all there, but how much of Stanley was or wasn't there? Down on the real skid row, among horrors seen and unseen, the narrator has a suggestion: don't go.

William W. Stuart's 1961 story is a wry, atmospheric first-contact and social-SF tale. Clever, offbeat golden-age SF. Read it for a story that opens in the grim depths of skid row and unfolds a strange tale of a little man who wasn't quite there, told in a sardonic, streetwise voice.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Walker