Isaac Asimov 28 min read

Struggling chemist Walter Sills toils in a dingy laboratory over the Hudson, bitter that lesser men prosper while he does not, never guessing his latest experiment will bring a fame he never wanted.

Isaac Asimov's 1940 story is an early, wry hard-SF and social-SF tale from the future Grand Master. Clever, energetic, of its era. Read it for very early Asimov, a struggling inventor and a magnificent discovery whose consequences quickly spin beyond his control, an intriguing apprentice-work from the writer who would go on to define the genre.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Mort Meskin