Roger D. Aycock 12 min read

Professional skeptic Fortenay, a highly-paid iconoclast who capitalizes on debunking every wonder, is about to meet a phenomenon that turns his glib certainty into something far less comfortable.

Roger D. Aycock's (Roger Dee's) 1954 story is a wry first-contact and horror-tinged comedy. Fun, clever golden-age SF. Read it for a genial fancy-free flight of humorous scientific fantasy, where a smug professional doubter gets his comeuppance, in a witty golden-age piece with a spectral chuckle and a sharp eye for arrogance.

In its time

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

Reading it

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