C. M. Kornbluth 51 min read

In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king, but what of a smart operator in a civilization of a hundred percent pure chumps? A potter fires his kilns by Goose Lake.

C. M. Kornbluth's 1951 story is a landmark, savagely satirical dystopian social-SF tale. Sharp, cynical, unforgettable. Read it for one of SF's most notorious stories, a future where the foolish have vastly outbred the clever, and a revived huckster proposes a monstrous solution, in Kornbluth's blackest vein.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Don Sibley