Joseph Farrell 12 min read

It's not that Pete Cooper doesn't love his wives, or wish them into the next world, he grieves each time. But a man must be practical, and healthy young women make good insurance risks.

Joseph Farrell's 1958 story is a wry, dark first-contact and social-SF tale of relativity and profit. Clever, ironic golden-age SF. Read it for a genial-macabre story where a spaceman exploits time dilation to outlive wife after wife and collect on their policies, in a sharp little tale of practicality run amok.

In its time

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

Reading it

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