Arthur Feldman 7 min read

In the garden, Drake Hawkins settles his daughter in the hammock and begins a true story, 'It all happened exactly like I'm telling you', of the year 2011, and the mathematicians.

Arthur Feldman's 1954 story is a wry first-contact and social-SF tale told as a bedtime story. Clever, charming golden-age SF. Read it for a genial fable, framed as a father's tale to his child, that unfolds a sly and surprising story of what happened when the mathematicians came, with a delightful twist.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

A. Lake