H. Beam Piper 35 min read

Once wars were won by maneuvering hired fighting men; now wars are different, and so are the hired experts, but the human problems remain. Duncan MacLeod strips down and passes through the gate.

H. Beam Piper's 1950 story is a sharp military and social-SF tale of privatized future warfare. Clever, thoughtful golden-age SF. Read it for a story where wars are fought by contracted scientific teams rather than armies, and the timeless human frictions of loyalty, ambition, and betrayal play out among the mercenaries of the mind.

In its time

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

Reading it

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