Joseph Samachson 20 min read

Ronar is reformed, if that's the word, but they still don't trust him: uneasiness in their motions, fear in their eyes when they come near. In time, he tells himself, they'll forget what he was.

Joseph Samachson's 1953 story is a wry, thoughtful AI-and-social-SF tale. Clever, humane golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story, set amid a cooking contest, where a reformed being of fearsome former nature seeks acceptance, and the model of a judge proves to be something quite unexpected.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Burchard