B. J. Rogers 9 min read

'Oh, he is dead!' the mind cries out, and an alien observer, writing to a distant beloved, questions the custom of never sharing delicate thoughts, moved by the Earth people who speak their minds.

B. J. Rogers's 1958 story is a thoughtful first-contact and social-SF tale. Sharp, humane golden-age SF. Read it for a story told through an alien's letters home, where beings who never voice their inner feelings observe emotional, outspoken humanity, and begin, unsettlingly, to envy us.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Kelly Freas