Jr. Sam Merwin 1 hr 42 min read

To the modern mind the Devil is a mere figure of speech, until sophisticated Charles Justin, pausing before Boston's Old State House, finds that Satan is real, and deadlier by far than any legend.

Sam Merwin, Jr.'s 1953 story is a sharp social-SF and time-travel tale. Clever, unsettling golden-age SF. Read it for a wry, chilling story that takes the Devil seriously again, where a worldly skeptic confronts a genuine and formidable Old Nick, in a well-turned golden-age piece that turns modern disbelief into deadly peril.

In its time

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

Reading it

1 hr 42 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).