Robert F. Young 40 min read

In the small town of Valleyview, Francis Pfleuger holds two distinctions, village idiot and village inventor, and, in their incongruous togetherness, inspires no end of fun and laughter.

Robert F. Young's 1958 story is a wry, warm dystopian and social-SF tale. Clever, humane golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where a small-town simpleton-tinkerer, the butt of everyone's jokes, invents something that turns the tables, in a sharp and tender take on the age-old servant problem.

In its time

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

Reading it

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