Henry Farrell 3 hr 59 min read

Measuring a greenish liquid in his basement lab, Marc Pillsworth has no idea he is pouring out destruction, intrigue, and madness, until the vat erupts and chaos blows the wall away.

Henry Farrell's 1950 story is a zany fantasy and social-SF comedy. Fun, madcap golden-age SF. Read it for another screwball romp with the mischievous, invisible sprite Toffee, where an ordinary man's experiment unleashes uproarious chaos, in a fast, funny golden-age farce of daydreams run wild and respectability gleefully demolished.

In its time

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

Reading it

3 hr 59 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).

Illustrated by

Robert Gibson Jones