Walter J. Sheldon 17 min read

Reporter Edward Blair, disgusted at being sent to interview the monks of a remote mountain shrine over their so-called magic tricks, is about to encounter something he cannot explain away.

Walter J. Sheldon's 1956 story is an atmospheric social-SF and time-travel tale set in Japan. Sharp, evocative golden-age SF. Read it for a well-turned story where a skeptical Western newsman confronts an ancient, uncanny power in the mountains of Japan, in a moody golden-age piece that blurs the line between science fiction, fantasy, and the genuinely mysterious.

In its time

Published in 1956, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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