Katherine MacLean 21 min read

A skeptical university dean dares his sociology professor to prove the science is good for anything, so the professor rewrites a humble sewing circle's charter, and it starts to grow.

Katherine MacLean's 1952 story is a sharp, witty dystopian and social-SF tale. Clever, alarming, superbly turned. Read it for a classic idea story where a small tweak to a club's rules sets off unstoppable exponential growth, in a brilliant, funny, faintly chilling demonstration of social science with teeth.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller