Henry Slesar 9 min read

A dying man, a desperate wife, and a doctor with an experimental drug called senopoline, a boon that grants life, if you can first decide what part of yourself you most want to save.

Henry Slesar's 1961 story is a sharp hard-SF and social-SF tale with a twist. Clever, unsettling golden-age SF. Read it for a taut, ironic story of a miracle drug and the terrible bargain it demands, from a master of the short surprise ending, exploring what we would sacrifice for more time.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Bob Ritter