Don Thompson 1 hr 16 min read

When blood drips from his bathtub tap, the narrator feels only relief, proof at last that he isn't cracking up, but is the target of a hidden telenosis beam pumping visions into his mind.

Don Thompson's 1954 story is a clever, paranoid psi-powers and social-SF tale. Sharp, inventive golden-age SF. Read it for a fast, twisty story of weaponized hallucination and mind-tampering, where a man fights back against an unseen manipulator planting false visions and impulses, in a witty golden-age thriller of psychic warfare.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

1 hr 16 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).

Illustrated by

Vidmer