George O. Smith 1 hr 20 min read

What could Genetics and the impossible 'Hansen's Folly' have in common? Everything, it turns out, as a visitor arrives at a household of wealth and taste on a mission that will prove far from simple.

George O. Smith's 1960 novel is an inventive social-SF space opera. Clever, engaging golden-age SF. Read it for a thoughtful, twisty tale that links statistical genetics to a supposedly impossible feat, unfolding a puzzle of heredity, society, and human potential in Smith's characteristically idea-rich golden-age style.

In its time

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

Reading it

1 hr 20 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).

Illustrated by

Dick Francis