Alfred Bester 15 min read

A hack pulp writer, restless after a bad night, heads to his weekly luncheon of unromantic penny-a-word scribblers, never guessing the strange visitors his profession is about to attract.

Alfred Bester's 1942 story is a wry, clever first-contact and social-SF tale. Sharp, witty golden-age SF. Read it for an early gem from a future master, an affectionate, self-aware story about pulp SF writers and their trade that turns, delightfully, on a science-fictional twist, in Bester's characteristically bright and inventive style.

In its time

Published in 1942, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Leo Morey