Arthur Porges 13 min read

An alien 'Professor' braves great perils to reach Earth, sure he knows what he's up against, but he never counted on flunking students Fatty Schultz and Irv Lece getting their hands on him.

Arthur Porges's 1954 story is a delightful first-contact and hard-SF comedy. Fun, clever golden-age SF. Read it for a genial romp where two desperate math-flunking students capture a superior alien and put it to work, in a witty, good-natured tale that turns first contact into an unlikely, hilarious tutoring session.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Milton Luros