M. C. Pease 37 min read

On a future Earth of experimental clan-families, Tom Vord's tightly-knit social group must decide whether to accept a newcomer who understands nothing of the conditions that shaped their way of life.

M. C. Pease's 1957 story is a thoughtful colonization and social-SF tale. Cerebral, well-reasoned golden-age SF. Read it for an idea-driven story about a rationally-designed family and social unit, and the strain a true outsider places on it, in a thoughtful golden-age exploration of how societies form, cohere, and make the hardest decisions.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

37 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).