Herbert D. Kastle 21 min read

Thirteen blue-clad commissioners of the Earth Council for the Prevention of Non-Conformity gravely debate a problem unsolved for six hundred years: the stubborn juvenile delinquency of York.

Herbert D. Kastle's 1955 story is a sharp dystopian and social-SF satire. Clever, pointed golden-age SF. Read it for a wry story of a rigidly conformist future bureaucracy baffled by a persistent rebellion in its ranks, in a witty golden-age piece that turns an age-old social 'problem' into a sly commentary on control and human nature.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Paul Orban