Bill Venable 14 min read

Late at night, an author has downed a quarter-fifth of rye, smoked eleven pipefuls, played four records, and mustered his most exasperated frown, and still cannot come up with An Idea for a Story.

Bill Venable's 1952 story is a wry first-contact and social-SF tale. Clever, fun golden-age SF. Read it for a genial writer's-block comedy where a desperate author's search for inspiration takes an unexpected science-fictional turn, in a light, self-aware golden-age piece about the mysterious business of where stories really come from.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry