H. B. Fyfe 37 min read

'You have been chosen for this mission of murder because you alone are capable of this violence', condemned lawbreakers are sent to do a dreadful deed a lawful society cannot.

H. B. Fyfe's 1953 story is a sharp colonization and social-SF tale. Provocative, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a story that asks what a peaceful, violence-free culture does when violence is suddenly needed, sending its 'criminals' on a grim necessary mission, in a thoughtful golden-age piece about civilization, savagery, and dread necessity.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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