Richard Wilson 26 min read

A classified ad seeks a companion who can drive under great pressure, in return for transport a dozen miles beneath the ocean, through the underworld river from the Atlantic to Bombay.

Richard Wilson's 1959 story is a wry first-contact and social-SF tale. Clever, fun golden-age SF. Read it for a genial tall-tale of a man who fell overboard and found a real passage to India far beneath the sea, spun out with deadpan humor, in a light, inventive golden-age piece built around one gloriously improbable premise.

In its time

Published in 1959, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Diane Dillon