George O. Smith 2 hr 56 min read

Once in a generation there turns up a person who succeeds, stubborn, vain, often stupid, where the brilliant fail, by sheer luck; and now the aliens have picked exactly such a man to save the world.

George O. Smith's 1953 novel is a wry social-SF space opera. Clever, funny golden-age SF. Read it for a genial comedy where aliens who want to turn the Sun into a galactic navigation beacon must first deal with the blundering, lucky nobody they've chosen as humanity's representative, in a witty golden-age piece about the triumph of the average man.

In its time

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

Reading it

2 hr 56 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).

Illustrated by

Virgil Finlay