Frank M. Robinson 11 min read

There's a guy like McCleary in every office, the insufferable know-it-all who tops every story, and the narrator can't stand him, in a tale where an office feud has the grandest consequences.

Frank M. Robinson's 1951 story is a wry, charming first-contact and social-SF tale. Fun, genial golden-age SF. Read it for a delightful office comedy that unexpectedly opens onto the origins of space travel, where petty workplace rivalry meets cosmic wonder, in a light, good-humored golden-age piece with a warm and surprising payoff.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Elizabeth MacIntyre