Mack Reynolds 22 min read

Hungover private eye Simon needs a vacation, and Providence provides, in the form of a case that will send him into a wonderful future and bring back the one thing he never meant to.

Mack Reynolds's 1959 story is a wry, funny social-SF and time-travel tale. Clever, entertaining golden-age SF. Read it for a genial comic caper where a wisecracking detective travels to a utopian tomorrow, in a breezy, good-humored golden-age piece, with a delightful final twist about the one souvenir a man can't help bringing home from the future.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Kelly Freas