Gerald Vance 15 min read

Ten-Time Defender is one win away, but the boxer Frankie has lost faith in his handler Milt, waiting and waiting for a go-ahead that never comes, in a future where fights are fought by other rules.

Gerald Vance's 1955 story is a sharp hard-SF and social-SF tale. Clever, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a story that reimagines prizefighting in a controlled future, where a champion's growing doubt about the men who direct him drives a tense, well-turned golden-age piece about autonomy, trust, and the vital ingredient of a fighting man.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Llewellyn