Walter M. Miller 19 min read

Off the Florida coast, submarine officer Lieutenant Laskell hears the eight o'clock news declare a state of total emergency, the government dissolved into the hands of the Department of Defense.

Walter M. Miller's 1954 story is a sharp military-SF and post-apocalyptic tale. Pointed, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a taut story by the author of A Canticle for Leibowitz, a lone officer's crisis of conscience as democracy gives way to military rule under the shadow of nuclear war, in a well-turned golden-age piece about duty, freedom, and rebellion.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Rudolph Palais