Charles V. De Vet 28 min read

Plagued by worsening headaches, the contractor Bennett tells a neurologist of his hallucinations, visions, ever sharper, of a room high in a tower over a great city, unlike anything he has known.

Charles V. De Vet's 1952 story is a clever first-contact and social-SF tale. Sharp, intriguing golden-age SF. Read it for a well-built story where a man's mysterious headaches and visions open onto a startling hidden truth, unfolding through a doctor's questions toward revelation, in a well-turned golden-age piece of gathering mystery and clever payoff.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

28 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Don Sibley