John Bernard Daley 41 min read

A lone survivor with a dream of Phoenix rising from the ashes searches the ruined land for the two things his vision needs, a woman to bear its children, and books to teach them.

John Bernard Daley's 1958 story is a somber post-apocalyptic and social-SF tale. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a haunting story of one man's grand, ruthless dream of rebuilding civilization after catastrophe, and the girl he finds in a broken city, in a well-turned golden-age piece about hope, obsession, and the hard cost of raising a new world from the ruins.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller