Sylvia Jacobs 20 min read

Amid the bustle of a Los Angeles station, a fussy woman wheels her arthritic old father toward the train, showering him with admonitions, never guessing the strange truth about the old man.

Sylvia Jacobs's 1961 story is a wry social-SF and time-travel tale. Clever, warm golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story that hides a science-fictional secret behind an ordinary family scene at a railway station, unfolding gently toward its reveal, in a well-turned golden-age piece with humor, heart, and a satisfying twist on who is really who.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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