A Likely Story

By Damon Knight and John Betancourt

If you discovered a fantastic power like this, you'd use it benevolently, for the good of the entire human race—wouldn't you? Sure you would! 

A comedy by the author of "To Serve Man," this classic story features thinly disguised science fiction writers as characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Feb 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667600314

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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION

A LIKELY STORY, by Damon Knight

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2022 by Wildside Press LLC.

Originally published in Infinity Science Fiction, February 1956.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

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INTRODUCTION

Damon Francis Knight (1922–2002) was an American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He was a member of the Futurians and grew to become one of the most celebrated people in the field—even helping found the Science Fiction Writers of America. Most famously, he is the author of To Serve Man, a 1950 short story adapted for Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone television series. He was married to fellow writer Kate Wilhelm.

Knight was not only an author, but an illustrator early in his career. (His first professional sale was a cartoon to Amazing Stories, and you can find quite good artwork under his name in a number of early science fiction magazines.)

He had a sly sense of humor, as you can see especially in short stories. You can find caricatures of many of his fellow Futurians in A Likely Story. Can you figure them all out? Give it a try!

—John Betancourt

Cabin John, Maryland

A LIKELY STORY,

by Damon Knight

That was the damnedest December I ever saw in New York. Whatever the weather is, Manhattan always gets the worst of it—frying hot in summer, snow or slush up to your ankles in winter—and all along the seaboard, it was a mean season. Coming in from Pennsylvania the day before, we’d been held up twice while the tracks were cleared. But when I stepped out of the hotel that night, the Saturday after Christmas,