The Mighty Dead

Chapter 6: Transcriber's Note

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About This Book

In a near-future society that has abolished all literature and extended political control off-world, a security officer named Doak Parker is dispatched to investigate reports of illicit readers at an old farmhouse. The narrative follows his conflicted decision to postpone a romantic weekend with June, his interactions with superiors who enforce the Arnold Law, and the uncovering of how varied pressure groups united to eliminate printed material. The piece examines cultural suppression, bureaucratic normalization of censorship, and the tension between private longing for stories and an official regime that erases textual memory.

Mr. Gault has just presented us with a wholly plausible if highly terrifying view of a reasonably near future. Such things could, conceivably, come to pass. And prophecy, from the time of Jules Verne to the present, has long been one of the several spinal columns of science fiction. Yet is it possible for anyone to predict an unvisited future? We are inclined to think not. Gadgetry to come, as repeatedly demonstrated by Verne, is easy. But no one yet has been able to tell what human beings are going to do from day to day, much less years and years ahead of time.

Transcriber's Note

This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe Aug-Sept 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.