Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Rick Raphael's "Sonny" (short story, humor, free): US Army got too lucky with this draftee!

Illustration, by John Schoenherr, accompanying the original publication in Analog magazine of short story Sonny by Rick Raphael. Picture shows the hero mind-talking to his mother from his military firing range, unaware of the chaos reining all around him.
Hilarious story. Concept is somewhat similar to Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Hogbens" series of stories.

Story summary.

Jediah Cromwell, a mountain boy living with his mother, gets a compulsory army draft. Result: both the Army & the US government get far more than they'd bargained for...

Collected in.

  1. Judith Merril (ed)'s "10th Annual Edition: The Year's Best S-F".

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, April 1963.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks.
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Rick Raphael; funny stories.

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