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The November 2018 story is Time Enough At Last by Lyn Venable. It is a chilling tale made into one of the most memorable of the original Twilight Zone episodes starring Burgess Merideth. (I'm sure Randy will agree since his profile picture originates there.)

It is free here in multiple formats:

or as a free audiobook here:


The Wikipedia entry which contains spoilers is here:

I really like this story, both its printed version and the Twilight Zone episode. More on why later after more people get a chance to read it since to discuss the story is to spoil it. At least, so it seems to me.

I was curious to know more about the author. There's nothing out there on her I could find. No Wikipedia page. Nada. Even my favorite go-to work on obscure women authors, Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965, disappoints. Davin has nothing about her or her work other than listings in three tables.

The sum total of Marilyn Venable's in-genre published writing is seven short stories published in the mid-1950s during the heyday of the pulp magazine:

Homesick (1952)
Time Enough at Last (1953)
Punishment Fit the Crime (1953)
The Missing Room (1953)
Doppelganger (1954)
Parry's Paradox (1955)
Grove of the Unborn (1957)

Here's the ISFDB link if you want to know where the other stories appeared exactly and look them up:

Thanks for looking into her, Dan. So she is a woman. I hadn't really cared, but it's nice to know.

I read an introduction by John W. Campbell Jr. where he read & published a story out of the slush pile. He said it was great & he wondered if the author had another of similar quality in him. Campbell said many people had one good story in them & that was all. I'd never read that before & found it interesting. In that case, the author did - it was RAH.

I wonder if that was the issue with Venable. I'll try looking for other stories by her & see how good they are. She certainly hit the ball out of the park with this one, although it was Serling's creation that really makes this for me. Burgess Merideth is a fantastic actor & he did such a great job.

Try to add an extra 'n':

Well enough written, but yes, the TZ episode is ingrained in my tear ducts, so to speak.

I started looking into this, interruptions (I'm at work.) so this is a bit flaky. I haven't read any of it closely. Just was looking. Her real name is Marilynn, so both it, Lynn, & Lyn seem to bring up references. There's also an Evelyn Venable & I think a "Marilynn R" that needs to be filtered. Not sure about the latter, though.

Gutenberg has an article about her:


Here's a few I found:
Homesick (1952)


Time Enough at Last (1953)


Punishment Fit the Crime (1953)


The Missing Room (1953)


Doppelganger (1954) none found

Parry's Paradox (1955)


Grove of the Unborn (1957)


A bit submitted to "The Real Horror Show" section of Iniquities magazine in 1991 by a Lyn Venable:

Thanks, Jim, for the references for Ms. Venable.

I just started re-watching the Twighlight Zone episodes on NF. I was a bit shocked at how good-looking they are. I was afraid they would have the visual resolution of old TV, but they are film quality instead. Of course that makes sense since videotape probably wasn't ready yet, but it still surprised me.

While I think the TV adaptation is better, the short-story does answer one question I had. (view spoiler)[The glasses were an unusual prescription, so not easy to replace. Even so, I'd expect him to have extra copies of at least a prescription from a few years earlier. I can't live without my specs, but I can make do with ones from a few years ago. (hide spoiler)]

It looks like this is the first episode of TZ that Serling didn't write completely from scratch.

(view spoiler)[I guess working as a bank clerk doesn't pay enough? Yeah, a bit of a stretch there, I always keep the previous pair too, but the 'flaw' is, imo, not enough to negate (hide spoiler)]the power of the piece.

Don't forget that he's also a long way from home, but that's taking it too far, IMO. The impact is at that moment which Serling brought out so well. I think of that moment, not past it. Just a big hit & done.