Fredric Brown was, with Robert Bloch, one of only two writers who attained equal prominence in mystery and science fiction. His first novel, The Fabulous Clipjoint, won the MWA Edgar for Best First Mystery in l947 and his science fiction novelette "Arena" (l944) appears in the anthology The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame and has been reprinted hundreds of times. Brown's science fiction novels include What Mad Universe, The Lights in the Sky Are Stars, and Martians, Go Home! Collections such as Nightmares And Geezenstacks validate his reputation as the finest practitioner of the short short story in the history of science fiction.

Keith Winton has a nice life in the year 1954. He's editor of a pulp SF zine named Surprising Stories. He's in love with the beautiful Betty Hadley, a co-worker who edits Perfect Love Stories for the same employer, publisher L.A. Borden. And in fact, this very weekend, Keith and Betty are guests at Borden's elegant Catskills estate. Too bad Betty has to leave early, to get back to New York. That will certainly mean that she'll be gone when an experimental moon rocket crashes and explodes on the Borden property, sending Keith Winton through a dimensional rift into a strange and nearly incomprehensible world. A world made all the crazier because of certain deceptive similarities.

The year is 1997. The place the United States. The stardusters have already conquered Venus, Mars and the Moon. Jupiter is their next goal. But the money for this expedition must come from the government and any such appropriation bill is slated to meet tremendous opposition in Congress from the conservationists, who are earthbound in their views.

Humanity discovers intelligent life in the universe—but unfortunately, it's also loud, obnoxious and insulting.  Struggling science-fiction writer Luke Devereaux holes up in a desert cabin, ostensibly to finish a novel, but really to drink himself blind upon the breakup of his marriage. He is just getting good and plastered when he's visited by an abrasive little green man from Mars. The Martian, who insists on calling him "Mack," seems to have nothing in mind beyond insulting and humiliating him. When the Martian also proves intangible, and thus safe from all of Luke's attempts at retribution, Luke can only consider his extraterrestrial visitor a hallucination.

Earth or Mars, good or evil-it was all the same until he met the Rogue who forced him to learn what life was all about.

Can a small grey rodent from under the floorboards of a Hartford lab find happiness as a moon-bound astromouse?

The story was originally copyrighted by Frederic Brown in 1941. It was published in book form with striking full-page color illustrations by Heinz Edelmann.