
The kingdom of the blind
In a research complex, a brilliant physicist awakens with no recollection of his own name, reduced to guttural grunts and a bewildered stare. Doctor Pollard, a psychologist, and Major Majors, the laboratory director, confront the patient, noting the abrupt collapse of his IQ from prodigious heights to that of an average adult. Their attempts to verify his identity—through tattoos, fingerprints, even retinal patterns—are met with stubborn denial, turning the evaluation into a puzzle. The case is not isolated; each victim shares a thread of involvement with the enigmatic Lawson Radiation project.
The team suspects that something in the radiation research is triggering these cognitive failures, yet the afflicted men refuse to cooperate, leaving the scientists to wrestle with ethical dilemmas and a race against time. As they piece together fragments of a mind that once solved problems that had baffled the field for decades, listeners are drawn into a tense, cerebral drama that blends psychological intrigue with science‑fiction speculation. Will they uncover the cause before more talent is lost, and can they coax the man back to his former brilliance?
Language
en
Duration
~3 hours (172K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
United States: Better Publications, Inc.,1947.
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
Aug 12, 2022
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1911–1981
A pioneering Golden Age science fiction writer, George O. Smith combined an electronics engineer’s knowledge with stories about communication, invention, and life in space. He is best remembered for the inventive Venus Equilateral series, which began with his 1942 debut in Astounding Science-Fiction.
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