The Fastest Draw by Larry Eisenberg Episode #522
Larry Eisenberg | March 31, 2026-
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The Fastest Draw by Larry Eisenberg Episode #522
Larry Eisenberg
THE FASTEST DRAW
Episode #522 · Written by Larry Eisenberg · Narrated by Scott Miller
Amos Handworthy has spent a lifetime mastering problems that can be solved. He builds, refines, and perfects until nothing is left to chance. Yet the victories leave him restless, because they lack something he can’t manufacture—an outcome that isn’t already decided before it begins.
When a gifted engineer steps in to improve one of Handworthy’s prized machines, the project quickly becomes more than a technical exercise. Each modification brings new precision, tighter control, and greater realism. But with every step forward, the boundary between demonstration and danger begins to blur, until the question is no longer how well the machine works, but what it means to use it.
Handworthy isn’t satisfied with a safe contest. He wants something that demands everything from him, something that can’t be reduced to a predictable result. As the system evolves to respond to his own reactions, the balance shifts in a way that can’t be ignored. And once he decides to push it further, there’s no way to separate the test from the consequences that follow.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Larry Eisenberg wrote stories that were published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, where his work often paired technical ingenuity with a sharp sense of irony. His stories frequently begin with a straightforward idea, then follow it to an outcome that exposes the hidden cost of getting exactly what was asked for.
“The Fastest Draw” stands as a clear example of that approach. What starts as a challenge in design becomes a personal trial, where the engineer’s success enables something far less controllable. Eisenberg builds the tension through careful escalation, allowing each improvement to tighten the situation until the final step feels both inevitable and impossible to take back.
LISTEN TO THE STORY
Listen to The Fastest Draw by Larry Eisenberg. A driven inventor pushes a perfect duel into dangerous territory in this classic science fiction short story.
LOST VOICES OF VINTAGE SCI-FI
Not every science fiction writer built a long career in the field or became a widely recognized name. Some published only a handful of stories before disappearing from the magazines, leaving behind little biographical record and few surviving details. Others may be remembered for work in different genres, while their contribution to science fiction was brief.
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The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast exists in part to rediscover these voices. The stories below were written by authors who published briefly, sparingly, or whose science fiction output was small - but whose work still deserves to be heard.
- The Ultimate Paradox by Thorp McClusky
- The Ultimate Wish by E. M. Hull
- Welcome to Paradise by Allyn Donnelson
- Day of Reckoning by Morton Klass
- Zeritskys Law by Ann Griffith
- Up For Renewal by Lucius Daniel
- Patch by William Shedenhelm
- Rabbits Have Long Ears by Lawrence F. Willard
- Electronic Landslide by Clyde Hostetter
- They Reached for the Moon by William Oberfield
- Death Walks on Mars by Alan J. Ramm
- When the Moon Fell by Morrison Colladay
- Know They Neighbor by Elisabeth R. Lewis
- The Other One by A. H. Gibson
- No Evidence by Victoria Lincoln
- The Man Who Liked Lions by John Bernard Daley
- Willies Planet by Mike Ellis
- The Short Snorter by Charles Einstein
- Your Servant Sir by Sol Boren
- The Fugitives by Malcolm B. Morehart Jr
- Leave Earthmen or Die by John Massie Davis
- And All the Girls Were Nude by Richard Magruder
- Rabbits Have Long Ears by Lawrence F. Willard
- Dust Unto Dust by Lyman D. Hinckley
- Cosmic Tragedy by Thomas S. Gardiner
- Day of Wrath by Bjarne Kirchhoff
- You Are Forbidden by Jerry Shelton
- Thirty Degrees Cattywonkus by James Bell
- The Small Bears by Gene L. Henderson
- The First Spaceman by Gene L. Henderson
ABOUT THE LOST SCI-FI PODCAST
The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast is the most listened-to vintage science fiction podcast in the world. Ranked the #1 Science Fiction Podcast in 35 countries and heard in more than 190 countries, the show has surpassed 3.9 million listens.
Each episode features carefully selected stories from the Golden Age of science fiction, professionally narrated. Timeless storytelling the way it was meant to be heard.
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Vintage science fiction. Professionally narrated. Carefully curated.
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