The Long Question by David Mason Episode #519
David Mason | March 24, 2026-
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The Long Question by David Mason Episode #519
David Mason
THE LONG QUESTION
Episode #519 · Written by David Mason · Narrated by Scott Miller
What would you do if someone offered you a hundred thousand dollars for predicting the future?
Don Gerson, a quiet accountant with a talent for careful reasoning, wins the chance to try. A television quiz program sends him to a small island for two months with nothing but books, magazines, and his own logic. When he returns, he must answer questions about events that occurred while he was cut off from the world. If he guesses well enough, the money is his.
At first Don treats the challenge like a complicated puzzle. He studies politics, science, sports, and economics, writing page after page of possible developments. Elections might swing one way. A famous scientist might announce a discovery. A championship team might rise or fall. His notes slowly grow into something larger than guesses. They become a sweeping timeline of the years ahead.
But isolation does strange things to a person’s sense of time. The routines of ordinary life vanish. Predictions stretch further forward. Don begins outlining decades, then centuries, imagining the shape of the world long after the quiz show cameras have turned elsewhere.
Then a troubling fact appears. The helicopter that was supposed to collect him never returns.
What began as preparation for a television stunt becomes something entirely different. Alone on the island, Don continues writing a history of the future, filling volume after volume with the events of centuries yet to come. The money no longer matters. The only question left is how far the future can be written before the present disappears.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Mason published science fiction during the mid-twentieth century when magazine anthologies and radio programs helped bring speculative fiction to a wide audience. “The Long Question” reflects the period’s fascination with game shows and the growing public interest in science and technology.
This story imagines the future not through machines or laboratories but through the reasoning of an ordinary man left alone with books and time. The result is a quiet, haunting piece that turns a game-show premise into a reflection on knowledge, curiosity, and the long reach of imagination.
LISTEN TO THE STORY
Listen to The Long Question by David Mason — a vintage science fiction short story where a quiz-show challenge leaves one man predicting the future alone on a deserted island.
FRANK BELKNAP LONG SHORT STORIES
Frank Belknap Long was an American writer whose career spanned several decades, contributing to science fiction, horror, and fantasy magazines throughout the twentieth century. Active during the pulp era and beyond, he remained closely connected to the evolving world of speculative fiction.
His science fiction often combines large imaginative ideas with a personal perspective, placing individuals in contact with forces that feel ancient, distant, or only partially understood. Even when the scale expands across planets or time, the emotional focus remains grounded in human response.
- The Body-Masters by Frank Belknap Long
- The Hounds of Tindalos by Frank Belknap Long
- Time Trap by Frank Belknap Long
- Martian Homecoming by Frank Belknap Long
- Lake of Fire by Frank Belknap Long
- The Mercurian by Frank Belknap Long
- Atomic Station by Frank Belknap Long
- The Man From Time by Frank Belknap Long
- The Horror in the Hold by Frank Belknap Long
- The Beast-Helper by Frank Belknap Long
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The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast is the most listened-to vintage science fiction podcast in the world. Ranked the #1 Science Fiction Podcast in 34 countries and heard in more than 190 countries, the show has surpassed 3.8 million listens.
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