THE PLAGIARIST FROM RIGEL IV

Episode #6 · Written by Evan Hunter · Narrated by Scott Miller

A cheap typewriter should not change a life. Yet when a struggling writer brings home a five-dollar bargain, the pages that follow are sharper, smarter, and more confident than anything he has ever written.

The problem is not quality. The problem is authorship. The words arrive fully formed, brilliant, and unmistakably familiar, placing the writer in an impossible position. Each attempt to resist only makes the temptation stronger, and each new success makes walking away harder.

What unfolds is a tense, funny exchange between ambition and restraint, as professional recognition comes faster than integrity can keep up. The story never lectures. Instead, it tightens the pressure, letting the listener sit with the discomfort of easy success earned by questionable means.

Behind the humor lies a darker question: once a shortcut works, how many reasons are enough to stop using it?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Evan Hunter published dozens of short stories during the early years of the postwar science fiction boom, appearing in magazines such as Imagination and other leading genre outlets of the 1950s. His work from this period often combined fast-paced dialogue with ironic twists, making his stories particularly well suited to audio performance.

Hunter later achieved wide recognition under the name Ed McBain, creating the long-running 87th Precinct series and influencing modern crime fiction. “The Plagiarist From Rigel IV” stands as an example of his earlier speculative work, using science fiction not for spectacle, but as a precise tool to expose the compromises hidden inside creative success.

LISTEN TO THE STORY

Listen to The Plagiarist From Rigel IV — a vintage science fiction short story where a struggling writer’s success comes from an unexpected and dangerous source.

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