If at First You Don't... — Story, Setting & Ideas

Bureaucratic Satire, Not Space Opera

The catalog lists this as 'Science fiction' and 'Political fiction,' but the excerpts lean heavily into the latter. The opening pages contain zero technical descriptions of satellites or space travel. Instead, Brudy builds comedy from office dynamics: Jordan pours lemonade, snaps at his assistant, and dismisses sentiment as irrational. The satellite '58 Beta is a MacGuffin—its physical properties never described. The conflict is entirely about public perception and legislative process. Clements warns that 'a lot of people have made up their minds,' and the story proceeds through memos, hearings, and a bill to add a wing to the Smithsonian. Readers expecting orbital action will find a satire of mid-century bureaucracy.

Recurring Details: Lemonade, Facsimiles, and the River Shannon

Brudy anchors his scenes with small, specific props. Jordan drinks lemonade three times in the excerpts, each time adding sugar or cramming a doughnut. The facsimile sheet—a futuristic stand-in for a newspaper—appears early, delivering the headline 'Senate Committee Probes Beta.' Later, the Ancient Order of Hibernians demands a St. Patrick's Day launch, and a character produces 'a bottle o' wather from the River Shannon' for a christening. These details ground the political farce in tactile objects. The satellite itself is never touched; it remains an abstraction debated via paperwork and ritual. The story's humor depends on these concrete, mundane items clashing with the high-stakes decision of a satellite's fate.

Voice and Structure: Dialogue-Driven with Ironic Asides

Brudy's prose is lean, favoring dialogue over description. Jordan's lines are curt and sarcastic: 'We're dead! Dead as mackeral.' The narrator occasionally inserts dry observations, like 'Jordan reflected that it was a solution bordering on genius even though he was forced to admit that Senator Darius was its foremost architect.' The structure moves from office to Senate to launch site, but each scene is a conversation. The excerpts lack action sequences; even the satellite's replication is summarized in a single paragraph: 'Like long atrophied nerves and muscles her controls and electrical system once more hummed with power.' The story's momentum comes from escalating absurdity, not plot twists.

Readers should approach 'If at First You Don't...' as a period piece of bureaucratic satire, not a speculative adventure. The catalog subject 'Satellites -- Fiction' is accurate only as a backdrop; the real subject is how institutions argue over symbols. Brudy's 1960 audience would recognize the Vanguard series and the politics of space, but the story's humor remains accessible. Pay attention to how the satellite is never described—its value is entirely constructed by the characters. The ending, not shown here, likely resolves the procedural knot with an ironic twist consistent with the tone.

I kept thinking about how Amos Jordan’s quiet, bureaucratic stubbornness mirrored something in The Doom of London’s own patient unraveling of civic decay. Both left me with that odd, fond ache—not for the rockets or the fog, but for the ordinary people caught in grand, indifferent systems. It’s a gentle sort of melancholy, that lingers without ever demanding anything from you. The Doom of London — Context and Discussion stayed with me just that way.