Project Gutenberg 2023-10-12 Public domain in the USA. 117 Smith, Richard Rein 1930 Smith, Richard R. (Richard Rein) Rein Smith, Richard Kluga, Richard Kluga, Richard Paul The beast of boredom $aNew York, NY :$bRoyal Publications, Inc., $c1958. Produced from Infinity April 1958 Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net "The Beast of Boredom" by Richard R. Smith is a science fiction short story written in the mid-20th century. The narrative explores themes of time travel and psychological tension through the lens of a man's encounter with an alien artifact that traps him in a repeating ten-minute cycle. This fascinating work examines the psychological effects of confinement and boredom, ultimately illustrating how the human mind wrestles with the concept of time and the overwhelming weight of existence. The story centers around a protagonist who, after a violent encounter with a Martian, brings back a mysterious globe embedded with precious jewels, which he soon discovers to be a time trap. As he removes one of the jewels, he inadvertently triggers a mechanism that confines him to relive the same ten minutes perpetually. Throughout the story, he fights against the encroaching madness brought upon by his unchanging reality, seeking ways to escape the monotony. His desperate attempts lead him to interact with a woman in the neighboring apartment, injecting moments of excitement into his dreary existence. Ultimately, however, he realizes that the time trap is not merely an inconvenience but rather a torturous imprisonment that could last for centuries, culminating in an intense psychological breakdown as he grapples with the eternal burden of an ever-expanding memory. (This is an automatically generated summary.) 20230909113338smith 1958 US Reading ease score: 71.5 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. en Science fiction Short stories Time travel -- Fiction Martians -- Fiction Mars (Planet) -- Fiction PS Text Category: Short Stories Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy 51675 2025-07-28T11:40:30.479688 text/html 27116 2023-10-12T14:52:17 text/html 364657 2025-07-28T11:40:33.995663 application/epub+zip 363425 2025-07-28T11:40:31.890679 application/epub+zip 225936 2025-07-28T11:40:31.021672 application/epub+zip 1157459 2025-07-28T11:40:35.371666 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 1150786 2025-07-28T11:40:33.384666 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 44645 2025-07-28T11:40:30.330719 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 24837 2023-10-12T14:52:17 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 16754 2025-07-28T11:40:35.538692 application/rdf+xml 29755 2025-07-28T11:40:31.401707 image/jpeg 4890 2025-07-28T11:40:31.207747 image/jpeg 2016712 2025-07-28T11:40:30.508728 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog