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To Serve Man
Classic spine-tingler that was made into an episode of The Twilight Zone. It's interesting to compare the original short story version to the Rod Serling screenplay. 1951 Retro Hugo Award Winner
12 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 1950
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455 people want to read
About the author
Damon Knight
558 books93 followersDamon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, and critic.
Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. His first story, "Resilience", was published in 1941. He is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", which was adapted for The Twilight Zone. He was a recipient of the Hugo Award, founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop, and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop. Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife Kate Wilhelm.
Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. His first story, "Resilience", was published in 1941. He is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", which was adapted for The Twilight Zone. He was a recipient of the Hugo Award, founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop, and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop. Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife Kate Wilhelm.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
August 15, 2017
Do you want to know the intentions of these Alien dudes?
Read this 6-page short story -----> Here
Read this 6-page short story -----> Here
August 12, 2017
The story that inspired famous Twilight Zone episode
http://perrylocal.org/mostova/files/2...
http://perrylocal.org/mostova/files/2...
February 25, 2022
An enjoyable sci-fi short story about the arrival on Earth of a seemingly benevolent alien species called the Kanamits, who of course have an ulterior motive in ridding humanity of war and violence. You can guess the twist ending pretty early on, yet it still works wonderfully when that final line is delivered. A novel-length treatment of the same theme would be fun.
September 6, 2024
What a twist.
January 21, 2021
Приятный короткий рассказик. Написан стильно и с черным юмором, вот первые два предложения, например:
А если разбирать по сути:
* То язык автора ироничный и точный
* В рассказе упоминаются в логичном контексте . Прям прикольно было читать поэтому.
* Панч в конце неожиданный и при этом логичный.
Но за то, что Найт троллил Ван Вогта — обидно. Сам-то Найт автор более чем проходной.
Я прочитал эту книгу для обсуждения на подкасте про научную фантастику «Худо Не Было». Его можно послушать тут: https://share.transistor.fm/s/5b294676
Наружность канамитов, что и говорить, глаз не радовала. Напоминали они помесь американца со свиньей, а доверия подобная комбинация никак не внушает.
А если разбирать по сути:
* То язык автора ироничный и точный
* В рассказе упоминаются в логичном контексте . Прям прикольно было читать поэтому.
* Панч в конце неожиданный и при этом логичный.
Но за то, что Найт троллил Ван Вогта — обидно. Сам-то Найт автор более чем проходной.
Я прочитал эту книгу для обсуждения на подкасте про научную фантастику «Худо Не Было». Его можно послушать тут: https://share.transistor.fm/s/5b294676
November 11, 2020
A classic science fiction tale and a warning about 'Greeks bearing gifts' from Damon Knight that stands up seventy years on. To say more would ruin the tale because it is really one of those 'punch line' tales that dominated short form sci fi in the 1950s and 1960s.
Many science fiction tales in that era shared the pattern of horror, fantasy and mystery stories in being structured like extended 'jokes' with an exposition that would lead to a 'twist' that caused a shiver in the reader rather than a laugh.
This was the tradition of Hitchcockian television whose British equivalent was Roald Dahl's sinister 'Tales of the Unexpected'. It raises interesting questions about the link between laughter and fear, between the punch line and the 'twist' as a shared form of tale-telling.
Either way, the 'twist' was the gateway into an insight into the human condition much as the punch line satirised that condition. It seems to have diminished in importance in the last half century - perhaps we are no longer so easily surprised unless it is more obviously a joke.
But perhaps Knight's tale is a sort of joke of the type we call gallows humour ...
August 6, 2016
Actual Rating: 2.5
For this review, I don't have much too say about this story. It's a sci-fi, which I found really interesting, especially it's ending. But the story was just that, interesting. The characters were one dimensional, the plot barely there, and the writing was bland. I liked it but I didn't love it. Anyone who wants to give this short story a try, go for it. It wasn't the story for me, it may be perfect for you.
For this review, I don't have much too say about this story. It's a sci-fi, which I found really interesting, especially it's ending. But the story was just that, interesting. The characters were one dimensional, the plot barely there, and the writing was bland. I liked it but I didn't love it. Anyone who wants to give this short story a try, go for it. It wasn't the story for me, it may be perfect for you.
April 28, 2016
one of the best science fiction short stories written by damon knight one of the masters of the short story
a beautiful story with a twist in the end about the new aliens who came to earth to spread prosperity and end all wars ... and of course to serve man !
a beautiful story with a twist in the end about the new aliens who came to earth to spread prosperity and end all wars ... and of course to serve man !
December 9, 2024
that’s kinda crazy
May 23, 2025
SHORT STORIES WITH BANGER LAST LINES THAT CHANGE EVERYTHING MY BELOVEDS. Also, Damon, sir, I love your sense of humor
January 19, 2020
Параллельно перечитываю "Автостопом по галактике", так что это произведение практически бесшовно выстроилось, тем более что даже стили Найта и Адамса очень похожи.
От финального панч лайна хмыкнул, что уже неплохо. Интересно, почему раньше так часто фантасты писали рассказы-анекдоты?
От финального панч лайна хмыкнул, что уже неплохо. Интересно, почему раньше так часто фантасты писали рассказы-анекдоты?
March 3, 2016
Intriguing ending but i already knew it before reading the short story so most of the fun was taken away for me. The short story doesn't offer much besides the crazy superb ending, if you don't know about it read it, takes only 5 minutes.
March 25, 2023
Excellent, excellent, excellent short story that never grows old. This is a fun tale to deconstruct, to understand the mentality of the Cold War Era, and a commentary of sorts on Man's self-destructive nature. 🔥 Highly recommended reading, and fun to compare to the 1962 "Twilight Zone" episode.
March 31, 2021
When a friend of mine informed me that the classic Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" by Damon Knight was a short story I had to find it.
With few deviations the book is much like the episode. It does a great job (like the episode) to start off as a dream come rue story and slowly building into a nightmare.
The stories under lying message of a diamond sold for 10 cents in all likely hood isn't worth the dime is a good one and worthy of being remembered.
In all ways the story is well written. I must say that the book did not have the same impact as the episode, but I can honestly say it is due to my having been raised on the TV episode and hence it's influence is hard to set aside.
None the less the book is a worth while read if you can get your hands on it.
With few deviations the book is much like the episode. It does a great job (like the episode) to start off as a dream come rue story and slowly building into a nightmare.
The stories under lying message of a diamond sold for 10 cents in all likely hood isn't worth the dime is a good one and worthy of being remembered.
In all ways the story is well written. I must say that the book did not have the same impact as the episode, but I can honestly say it is due to my having been raised on the TV episode and hence it's influence is hard to set aside.
None the less the book is a worth while read if you can get your hands on it.
June 24, 2017
I just watched The Twilight Zone's "To Serve Man". I was curious to read the short story that the episode was based on. I liked it.
March 7, 2023
Read for school
Read
November 3, 2023Short stories to fuel my gr reading challenge… overall no opinion
November 23, 2024
The premise was interesting and the ending was a nice twist. Short and sweet 😋
December 31, 2018
This 1950 story formed the basis for an episode of The Twilight Zone by the same name. It's a quick read with a twist ending.
February 28, 2017
'To Serve Man' was awarded the Hugo Award for best short story in 1951. Aside from the interesting and humorous twist at the end, I didn't feel that the story was written particularly well. Characters were one dimensional and dialogue a little stale.
January 24, 2020
This story was also somewhat ruined for me because I heard someone on the radio talking about it so that I knew the ending before I read it.
I still thought it was a very good story. This is the type of science fiction that I like.
I thought it was well written and even knowing the ending I thought it was very good.
I could tell it would have been fantastic if I had not known the ending.
It's interesting that I read somewhere that when Damon Knight wrote it he really viewed it as sortof a throwaway story.
For the few people out there who don't know the ending, if they read it with a totally open mind, I think they would absolutely love it.
I still thought it was a very good story. This is the type of science fiction that I like.
I thought it was well written and even knowing the ending I thought it was very good.
I could tell it would have been fantastic if I had not known the ending.
It's interesting that I read somewhere that when Damon Knight wrote it he really viewed it as sortof a throwaway story.
For the few people out there who don't know the ending, if they read it with a totally open mind, I think they would absolutely love it.
November 7, 2016
A fun, short read with a fantastic ending!
November 13, 2018
Коротенький рассказ, действительно подходящий для экранизации страшной серии какого-нибудь страшного антологичного сериала
July 8, 2025
It was the monsoon of 2003, and I remember the day with curious clarity—thunder rumbling like an old engine, wind jostling half-closed shutters, and that particular smell of damp earth rising to meet the pages of a yellowing science fiction anthology I’d borrowed from a neighbor. That was the first time I encountered Damon Knight’s “To Serve Man”—a story that begins with the distant promise of intergalactic benevolence and ends with one of the most iconic betrayals in speculative fiction. I was still a teenager then, caught in that heady space between Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury, but Knight—he hit differently. Sharper. Meaner. More surgical.
The premise is deceptively simple: aliens arrive on Earth claiming peace. They promise an end to hunger, war, and pollution. These Kanamit are tall, polite, and seemingly omnipotent in their ability to solve human suffering. There’s no invasion, no lasers, no bombs—just quiet gifts. A utopia offered, no strings attached. Or so it seems. For pages, the narrative basks in a mood of wary optimism. A UN translator tries to crack the Kanamit’s language and understand their culture. We’re lulled into the comfort of their kind actions: food production increases, energy becomes free, conflicts dwindle. Humanity begins boarding Kanamit ships to visit their home planet.
And then the punchline arrives, like a cold gust at the end of a warm afternoon. The translator finally deciphers the title of the Kanamit book, a phrase that’s been haunting the story like a distant riddle: “To Serve Man.” The title had seemed benevolent—until he discovers it's a cookbook.
The twist lands like a steel trap. It’s the kind of narrative rug-pull that leaves you gasping, laughing, and slightly horrified, all at once. And it’s not just clever—it’s chilling. The brilliance of Knight’s story lies in how it weaponizes language, irony, and trust. In less than 2,000 words, he dissects the human need to believe in salvation, especially when that salvation is slick, clean, and doesn’t ask for anything in return.
Reading it in 2003, with rain beating at the glass and the world outside looking like a fogged-up painting, I felt a strange sense of betrayal—and admiration. The aliens hadn’t destroyed us; we’d walked willingly into the abattoir, mistaking the menu for a manifesto. At the time, it reminded me of all the polite lies we tell ourselves to avoid looking deeper—about politics, about power, about what it really means when someone says, “I’m here to help.”
There was something unsettlingly familiar in the Kanamit’s tone. Their civility. Their silence. Their refusal to answer every question. And, more disturbingly, the way humanity accepted their gifts with childlike gratitude. Knight seemed to be asking: What is the price of peace, and are we too eager to sell our agency for comfort? Is a lie still a lie if it’s beautifully wrapped?
I hadn’t known it then, but “To Serve Man” had already been adapted into a legendary Twilight Zone episode in the 1960s. I watched it years later and found that it retained the same spine-chill as the original story, perhaps even amplified by the deadpan television delivery. But for me, the written version always held more power—there was something about the economy of Knight’s prose, the surgical precision with which he led us down the garden path, that no screen could quite replicate.
Looking back now, the story feels like a parable, a cosmic joke wrapped in the skin of satire. In an age increasingly defined by algorithmic benevolence, sleek user interfaces, and AI-generated empathy, Knight’s aliens feel more relevant than ever. “To Serve Man” becomes not just a sci-fi classic but a cautionary tale for our times: beware the saviors who ask for nothing. Beware the gifts that glitter too brightly. Ask what's on the menu—and who’s being served.
It’s been over two decades since I read it, but the story lingers, like a ghost in my reading memory. I’ve read many great works of science fiction since—stories more complex, more ambitious, more poetic. But few have left such a clean, hard scar. That rainy afternoon in 2003, Damon Knight taught me a lesson I’ve never forgotten: the deadliest smile is the one that doesn’t show its teeth.
The premise is deceptively simple: aliens arrive on Earth claiming peace. They promise an end to hunger, war, and pollution. These Kanamit are tall, polite, and seemingly omnipotent in their ability to solve human suffering. There’s no invasion, no lasers, no bombs—just quiet gifts. A utopia offered, no strings attached. Or so it seems. For pages, the narrative basks in a mood of wary optimism. A UN translator tries to crack the Kanamit’s language and understand their culture. We’re lulled into the comfort of their kind actions: food production increases, energy becomes free, conflicts dwindle. Humanity begins boarding Kanamit ships to visit their home planet.
And then the punchline arrives, like a cold gust at the end of a warm afternoon. The translator finally deciphers the title of the Kanamit book, a phrase that’s been haunting the story like a distant riddle: “To Serve Man.” The title had seemed benevolent—until he discovers it's a cookbook.
The twist lands like a steel trap. It’s the kind of narrative rug-pull that leaves you gasping, laughing, and slightly horrified, all at once. And it’s not just clever—it’s chilling. The brilliance of Knight’s story lies in how it weaponizes language, irony, and trust. In less than 2,000 words, he dissects the human need to believe in salvation, especially when that salvation is slick, clean, and doesn’t ask for anything in return.
Reading it in 2003, with rain beating at the glass and the world outside looking like a fogged-up painting, I felt a strange sense of betrayal—and admiration. The aliens hadn’t destroyed us; we’d walked willingly into the abattoir, mistaking the menu for a manifesto. At the time, it reminded me of all the polite lies we tell ourselves to avoid looking deeper—about politics, about power, about what it really means when someone says, “I’m here to help.”
There was something unsettlingly familiar in the Kanamit’s tone. Their civility. Their silence. Their refusal to answer every question. And, more disturbingly, the way humanity accepted their gifts with childlike gratitude. Knight seemed to be asking: What is the price of peace, and are we too eager to sell our agency for comfort? Is a lie still a lie if it’s beautifully wrapped?
I hadn’t known it then, but “To Serve Man” had already been adapted into a legendary Twilight Zone episode in the 1960s. I watched it years later and found that it retained the same spine-chill as the original story, perhaps even amplified by the deadpan television delivery. But for me, the written version always held more power—there was something about the economy of Knight’s prose, the surgical precision with which he led us down the garden path, that no screen could quite replicate.
Looking back now, the story feels like a parable, a cosmic joke wrapped in the skin of satire. In an age increasingly defined by algorithmic benevolence, sleek user interfaces, and AI-generated empathy, Knight’s aliens feel more relevant than ever. “To Serve Man” becomes not just a sci-fi classic but a cautionary tale for our times: beware the saviors who ask for nothing. Beware the gifts that glitter too brightly. Ask what's on the menu—and who’s being served.
It’s been over two decades since I read it, but the story lingers, like a ghost in my reading memory. I’ve read many great works of science fiction since—stories more complex, more ambitious, more poetic. But few have left such a clean, hard scar. That rainy afternoon in 2003, Damon Knight taught me a lesson I’ve never forgotten: the deadliest smile is the one that doesn’t show its teeth.
April 15, 2020
This is a famous story—or at least, a famous Twilight Zone episode, so most people know the story. I haven’t seen the TV episode in years, but I still knew the last line of this story. That said, it’s a longer story that you expect. The beginning is all about how the main character doesn’t like the aliens very much for their appearance, but comes around to believing that have altruism as a goal, unlike his friend who suspects their motives throughout the story. The two are language experts, U.N. translators, and eventually they steal one of the alien’s books and translate the title, which is where the story title comes from. It’s a clever story, even with the twist ending, which doesn’t necessarily resolve things, even if it helps explain the aliens.
May 4, 2022
There is something special about these science fiction short stories from our past days. Memories of youth, books, magazines, B&W TV shows, etc. "When a thing with the countenance of a fiend comes from the stars and offers a gift, you are disinclined to accept." This tale stays close to home with the human heart, skeptical, too good to be true, maybe it's OK, and... the central question resounds, “What is the motive of the Kanamit? What is their purpose in offering us these unprecedented gifts, while asking nothing in return?” But what is the answer? "We got the title worked out in a few weeks. It was How to Serve Man...."
A great short for an enjoyable evening read filled with the type of detail that takes one back to the golden days of Sci-Fi literature.
A great short for an enjoyable evening read filled with the type of detail that takes one back to the golden days of Sci-Fi literature.
December 26, 2024
Could be the greatest final sentence in Sci. Fi. History.
A race of pig-like aliens come to earth with gifts. They give us a cheap form of energy, a way to produce more food, and best of all, a machine that prevents any explosions - it is the end of war. The narrator feels that this was all altruistic. They say they are doing it to serve man. Another is not so sure. He finds a book called "To Serve Man" that they are handing out to aliens who come to Earth. He is deeply disturbed after translating the first paragraph. "It's a cookbook."
The Twilight Zone made an episode of this one.
A race of pig-like aliens come to earth with gifts. They give us a cheap form of energy, a way to produce more food, and best of all, a machine that prevents any explosions - it is the end of war. The narrator feels that this was all altruistic. They say they are doing it to serve man. Another is not so sure. He finds a book called "To Serve Man" that they are handing out to aliens who come to Earth. He is deeply disturbed after translating the first paragraph. "It's a cookbook."
The Twilight Zone made an episode of this one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 7, 2022
Ayer vi el episodio "To Serve Man", de la Twilight Zone original, la de Serling, y como me estoy leyendo dos libros "compañeros" y me enteré de la cantidad de referencias que se han hecho a este episodio, quise leer el relato. Lógicamente hay diferencias entre ambos, y diría que me cuadra más el relato que no el episodio, que me pareció menos coherente. El final del texto es simplemente maravilloso. Le pongo cuatro estrellas porque me ha hecho sonreír y porque tiene algo que me ha hecho disfrutar.
November 29, 2018
Det virker som om mange er svært begeistret over novellens avslutning, men for å pirke, skal det jo virkelig mye til for at de engelske ordene for "tjene" og "servere" (serve) er det samme på dette utenomjordiske språket, hvilket til syvende og sist er det hele historien beror på. Nå er jo denne novellen en som ikke tar seg selv så veldig høytidelig, hvilket er greit nok, men jeg likte den uansett ikke. Språket er svakt og karakterene er flate.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 25, 2020
So I wasn't able to put down my actual score (3.5 golden noodles), but still wanted to record my thoughts.
The story is solid, but a bit simple. The payoff works if only because the story is well written and quite short. Had it been longer, I feel as if we'd enter into TL;DR territory (again given the tongue-in-cheek-quality of the title and ending).
The story is solid, but a bit simple. The payoff works if only because the story is well written and quite short. Had it been longer, I feel as if we'd enter into TL;DR territory (again given the tongue-in-cheek-quality of the title and ending).
Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews