Fredric Brown (1906-1972) was an American science fiction, fantasy, and mystery fiction writer, who was well known for his use of humour and his mastery of the so-called “short-short” form of story-telling. His short-short story, “The Weapon”, was first published in the April 1951 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.

We’re building a digital archive of short fiction forms from the classic, golden age, and pulp fiction era of science fiction and fantasy: a central repository of out-of-print stories of three thousand words or less.

You can read Brown's original story on our website, along with the rest of the flash fiction and short stories featured in our videos. For more information, go to www.cyborgink.com.