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О пропавших без вести
События происходят в наши дни. Главный герой случайно узнаёт, что в Нью-Йорке одна маленькая туристическая фирма предлагает некоторым клиентам, в очень завуалированном виде, путешествие «в один конец» в другую звёздную систему — на планету Верна. Согласно красочным рекламным проспектам и рассказам менеджера, люди там живут в мире, где окружающая среда не испорчена негативным воздействием цивилизации, а общество лишено социальных и экономических проблем, делающих многих жителей Земли несчастными....
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First published March 1, 1955
94 people want to read
About the author
Jack Finney
121 books479 followersMr. Finney specialized in thrillers and works of science fiction. Two of his novels, The Body Snatchers and Good Neighbor Sam became the basis of popular films, but it was Time and Again (1970) that won him a devoted following. The novel, about an advertising artist who travels back to the New York of the 1880s, quickly became a cult favorite, beloved especially by New Yorkers for its rich, painstakingly researched descriptions of life in the city more than a century ago.
Mr. Finney, whose original name was Walter Braden Finney, was born in Milwaukee and attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. After moving to New York and working in the advertising industry, he began writing stories for popular magazines like Collier's, The Saturday Evening Post and McCall's.
His first novel, Five Against the House (1954), told the story of five college students who plot to rob a casino in Reno. A year later he published The Body Snatchers (later reissued as Invasion of the Body Snatchers), a chilling tale of aliens who emerge from pods in the guise of humans whom they have taken over. Many critics interpreted the insidious infiltration by aliens as a cold-war allegory that dramatized America's fear of a takeover by Communists. Mr. Finney maintained that the novel was nothing more than popular entertainment. The 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers was remade twice.
Mr. Finney first showed an interest in time travel in the short-story collection The Third Level, which included stories about a commuter who discovers a train that runs between New York and the year 1894, and a man who rebuilds an old car and finds himself transported back to the 1920s.
He returned to the thriller genre in Assault on a Queen (1959) and tried his hand at comedy in Good Neighbor Sam (1963), a novel based on his experiences as an adman, played by Jack Lemmon in the film version.
In The Woodrow Wilson Dime (1968), Mr. Finney once again explored the possibilities of time travel. The dime of the title allows the novel's hero to enter a parallel world in which he achieves fame by composing the musicals of Oscar Hammerstein and inventing the zipper.
With Time and Again, Mr. Finney won the kind of critical praise and attention not normally accorded to genre fiction. Thomas Lask, reviewing the novel in The New York Times, described it, suggestively, as "a blend of science fiction, nostalgia, mystery and acid commentary on super-government and its helots." Its hero, Si Morley, is a frustrated advertising artist who jumps at the chance to take part in a secret project that promises to change his life. So it does. He travels back to New York in 1882, moves into the Dakota apartment building on Central Park West and experiences the fabulous ordinariness of a bygone age: its trolleys, horse-drawn carriages, elevated lines, and gaslights. This year Mr. Finney published a sequel to the novel, From Time to Time.
Mr. Finney also wrote Marion's Wall (1973), about a silent-film actress who, in an attempt to revive her film career, enters the body of a shy woman, and The Night People (1977). His other fictional works include The House of Numbers (1957) and the short-story collection I Love Galesburg in the Springtime (1963). He also wrote Forgotten News: The Crime of the Century and Other Lost Stories (1983) about sensational events of the 19th century.
Mr. Finney, whose original name was Walter Braden Finney, was born in Milwaukee and attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. After moving to New York and working in the advertising industry, he began writing stories for popular magazines like Collier's, The Saturday Evening Post and McCall's.
His first novel, Five Against the House (1954), told the story of five college students who plot to rob a casino in Reno. A year later he published The Body Snatchers (later reissued as Invasion of the Body Snatchers), a chilling tale of aliens who emerge from pods in the guise of humans whom they have taken over. Many critics interpreted the insidious infiltration by aliens as a cold-war allegory that dramatized America's fear of a takeover by Communists. Mr. Finney maintained that the novel was nothing more than popular entertainment. The 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers was remade twice.
Mr. Finney first showed an interest in time travel in the short-story collection The Third Level, which included stories about a commuter who discovers a train that runs between New York and the year 1894, and a man who rebuilds an old car and finds himself transported back to the 1920s.
He returned to the thriller genre in Assault on a Queen (1959) and tried his hand at comedy in Good Neighbor Sam (1963), a novel based on his experiences as an adman, played by Jack Lemmon in the film version.
In The Woodrow Wilson Dime (1968), Mr. Finney once again explored the possibilities of time travel. The dime of the title allows the novel's hero to enter a parallel world in which he achieves fame by composing the musicals of Oscar Hammerstein and inventing the zipper.
With Time and Again, Mr. Finney won the kind of critical praise and attention not normally accorded to genre fiction. Thomas Lask, reviewing the novel in The New York Times, described it, suggestively, as "a blend of science fiction, nostalgia, mystery and acid commentary on super-government and its helots." Its hero, Si Morley, is a frustrated advertising artist who jumps at the chance to take part in a secret project that promises to change his life. So it does. He travels back to New York in 1882, moves into the Dakota apartment building on Central Park West and experiences the fabulous ordinariness of a bygone age: its trolleys, horse-drawn carriages, elevated lines, and gaslights. This year Mr. Finney published a sequel to the novel, From Time to Time.
Mr. Finney also wrote Marion's Wall (1973), about a silent-film actress who, in an attempt to revive her film career, enters the body of a shy woman, and The Night People (1977). His other fictional works include The House of Numbers (1957) and the short-story collection I Love Galesburg in the Springtime (1963). He also wrote Forgotten News: The Crime of the Century and Other Lost Stories (1983) about sensational events of the 19th century.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
August 5, 2023
Unhappy ending, but I liked it.
November 23, 2025
This is a beautifully constructed parable of longing, disillusionment, and the fragile hope of escape from modern life.
Known for his fascination with nostalgia and alternate realities (Time and Again, The Body Snatchers), Finney excels in portraying ordinary individuals who stumble upon extraordinary opportunities. In this story, he explores the aching human desire for a better world — and the quiet tragedies that arise when that desire is compromised by fear or indecision.
The story’s protagonist, Charley, is an everyman trapped in a life of quiet frustration. His encounter with “The Office of Interplanetary Relocation” is staged with classic Finney subtlety: the shop is unremarkable, the clerk unassuming, yet something about their interaction carries an undercurrent of impossible promise. The clerk offers a way out — a permanent relocation to Verna, a hidden utopia where humanity might start anew.
Finney’s genius lies in grounding the fantastical within the mundane. The office does not resemble a portal to paradise; it looks like a dusty travel agency. The recruitment process is understated, bureaucratic, almost banal — which makes the invitation to Verna feel both more believable and more heartbreaking. The tension between skepticism and yearning drives the story’s emotional core. Charley wants to believe, but doubt gnaws at him.
The narrative’s slow burn culminates in Charley’s failure to seize the opportunity when it finally appears. Finney turns what could have been a triumphant tale of escape into a meditation on hesitation and regret. Charley is left behind because he hesitated a moment too long — a moment filled with excuses, rationalisations, and self-protective uncertainty. It is one of the most quietly devastating endings in mid-century American science fiction.
What elevates the story further is its metafictional frame. The narrator speaks not only to the reader but also to the next potential “candidate”, as though offering testimony. The entire story becomes an act of transmission, a warning, a plea: do not miss your chance as I did. It invests the narrative with a timeless quality, as if Charley’s confession is part of an ongoing cycle of missed hopes.
Finney’s prose is gentle, wistful, and deceptively simple. He rarely indulges in ornate description; instead, he evokes emotion through the quiet spaces between events, the pauses in dialogue, and the unspoken longing. This minimalism makes the heartbreak more profound.
“Of Missing Persons” endures because it taps into a universal truth: opportunities for transformation appear rarely, and often without fanfare.
The tragedy lies not in their scarcity but in our inability to trust them. Finney’s story is a bittersweet reminder that paradise may exist — but only for those brave enough to walk through the door.
Known for his fascination with nostalgia and alternate realities (Time and Again, The Body Snatchers), Finney excels in portraying ordinary individuals who stumble upon extraordinary opportunities. In this story, he explores the aching human desire for a better world — and the quiet tragedies that arise when that desire is compromised by fear or indecision.
The story’s protagonist, Charley, is an everyman trapped in a life of quiet frustration. His encounter with “The Office of Interplanetary Relocation” is staged with classic Finney subtlety: the shop is unremarkable, the clerk unassuming, yet something about their interaction carries an undercurrent of impossible promise. The clerk offers a way out — a permanent relocation to Verna, a hidden utopia where humanity might start anew.
Finney’s genius lies in grounding the fantastical within the mundane. The office does not resemble a portal to paradise; it looks like a dusty travel agency. The recruitment process is understated, bureaucratic, almost banal — which makes the invitation to Verna feel both more believable and more heartbreaking. The tension between skepticism and yearning drives the story’s emotional core. Charley wants to believe, but doubt gnaws at him.
The narrative’s slow burn culminates in Charley’s failure to seize the opportunity when it finally appears. Finney turns what could have been a triumphant tale of escape into a meditation on hesitation and regret. Charley is left behind because he hesitated a moment too long — a moment filled with excuses, rationalisations, and self-protective uncertainty. It is one of the most quietly devastating endings in mid-century American science fiction.
What elevates the story further is its metafictional frame. The narrator speaks not only to the reader but also to the next potential “candidate”, as though offering testimony. The entire story becomes an act of transmission, a warning, a plea: do not miss your chance as I did. It invests the narrative with a timeless quality, as if Charley’s confession is part of an ongoing cycle of missed hopes.
Finney’s prose is gentle, wistful, and deceptively simple. He rarely indulges in ornate description; instead, he evokes emotion through the quiet spaces between events, the pauses in dialogue, and the unspoken longing. This minimalism makes the heartbreak more profound.
“Of Missing Persons” endures because it taps into a universal truth: opportunities for transformation appear rarely, and often without fanfare.
The tragedy lies not in their scarcity but in our inability to trust them. Finney’s story is a bittersweet reminder that paradise may exist — but only for those brave enough to walk through the door.
October 18, 2016
SOOOOO VERY BEAUTIFUL 10 MINUTES READ. Highly recommended.
http://web.archive.org/web/2007121712...
http://web.archive.org/web/2007121712...
March 18, 2022
Jack Finney's short story Of Missing Persons is essentially the inverse of
To Serve Man
, in which too-trusting humans were lured to a grim fate by a seemingly benevolent race of aliens. In Finney's work, the promise of a better life is apparently made in good faith, but our protagonist's belief in utopian deliverance isn't rock-solid. The moral of this well-written story is to never look a gift horse in the mouth, and that's not nearly as compelling as To Serve Man's dark twist was. The unhappy ending is effective in its own way, however.
September 17, 2019
A wonderful little tale of possibility and regret. Of a once-in-a-lifetime chance that the protagonist has, and what happened when he didn’t fully believe in it. This could have been a perfect Twilight Zone episode, because it has all the hallmarks of that, and wouldn’t have been hard to film, either. There’s a twist, of course, and the twist is the twist of regret, not the twist of being tricked, although that’s the implication. Recommended.
October 28, 2018
im analysing this for my literature class, was confused at first lmao but i like the message!
July 21, 2021
Very nice short story with a bit of a message.
September 20, 2014
Read online here.
Opening lines:
Walk in as though it were an ordinary travel bureau, the stranger I'd met at a bar had told me. Ask a few ordinary questions — about a trip you're planning, a vacation, anything like that. Then hint about The Folder a little, but whatever you do, don't mention it directly; wait till he brings it up himself. And if he doesn't, you might as well forget it. If you can. Because you'll never see it; you're not
the type, that's all. And if you ask about it, he'll just look at you as though he doesn't know what you're talking about.
Opening lines:
Walk in as though it were an ordinary travel bureau, the stranger I'd met at a bar had told me. Ask a few ordinary questions — about a trip you're planning, a vacation, anything like that. Then hint about The Folder a little, but whatever you do, don't mention it directly; wait till he brings it up himself. And if he doesn't, you might as well forget it. If you can. Because you'll never see it; you're not
the type, that's all. And if you ask about it, he'll just look at you as though he doesn't know what you're talking about.
October 17, 2016
"What are you looking for; what do you want?"
I held my breath, then said it. "Escape."
"From what?"
"Well—" Now I hesitated; I'd never put it into words before. "From New York, I'd say. And cities in
general. From worry. And fear. And the things I read in my newspapers. From loneliness." And then I couldn't stop, though I knew I was talking too much, the words spilling out. "From never doing what I really want to do or having much fun. From selling my days just to stay alive. From life itself—the way it is today, at least." I looked straight at him and said softly, "From the world."
I held my breath, then said it. "Escape."
"From what?"
"Well—" Now I hesitated; I'd never put it into words before. "From New York, I'd say. And cities in
general. From worry. And fear. And the things I read in my newspapers. From loneliness." And then I couldn't stop, though I knew I was talking too much, the words spilling out. "From never doing what I really want to do or having much fun. From selling my days just to stay alive. From life itself—the way it is today, at least." I looked straight at him and said softly, "From the world."
March 19, 2022
Charley Ewell is bored with his life, dislikes his bank teller job, has no friends, and is basically unhappy. Would a trip give him a new and refreshing outlook on life? At a travel agency he is offered a trip to Verna, a utopia which sounds almost too good to be true. What will Charley do?
April 20, 2024
my social anxiety would have saved me. HEART WRENCHING.
September 15, 2025
Печально... трохи... але повчально... дуже... (принаймні для мене).
February 18, 2020
I read this for English class.
April 18, 2024
A mysterious man--likely not human--searches for certain people to escape on a one way trip to "Verna." The mysterious man locates an unhappy bank teller married to a tough cop and offers her the trip.
If you like good Twilight Zone, then read this short tale from the author of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and time travel short stories.
After reading you might enjoy viewing "Points Beyond" from Alcoa Goodyear Theater on Youtube to see if they did a good job on it.
If you like good Twilight Zone, then read this short tale from the author of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and time travel short stories.
After reading you might enjoy viewing "Points Beyond" from Alcoa Goodyear Theater on Youtube to see if they did a good job on it.
November 27, 2025
The original publication
date is given. Then
re-repinted in Science
Fiction which was published
in 1973.
date is given. Then
re-repinted in Science
Fiction which was published
in 1973.
October 30, 2016
Хороший рассказ. Хотя финал я знал заранее, все равно с удовольствием прочитал.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews