Employment (short story)

"Employment" is a science fiction story by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, pioneering the concept of de-extinction. It was first published in the magazine Astounding Science-Fiction for May, 1939. The story appeared under the pseudonym Lyman R. Lyon (the name of his maternal great-grandfather) as the magazine's policy did not allow the name of any author to be repeated on the same contents page, and de Camp had another piece in the same issue under his actual name (part one of his article "Design for Life"). It first appeared in book form in the anthology Imagination Unlimited (Farrar Straus and Young, 1952). It later appeared in the anthologies Men of Space and Time (The Bodley Head, 1953), and Science Fiction Inventions (Lancer Books, 1967), as well as the de Camp collection The Best of L. Sprague de Camp (Doubleday, 1978). It was credited to de Camp's real name in all publications subsequent to its first appearance. The story has been translated into German.