Baker's Dozens

"Baker's Dozens" by Jim Harmon is a science fiction short story published in the late 1950s. The narrative centers around a character named Baker, often characterized as a renegade and self-styled 'Robin Hood' of space, whose actions against extraterrestrial exploitation spark a complex tale involving multiple identities and moral dilemmas. The story delves into themes of identity, justice, and the consequences of one's actions in a universe filled with diverse alien cultures. In the story, Baker navigates various worlds and encounters challenges that test his beliefs and motives. Initially depicted as a pirate seeking to liberate alien minds from Earth’s propaganda, he becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue involving duplicity and survival. Baker's encounters lead to his accidental duplication through a malfunctioning teleportation device, creating multiple versions of himself in the process. This culminates in a surreal confrontation regarding the nature of identity, as the original Baker and his copies grapple with their existence and purpose. The story concludes with the realization that Baker has effectively 'died' in numerous ways across the galaxies, leaving behind disparate versions of himself continuing his mission of aiding the oppressed. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

James Judson Harmon, better known as Jim Harmon, was an American short story author and popular culture historian who wrote extensively about the Golden Age of Radio. He sometimes used the pseudonym Judson Grey, and occasionally he was labeled Mr. Nostalgia.