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Various Fiction
Robert Sheckley
(custom book cover)
Jerry eBooks
Title Page
About Robert Sheckley
Pseudonyms
“Introducing the Author”
Bibliography
Short Fiction Bibliography: chronological
Short Fiction Bibliography: alphabetical
Short Fiction Series
Epigraph
1952
FEAR IN THE NIGHT
FINAL EXAMINATION
PROOF OF THE PUDDING
WARRIOR RACE
WE ARE ALONE
THE LEECH
COST OF LIVING
KILLER’S MASQUERADE
THE IMPACTED MAN
WRITING CLASS
1953
THE LAST WEAPON
THE ODOR OF THOUGHT
WATCHBIRD
THE MONSTERS
FEEDING TIME
THE DEMONS
FOOL’S MATE
TIME CHECK FOR CONTROL
SEVENTH VICTIM
SPECIALIST
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS
WHAT GOES UP
ASK A FOOLISH QUESTION
RESTRICTED AREA
THE ALTAR
THE KING’S WISHES
COAST TO COAST
WARM
DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY
FISHING SEASON
THE HOUR OF BATTLE
CLOSED CIRCUIT
WILD TALENTS, INC.
THE SPECIAL EXHIBIT
BESIDES STILL WATERS
KEEP YOUR SHAPE
POTENTIAL
ULTIMATUM!
WHAT A MAN BELIEVES
ONE MAN’S POISON
THE PERFECT WOMAN
1954
RITUAL
CARRIER
HANDS OFF!
PARADISE II
OFF-LIMITS PLANET
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING
THE HUNGRY
THE ACCOUNTANT
A THIEF IN TIME
THE OGRE TEST
SUBSISTENCE LEVEL
THE ACADEMY
MILK RUN
THE BATTLE
HEX ON HAX
GHOST V
THE SLOW SEASON
CONQUEROR’S PLANET
THE LAXIAN KEY
MINORITY GROUP
SKULKING PERMIT
UNCLE TOM’S PLANET
1955
SQUIRREL CAGE
THE FORTUNATE PERSON
THE LIFEBOAT MUTINY
THE NECESSARY THING
THE DEEP DARK HOLE TO CHINA
DEADHEAD
PARADISE II (1955 UK revised version)
EARTH, AIR, FIRE AND WATER
HUNTING PROBLEM
SPY STORY
A TICKET TO TRANAI
WARRIOR’S RETURN
LONE SURVIVOR
THE MOUNTAIN WITHOUT A NAME
1956
THE BODY
TRAP
THE SKAG CASTLE
PROTECTION
DEATH WISH
THE MOB
BAD MEDICINE
ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE
EARLY MODEL
LOVE, INCORPORATED
HUMAN MAN’S BURDEN
THE NATIVE PROBLEM
1957
ALONE AT LAST
THE MARTYR
DAWN INVADER
COUNTRY CAPER
THE VICTIM FROM SPACE
THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE
A WIND IS RISING
THE DEATHS OF BEN BAXTER
THE MACHINE
DOUBLE INDEMNITY
DISPOSAL SERVICE
MORNING AFTER
GRAY FLANNEL ARMOR
HOLDOUT
1958
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES
THE PRIZE OF PERIL
THE GUN WITHOUT A BANG
THE MINIMUM MAN
TIME KILLER (Beginning A 4-Part Serial)
TIME KILLER (Second of Four Parts)
JOIN NOW
TIME KILLER (Third Part of Four)
1959
FOREVER
TIME KILLER (Conclusion of Four Parts)
THE SWEEPER OF LORAY
TRIPLICATION
IF THE RED SLAYER
THE WORLD OF HEART’S DESIRE
PROSPECTOR’S SPECIAL
SVENGALI IN WESTCHESTER
1960
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE BROMIDE
MEETING OF THE MINDS
THE GIRLS AND NUGENT MILLER
THE COVENANT
OMEGA! (First of Two Parts)
OMEGA! (Conclusion)
1962
THE JOURNEY OF JOENES (First Part)
THE JOURNEY OF JOENES (Conclusion)
1965
SHALL WE HAVE A LITTLE TALK?
1968
I SEE A MAN SITTING ON A CHAIR, AND THE CHAIR IS BITING HIS LEG
STREET OF DREAMS, FEET OF CLAY
THE PETRIFIED WORLD
BUDGET PLANET
THE PEOPLE TRAP
REDFERN’S LABYRINTH
DREAMWORLD
1969
CAN YOU FEEL ANYTHING WHEN I DO THIS?
CORDLE TO ONION TO CARROT
1970
THE SAME TO YOU DOUBLED
STARTING FROM SCRATCH
1971
DOWN THE DIGESTIVE TRACT
THREE SINNERS IN THE GREEN JADE MOON
ASPECTS OF LANGRANAK
THE CRUEL EQUATIONS
DOCTOR ZOMBIE AND HIS FURRY LITTLE FRIENDS
GAME—FIRST SCHEMATIC
NOTES ON THE PERCEPTION OF IMAGINARY DIFFERENCES
THE MNEMONE
PLAGUE CIRCUIT
TAILPIPE TO DISASTER
TRIPOUT
1972
ZIRN LEFT UNGUARDED THE JENGHIK PALACE IN FLAMES, JON WESTERLY DEAD
1973
WELCOME TO THE STANDARD NIGHTMARE
THE ROBOT WHO LOOKED LIKE ME
VOICES
A SUPPLIANT IN SPACE
1974
THE SLAVES OF TIME
1975
SYNCOPE & FUGUE
END CITY
1976
THE NEVER-ENDING WESTERN MOVIE
IN A LAND OF CLEAR COLORS
WHAT IS LIFE?
1977
SILVERSMITH WISHES
SNEAK PREVIEWS
1978
IS THAT WHAT PEOPLE DO?
BODY GAME
1979
GOOD-BY FOREVER TO MR. PAIN
1980
THE FUTURE LOST
THE LAST DAYS OF (PARALLEL?) EARTH
1981
THE HELPING HAND
THE MAN WHO LOVED
THE WISH
THE SWAMP
SHOOTOUT IN THE TOY SHOP
1982
MISS MOUSE AND THE FOURTH DIMENSION
FIVE MINUTES EARLY
THE EYE OF REALITY
1983
DRAMOCLES
1984
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE BROMIDE (1984 revised version)
THE LIFE OF ANYBODY
THE SHAGGY AVERAGE AMERICAN MAN STORY
ROBOTGNOMICS
1986
THE UNIVERSAL KARMIC CLEARING HOUSE
ROBOTVENDOR REX
“JULEEEEEEEEEN!”
1987
SPECTATOR PLAYOFFS
1988
KLAXON
MESSAGE FROM HELL
TRAITOR’S
SAGA
1989
THE HOMECOMING
KHASARA
DEATH OF THE DREAMMASTER
MIND-SLAVES OF MANITORI
CARHUNTERS OF THE CONCRETE PRAIRIE
LOVE SONG FROM THE STARS
THE RESURRECTION MACHINE
1990
THE JOKER’S WAR
MYRYX
TROJAN HEARSE
ALIEN STARSWARM
MINOTAUR MAZE
1991
BREAKOUT
END CITY
SARKANGER
AT THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS
DIVINE INTERVENTION
THE DESTRUCTION OF ATLANTIS
DIAL-A-DEATH
WORMWORLD
THERE WILL BE NO WAR AFTER THIS ONE
THE OTHER MARS
THE SEAL OF SOLOMON
1992
DUKAKIS AND THE ALIENS
THE STAND ON LUMINOS
THE DREAM COUNTRY
1993
DISQUISITIONS ON THE DINOSAUR
DIAGHILEV PLAYS RIVERWORLD
A NEW CHRISTMAS CAROL
1994
THE CITY OF THE DEAD
1995
SEVEN SOUP RIVERS
THE DAY THE ALIENS CAME
A PLAGUE OF UNICORNS
1998
FUGUE PLAYERS OF NEW VENICE
THE ERYX
EMISSARY FROM A GREEN AND YELLOW WORLD
1999
DEEP BLUE SLEEP
VISIONS OF THE GREEN MOON
KENNY
2000
THE NEW HORLA
THE THREE CIGARS
PANDORA’S BOX—OPEN WITH CARE
MAGIC, MAPLES, AND MARYANNE
2001
AN INFINITY OF ANGELS
A TRICK WORTH TWO OF THAT
MIRROR GAMES
THE QUIJOTE ROBOT
2002
SHOES
AGAMEMNON’S RUN
SIGHTSEEING, 2179
A STRANGE BUT FAMILIAR COUNTRY
THE OBSIDIAN MIRROR
ON AN EXPERIENCE IN A CORNFIELD
2003
PRIVILEGE OF AGE
LEGEND OF THE CONQUISTADORS
THE REFUGE ELSEWHERE
MESSAGE FROM PLUTO
DROP-IN CENTERS AND THE REVOLT OF THE HOMELESS
THE SYMPATHETIC DOCTOR
THE DREAM OF MISUNDERSTANDING
THE TALES OF ZANTHIAS
HUNGER
BEETLE
2004
A CONVERSATION WITH THE WEST NILE VIRUS
THE FOREST ON THE ASTEROID
GAME FACE
THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP
2005
REBORN AGAIN
CONVERSATION ON MARS
THE OMEGA EGG
THE TWO SHECKLEYS
Robert Sheckley was born on July 16, 1928, to an assimilated Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York. In 1931 the family moved to Maplewood, New Jersey. Sheckley attended Columbia High School, where he discovered science fiction. He graduated in 1946 and hitchhiked to California the same year, where he tried numerous jobs: landscape gardener, pretzel salesman, barman, milkman, warehouseman, and general laborer “board man” in a hand-painted necktie studio. Finally, still in 1946, he joined the U.S. Army and was sent to Korea. During his time in the army he served as a guard, an army newspaper editor, a payroll clerk, and guitarist in an army band. He left the service in 1948.
Sheckley then attended New York University, where he received an undergraduate degree in 1951. The same year he married for the first time, to Barbara Scadron. The couple had one son, Jason. Sheckley worked in an aircraft factory and as an assistant metallurgist for a short time, but his breakthrough came quickly: in late 1951 he sold his first story, Final Examination, to Imagination magazine. He quickly gained prominence as a writer, publishing stories in Imagination, Galaxy, and other science fiction magazines. The 1950s saw the publication of Sheckley’s first four books: short story collections Untouched by Human Hands (Ballantine, 1954), Citizen in Space (1955), and Pilgrimage to Earth (Bantam, 1957), and a novel, Immortality, Inc. (first published as a serial in Galaxy, 1958).
Sheckley and Scadron divorced in 1956. The writer married journalist Ziva Kwitney in 1957. The newly married couple lived in Greenwich Village. Their daughter, Alisa Kwitney, born in 1964, would herself become a successful writer. Applauded by critic Kingsley Amis, Sheckley was now selling many of his deft, satiric stories to mainstream magazines such as Playboy. In addition to his science fiction stories, in 1960s Sheckley started writing suspense fiction. More short story collections and novels appeared in the 1960s, and a film adaptation of an early story by Sheckley, The 10th Victim, was released in 1965.
Sheckley was a prolific and versatile writer. His works include not only original short stories and novels, but also TV series episodes (Captain Video and His Video Rangers), novelizations of works by others (Babylon 5: A Call to Arms, after the film), stories in shared universes such as Heroes in Hell, and collaborations with other writers. He was best known for his several hundreds of short stories, which he published in book form as well as individually. Typical Sheckley stories include “Bad Medicine” (in which a man is mistakenly treated by a psychotherapy machine intended for Martians), “Protection” (whose protagonist is warned of deadly danger unless he avoids the common activity of “lesnerizing”, a word whose meaning is not explained), and “The Accountant” (in which a family of wizards learns that their son has been taken from them by a more sinister trade—accountancy). In many stories Sheckley speculates about alternative (and usually sinister) social orders, of which a good example is the story “A Ticket to Tranai” (that tells of a sort of Utopia designed for human nature as it actually is, which turns out to have terrible drawbacks).
One of the most famous of Sheckley’s stories was the AAA Ace Series involving two partners in the far future encountering various unusual problems.
In the 1990s Sheckley wrote a series of three mystery novels featuring detective Hob Draconian, as well as novels set in the worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Alien. Before his death Sheckley had been commissioned to write an original novel based upon the TV series The Prisoner for Powys Media, but died before completing the manuscript.
His novel Dimension of Miracles is often cited as an influence on Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, although in an interview for Neil Gaiman’s book Don’t Panic: The Official Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Companion, Adams said he had not read it until after writing the Guide.
Sheckley spent much of 1970s living on Ibiza. He and Kwitney divorced in 1972 and the same year Sheckley married Abby Schulman, whom he had met in Ibiza. The couple had two children, Anya and Jed. The couple separated while living in London. In 1980, the writer returned to the United States and became fiction editor of the newly established OMNI magazine. Sheckley left Omni in 1981 with his fourth wife, writer Jay Rothbell a.k.a. Jay Sheckley, and they subsequently traveled widely in Europe, finally ending up in Portland, Oregon, where they separated. He married Gail Dana of Portland in 1990. Sheckley continued publishing further science fiction and espionage/mystery stories, and collaborated with other writers such as Roger Zelazny and Harry Harrison.
During a 2005 visit to Ukraine for the Ukrainian Sci-Fi Computer Week, an international event for science fiction writers, Sheckley fell ill and had to be hospitalized in Kiev on April 27. His condition was very serious for one week, but he appeared to be slowly recovering. Sheckley’s official website ran a fundraising campaign to help cover Sheckley’s treatment and his return to the United States. Sheckley settled in Red Hook, in northern Dutchess County, New York, to be near his daughters Anya and Alisa.
On November 20. 2005 he had surgery for a brain aneurysm; he died in a Poughkeepsie hospital on December 9, 2005.
PSEUDONYMS
Phillips Barbee
Phillip Barbee
Ned Lang
Finn O’Donn
evan
Роберт Шекли
Robert Šekli
INTRODUCING THE AUTHOR
Robert Sheckley
I WAS born in New York in 1928, but my parents moved soon after to Maplewood, New Jersey. I started to write in the fourth or fifth grade, as near as I can remember, and determined at that time to become a free-lance writer. My output was largely short plays and poetry, with an occasional short story!
Through high school I was an avid, though silent, Science-fiction fan. My first science-fiction story, at the age of fourteen, went to the now-defunct Astonishing Stories. It dealt with the idea that our planets are really gigantic eggs, our sun an incubator, and the mama bird on her way back. I was surprised to hear from the editor that the idea had been used. Someone had gotten there before me.
After graduating from high school, I hitchhiked, to California, worked a few months, hitchhiked back and joined the army. I wrote nothing in service except a few letters home. My time was taken up walking guard on the thirty-eighth parallel, and later, playing guitar in a dance band in Seoul. Discharged in 1948, I enrolled in New York University and started to write again, this time nothing-but short stories.
Three years later I graduated, with a wife, (whom I had met in a writing class given by Irwin Shaw), a trunkful of stories and moderately high hopes.
After a few months of writing I still had the wife and the trunkful of stories. I took a job in an aircraft plant as assistant metallurgist. I had almost decided that science-fiction wasn’t for me, when the great day came. My very first sale—to IMAGINATION. Needless to say, I felt three hundred feet tall that day.
Perversely enough, I wrote very little in the next few months. But after another sale, I quit the aircraft business to devote full time to free-lancing.
That was almost two years ago. Since then, I’ve made about sixty sales to most of the science-fiction magazines, plus sales to Colliers, Esquire and Today’s Woman. Also sold fifteen television scripts. By and large, free-lancing is as pleasant as I hoped it would be, and I expect to stay at it.
—Robert Sheckley
Originally appeared in Imagination, May 1954
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Novels
Immortality Delivered (1958)
The Man in the Water (1961)
The Game of X (1965)
Mindswap (1966)
Options (1975)
Crompton Divided (1978)
Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera (1983)
Godshome (1999)
The Grand Guignol of the Surrealists (2000)
The Omega Egg [Part 4 of 17] (2005)
Serials
Time Killer, Galaxy Magazine, October 1958-February 1959
Omega!, Amazing Science Fiction Stories, August-September 1960
The Journey of Joenes, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October-November 1962