Robert Sheckley
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The Status Civilization is a science fiction novel by Robert Sheckley, first published in 1960. The story is set in a future society where crime and punishment are quite different from our contemporary understanding. The novel follows the journey of Will Barrent, a man who wakes up with no memory and is informed that he is a criminal who has been convicted of a terrible crime. As Barrent tries to understand his predicament and piece together his past,...
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Thomas Blaine remembered the car accident that killed him-and then he woke up in the hospital. A nurse told him where he was. "You'd call it being in the future." A future where bodies are sold to the highest bidder as new homes for the minds of the rich, who are greedy for more life when their own bodies wear out or are damaged. Suddenly, keeping body and soul together has taken on a new, and very sinister, meaning.
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People hunt and kill one another as public entertainment and to win prizes in "Seventh Victim," the short version of Sheckley's novel The 10th Victim, which was made into a movie. The twelve other stories in this collection are "The Monsters," "Cost of Living," "The Altar," "Shape," "The Impacted Man," "Untouched by Human Hands," "The King's Wishes," "Warm," "The Demons," "Specialist," "Ritual," and "Beside Still Waters." From the very beginning...
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In "The Robot Who Looked Like Me," a busy man and a busy woman find a way to carve out time to romance each other-by having look-alike robots made to do the job-who then run away together. The twelve other stories in this collection are "Slaves of Time," "Voices," "A Supplicant in Space," "Sneak Previews," "Zirn Left Unguarded, the Jenghik Palace in Flames, John Westerly Dead," "Welcome to the Standard Nightmare," "The Never-Ending Western Movie,"...
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Minotaur Maze is Robert Sheckley's modern take on the myth of the Minotaur. It is a tour de force of imagination, fantasy, and creative confusion. Through brief chapters running from "How Theseus Got His First Mintoauring Job" to "I Hate to Blame Daedalus for Everything," "The Attack of the Self Pity Plant," "Daedalus Dispenses with Causality," and finally, "Falling Through the Story," we travel a maze as lethally complicated as the Minotaur's and...
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The Journey of Joenes, also published as Journey Beyond Tomorrow, tells the tale of a picaresque journey through an imagined future taken by a naive and innocent man unprepared for the wonders and oddities he encounters. Sheckley examines the present through the distorting lens of a future wonderfully skewed from, and yet darkly, hilariously similar to, our own world. From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers,...
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This volume contains eleven stories not previously collected together and not included in any of the other classic Sheckley compendiums published by Open Road. In "Sarkanger," Gregor and Arnold of the AAA Ace Interplanetary Decontamination Corporation take on an extermination job on Sarkan. Things get surprisingly complicated when the target vermin start arguing about who should be wiped out. The ten other stories in this collection are "At the...
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All secret agents need to look out for William Nye, now known as Agent X. His recruitment was simple and his legend is brilliant but unearned. Somehow, he thinks he's the best there is, and we all know how pride goeth before a fall. The master of SF hilarity and biting social satire creates a spy world that has gathered praise from the greats of the genre. From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers,...
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In "The Prize of Peril," everyone lives on . . . because when someone is about to die, the emergency squad is always there to bring that person back-whether he or she wants it or not. The seven other stories in this collection are "The Humours," "Triplication," "The Minimum Man," "If the Red Slayer," "The Store of the Worlds," "The Gun Without a Bang," and "The Deaths of Ben Baxter." From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized...
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The Robert Sheckley Megapack presents 14 short stories and 1 novel by the author Neil Gaiman. Here are tales of adventure in strange futures, full of the wry wit and piercing characterizations that made Sheckley one of the great writers working in science fiction!
Included in this volume are:
• WATCHBIRD.
• THE STATUS CIVILIZATION.
• ASK A FOOLISH QUESTION.
• COST OF LIVING.
• BAD MEDICINE.
• DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY.
• WARRIOR RACE.
•...
14) Watchbird
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This is a classic science fiction short story by Robert Sheckley, a Hugo and Nebula Award nominated author. The story deals with the subject of artificial intelligence and the questions that arise from allowing them to have the power to decide right from wrong. This work is part of our Vintage Sci-Fi Classics Series, a series in which we are republishing some of the best stories in the genre by some of its most acclaimed authors, such as Isaac Asimov,...
16) Godshome
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Arthur Fenn is an ordinary young professor with an esoteric specialty, Comparative Mythology. He is in financial trouble and suddenly finds himself in possession of a magical spell that allows him access to the realm of the gods. He may be a professor, but he's got no common sense--so when he goes there, he makes the mistake of inviting a con-man god and his companions back to Earth. What develops is a fantastic mess full of rich opportunities for...
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In "Fool's Mate," it takes a crazy man and a set of fake orders to break a deadly battle stalemate in deep space. The ten other stories in this collection are "Prospector's Special," "The Girls and Nugent Miller," "Meeting of the Minds," "Potential," "Subsistence Level," "The Slow Season," "Alone at Last," "Forever," "The Sweeper of Loray," and "The Special Exhibit." From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers,...
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It's the twenty-first century and the ugliness of war no longer exists, except on a very personal level. Nowadays, people like Marcello Polletti, seller of Roman sunsets, and Caroline Meredith, lithe, beautiful, blond, and backed by corporate sponsors and the Roy Bell Dancers, hunt, chase, and kill one another for sport and for the entertainment of the masses-until something oddly like personal human feelings pops up to confuse the players and up...
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Thomas Carmody wins the Intergalactic Sweepstakes and leaves Earth behind. He ends up following his fast-talking Prize from place to place, seeing talking dinosaurs, a perfect city smothering its residents with motherly love, a giant, slightly bored God, and much more. The only problem is that death is chasing closely after him and there seems to be no way to get safely home . . . From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized...