Robert Sheckley

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,...

As one of the Guardian ships protecting Earth, the crew had a problem to solve. Just how do you protect a race from an enemy who can take over a man's mind without seeming effort or warning?

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...

In "Pilgrimage to Earth," on a long-desired trip to the home planet, a young man finds a perfectly developed society and, finally, deep, true love-which, sadly, only lasts for a very limited time before the reset button removes all trace of it. The fourteen other stories in this collection are "All the Things You Are," "Trap," "The Body," "Early Model," "Disposal Service," "Human Man's Burden," "Fear in the Night," "Bad Medicine," "Protection," "Earth,...

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. •...

Crompton Divided was also published in the United Kingdom under the title The Alchemical Marriage of Alistair Crompton. Alistair Crompton, skilled nosologist at Psychosmell, Inc., sniffs out something he's been missing his whole life: his other selves. His disturbed psyche was divided into three parts and the other two were implanted in other bodies on other planets. His obsession to reunite himself leads to disturbing discoveries about the underpinnings...

This is a great collection of action short stories from "The Golden Age of Science Fiction". Featured here are three stories by Robert Sheckley: "Bad Medicine", "Watchbird", and "Accept No Substitutes".

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,...

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...

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...