Short Fiction by Robert Sheckley (interesting novels in english txt) 📕
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Robert Sheckley was one of science fiction’s most prolific short story writers. Though less known today than he was in his heyday, he was a giant of his time and was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards.
Even though many of his stories deal with serious topics, they are most widely remembered for their comedic wit. His writing was compared to that of Douglas Adams, who held Sheckley in high regard: “He’s a very, very funny writer. He’s also a stylist. Very few science fiction writers write English well. Robert Sheckley can.” Sheckley was also well-respected by Kingsley Amis who, in his book New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction, included Sheckley in a list with Frederik Pohl and Arthur C. Clarke, and said their volumes should “be reviewed as general fiction, not tucked away, as one writer has put it, in something called ‘Spaceman’s Realm’ between the kiddy section and dog stories.”
Sheckley wrote about and pioneered many science fiction concepts, such as in his story “Watchbird,” where he explores the ability to detect murder before it happens—three years before Philip K. Dick’s “The Minority Report.” Or in “Ask a Foolish Question,” a story about an all-knowing Answerer to whom people pose the ultimate question of life—twenty-six years before Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Alongside these two stories, this collection includes all of his public domain short fiction ordered by date of first publication.
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- Author: Robert Sheckley
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To Sorensen’s neck, just above the right collarbone.
Sorensen raised his hands, then lowered them again. He turned toward Drake, raising his rifle. His face was perfectly calm. He looked as though his only purpose in life was to kill Drake.
Drake fired from less than two feet away. Sorensen spun with the impact, dropped his rifle and fell.
Drake bent over him, his revolver ready. He saw that he had fired accurately. The bullet had gone in just above the right collarbone. It was a bad wound. But it had been much worse for the Quedak, who had been in the direct path of the bullet. All that was left of the Quedak was a splatter of black across Sorensen’s chest.
Drake applied hasty first aid and hoisted Sorensen to his shoulders. He wondered what he would have done if the Quedak had been standing above Sorensen’s heart, or on his throat, or on his head.
He decided it was better not to think about that.
He started back to camp, with his dog trotting along beside him.
EndnotesSheckley revised this story, retitling it “Shape,” for the 1954 short story collection Untouched by Human Hands. —S.E. Editor ↩
Sheckley revised this story, retitling it “Untouched by Human Hands,” for the 1954 short story collection Untouched by Human Hands. —S.E. Editor ↩
ColophonShort Fiction
was compiled from short stories published between 1952 and 1960 by
Robert Sheckley.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Matic Likar,
and is based on a transcription produced between 2005 and 2021 by
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan, Stephen Blundell, Sankar Viswanathan, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Circles in a Circle,
a painting completed in 1923 by
Wassily Kandinsky.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
October 8, 2021, 12:02 a.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/robert-sheckley/short-fiction.
The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.
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