Robert Sheckley

Book Review: Starswarm, Brian W. Aldiss (1964)

/ Joachim Boaz / 21 Comments

STRSWRMPSJ1964

(William Hofmann’s cover for the 1964 edition)

4/5 (collated rating: Good)

Filth.  Decay.  Mud.  Transmutation.  Brian W. Aldiss’ SF is filled with such images:  Men—with limbs removed—who are slowly (and artificially) transmuted into fish, writhe around in the mud of their tanks grasping at the last shards of their humanity;  A powerful matriarch lords over a planet where her pets transform at will;  A tall tale about a planet filled with strange life and a human hero who cannot get over the fact that everything smells like garbage…. Aldiss’ novel The Dark Light-Years (1964), despite its poor delivery, is the best example of these themes—humans encounter sentient aliens who spend their days copulating, laying around, and eating in their own fifth.  And they are happy with their lot.

Starswarm (1964) is comprised of three novelettes and five short stories with conjoining explanatory material that links the previously published short fiction into a cohesive collection.  The modus operandi of such a conjoining concerns the “Theory of Multigrade Superannuation” where “the universe is similar to the cosmic clock; the civilizations of man are not mere cogs but infinitely smaller clocks, ticking in their own right” (7).  Thus, the inhabited solar systems of Starswarm—our galaxy—will exhibit all the characteristics through which a civilization can Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXXVI (Lessing, Silverberg, Sheckley, Dickson)

/ Joachim Boaz / 29 Comments

I have yet to read anything by the Nobel Prize for Literature-winning author Doris Lessing…  And she wrote numerous SF novels—I’m very excited that I found one in a clearance section for 2$.  I also found one of the very few 1970s works by Silverberg not in my collection.  Dickson’s supposedly most mature novel (which I doubt is very good) also joins my collection.  So far the only Dickson I can tolerate are a handful of his short stories. And finally, my last acquisition is one of Robert Sheckley’s best-loved novels.

Thoughts?

1. The Memoirs of a Survivor, Doris Lessing (1974)

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(Brad Holland’s cover for the 1988 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXXVII (Matheson + Carr + Davidson + Sheckley)

/ Joachim Boaz / 24 Comments

Another varied selection of recent acquisitions—the majority are gifts from Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings.  Thanks so much!  A signed edition of Hal Clement’s Close to Critical (1964) is coming your way!

I love Sheckley.  I’ve never read Richard Matheson’s short fiction.  Terry Carr’s short fiction is supposedly rather good (he’s primarily known as an editor of course).  And Avram Davidson is still an unknown quantity—I do adore the Leo and Diane Dillon cover.

Thoughts?

1. Third From the Sun, Richard Matheson (1955)

(Gene Szafran’s horrid cover for the 1970 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXXIII (Zelazny + Sheckley + White + St. Clair)

/ Joachim Boaz / 27 Comments

Here are the rest of the books my fiancé purchased for me while on her vacation from my “to acquire” master list.  I’m having a lot of fun reading White’s All Judgement Fled (1969) so I can’t wait to read The Dream Millennium (1973)—and, who can resist overpopulation themed SF? More Sheckley stories…. always good.  A St. Clair novel and short story collection + more Zelazny.

Have you read any of them? Thoughts?

1. The Dream Millennium, James White (1973)

(John Berkley’s cover for the 1974 edition)

From the back cover: “Earth was a polluted, dying planet.  Violence was rampant and civilization was doomed.  If Man was to survive, John Devlin had to find him a new home somewhere in the galaxy.  He had 1,000 years to look—and 1,000 Continue reading →

Updates: 2014 in Review (Top 10 SF novels + Top 10 Short SF works + Other Categories)

/ Joachim Boaz / 30 Comments

I like lists!  I like reading lists!  Here’s my rundown of the best and worst of what I read in 2014.

This year I have tried something new—my first guest post series. My ten post Michael Bishop review series—reviews written by SF bloggers interested in classic SF and frequent readers of my site—hopefully introduced a lot of my frequent readers to one of my favorite (and criminally underrated) authors.  My second post series did not transpire solely on my site but stretched to others—what Gollancz Masterworks should include…  Thanks for all the wonderful contributions!

Feel free to list your best reads of the year.  Maybe I’ll add a few of them to my to read/to acquire list.

…and, if you tend to agree with at least some of my views on SF, read these!

  

Best SF novel

1. Ice, Anna Kavan (1967):  Easily the best novel I have read this year, Kavan weaves a Kafka-esque landscape will touches of J. G. Ballard.  Ice, caused by some manmade disaster, is slowly creeping over the world.  The unnamed narrator is torn between two forces: returning to his earlier research on jungle dwelling singing lemurs in the southern regions vs. tracking down a young woman about whom he has Continue reading →

Book Review: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (variant title: The Journey of Joenes), Robert Sheckley (1962)

/ Joachim Boaz / 31 Comments

(Paul Lehr’s cover for the 1962 edition)

4.75/5 (Very Good)

“Beyond a doubt, Joenes himself was an actual person; but there is no way of determining the authenticity of every story told about him.  Some of the tales do not appear to be factual accounts, but rather, moral allegories.  But even those that are considered allegorical are representative of the spirit and temper of the times” (vii).

Robert Sheckley’s third novel Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962)—after Immortality, Inc. (1959) and The Status Civilization (1960)—is a wildly successful episodic novel that plays to his strengths as a short story author.  In a similar but less radical manner as George Alec Effinger’s What Entropy Means to Me (1972), Sheckley subverts the notion of narrative truth and by so doing explores the complex nature of Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CVIII (Malzberg + Bishop + Sheckley + White)

/ Joachim Boaz / 18 Comments

What a haul!  Three are from numerous previous expeditions to choice used book havens….  And I caved in and bought Malzberg’s The Destruction of the Temple (1974) on abebooks because his seldom reprinted works are hard to find.

Sheckley’s Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962) is near the top of my reading list.  Supposedly one of his best.

And, who can resist Michael Bishop’s magnum opus, No Enemy But Time (1982)?!?

And James White is always solid…

Thoughts?  Anything particularly worth reading?

1. The Destruction of the Temple, Barry N. Malzberg (1974)

(Uncredited cover for the 1974 edition) Continue reading →

Book Review: Citizen in Space, Robert Sheckley (1955)

/ Joachim Boaz / 17 Comments

(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1955 edition

4/5 (collated rating: Good)

Robert Sheckley’s easily one of the best SF satirists in the short story form.  The collection Citizen in Space (1955), although not as uniformly brilliant as the collection Store of Infinity (1960), is chock full of gems including “The Luckiest Man in the World” (1955), “Something for Nothing” (1954), “Ask a Foolish Question” (1953), and “Skulking Permit” (1954).  Sheckley exposes in all their glory the vast variety of humankind’s follies and utopic delusions.

Later in the 50s and in the span of 6os his visions would become increasingly searing and metafictional.  This early collection Continue reading →

Book Review: Immortality, Inc. (variant title: Time Killer), Robert Sheckley (1958)

/ Joachim Boaz / 10 Comments

(Uncredited cover for the 1959 edition)

3.75/5 (Good)

Nominated for the 1959 Hugo Award for Best Novel

Robert Sheckley’s first novel Immortality, Inc. (variant title: Time Killer) (1958) has a somewhat checkered publication history.  It was originally published by Avalon books under the title Immortality Delivered (1958) where it was abridged against Sheckley’s wishes.  Unless you are a collector of the Avalon publication series I recommend procuring the complete 1959 Bantam Book edition with its gorgeous (and alas, uncredited) cover.  Later editions were decked with rather unfortunate covers linking the book to the atrocious film Freejack (1992) (replete with Mick Jagger) which was supposedly influenced by Sheckley’s novel.

Thematically, Immortality, Inc concerns the societal ramifications of the important discovery that death is not the end of existence and nor does the Christian conception of the afterlife Continue reading →