<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Robert Sheckley (July 16, 1928- December 9, 2005) is known as one of the funniest science fiction writers ever. He began his career in the Fifties for magazines, particularly Galaxy, for which he helped set the tone of humor and social satire. His characters faced problems extrapolated from those of the Fifties, such as suburbs, organization men, gray flannel suits, status seekers, and hidden persuaders. For instance, the protagonist of "Bad Medicine" purchases a psychotherapy device from the Home Therapy Appliances Store. Unfortunately, they send him a Martian psychotherapy machine. Hilarity ensues. Another Galaxy story, "Seventh Victim," became the basis of the popular '60s movie, The Tenth Victim.

Sheckley's first novel, Immortality, Inc. (1958), originally published as Immortality Delivered), set the pattern for Sheckley's fiction, with an Everyman protagonist thrust into a world he never made, complete with hostile or at least wisecracking machinery. It was made into the movie Freejack in 1992. After two minor, but enjoyable picaresque novels—The Status Civilization (1960) and Journey beyond Tomorrow (1962)—Sheckley produced what was supposed to be his big crossover book, Mindswap (1966). It was billed as a "satire" and aimed at a mainstream audience, but while much of the sf readership considered it his best book yet, it did not succeed in escaping the sf label. Dimension of Miracles (1968) raised the stakes: the creation of Earth turns out to be a corner-cutting budget job.

At this point, Sheckley retired to Ibiza, Spain. He returned in 1975 with Options, a differently coherent work with much of the usual Sheckley wit, but also a postmodernist refusal to pretend that the work is anything but a story being made up by an author. Crompton Divided(1978) and Dramocles(1983) have more traditional novel structures.

In his later years Sheckley wrote detective novels (the Hob Draconian series), anthology stories, and media novels. He was chosen Author Emeritus by SFWA in 2001. He was to be worldcon Guest of Honor in 2005, but he became ill in the Ukraine, never fully recovering and dying late in the year. Selections of his novels (Dimensions of Sheckley) and short stories (The Masque of Manana) have been collected by NESFA Press.

External Links

• Internet Science Fiction Database
• Official Sheckley
• Review of Dimensions of Sheckley
• "Bad Medicine" - Full text

To see specific information, such as individual books and stories, please click the Robert Sheckley category link at the bottom of this article. To see other articles that reference Robert Sheckley, please click the What Links Here tool in the toolbox at the bottom of this page.