Robert Sheckley, RIP

Jesse Walker | December 9, 2005

Robert Sheckley, the author of hundreds of satiric science-fiction stories and Borgesian fables, died in Poughkeepsie this morning. It's been a couple decades since I last cracked open one of his books, but in his honor I just took Is That What People Do? off the shelf and read a bit. The prose was a little more awkward than I remembered, but the jokes were still dry and sly; in a better world, their author would be a household name.

Comments

|12.9.05 @ 4:50PM|#

His Dimension of Miracles is an extremely funny book, one of the best humorous sf novels ever. Anyone who liked The Hitchhiker's Guide novels will enjoy it.

|12.9.05 @ 5:40PM|#

Actually, Dimension of Miracles is a lot better than Hitchhiker's Guide. I need to reread it in Sheckley's memory.

|12.9.05 @ 5:51PM|#

I read "The Status Civilization," a novel, a few years or so ago, and thought it merely OK. Not good enough to inspire me to look into other Sheckley books. Maybe somebody can reccomend to me his most impressive and/or important work.