Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

NYRB continues to select excellent yet neglected authors for publication. Robert Sheckley is a personal favorite of mine. He wrote 13 novels and 104 science fiction stories mostly in the fifties and sixties. His humorous and darkly satiric stories were described in the New York Times as disarmingly playful with a nihilistic subtext. His obit in the Times in 2005 contrasted Sheckley's work with that of his contemporary, Ray Bradbury. The latter author mourned the failure of man to live up to his dreams, suggested the Times, while Sheckley's work mocked the self-delusions that led to those dreams in the first place. In a more lofty comparison, however, this same obituary states that while Sheckley's fiction presages that of Douglas Adams, his short stories also resemble those of Franz Kafka.

Store of Worlds contains 26 stories, 21 of which were written between 1953 and 1959. Included is The Seventh Victim, made into an Italian movie in 1965 with Ursula Andress and Marcello Mastroianni. After the fourth world war (or sixth depending on which historian is counting), governments decide that another process must be developed to drain man's excess aggression. To achieve this, the ECD (Emotional Catharsis Bureau) conducts a game in which citizens can register to kill and be a potential victim 10 times. Big wars are thus eliminated to be replaced by hundreds of thousands of small ones. This story contains elements later used in The Running Man and Hunger Games.

An entry called "Warm" echoes themes found in Kafka's stories as a voice helps a man who is about to propose to his girlfriend instead literally deconstruct reality.

In most of Sheckley's stories, the main characters resemble people we know although their situation may be slightly askew. In The Accountant, Mr Dee is upset because his son wants to become a businessman rather than learn witchcraft. He reluctantly calls on Boarbas, Demon of Children, to scare his son back into line with unexpected results.

Robert Sheckley was so prolific that science fiction magazines sometimes asked that he employ a nom de plume so that an issue not carry multiple stories by the same author. Yet, while Sheckley was nominated in the short story, novelette and novel category for a Nebula, Hugo and Worlds Fantasy Award in 1959, 1966 and 1977, he did not win a major award. This was rectified in 2001 when the Science Fiction writers of America selected Sheckley as Author Emeritus.

Store of Worlds is a great way to sample his work. The fortunate reader can, if interested, continue through the Sheckley bibliography utilizing Amazon rather than having to search through endless used book stores as I did twenty years ago.

If you've never read anything by the great Robert Sheckley and wonder if he's worth a try, then hearing about some comparables might be helpful -- even when, strictly speaking, there is no one comparable.

Washington Post book critic Michael Dirda, in his review of STORE OF THE WORLDS, listed these: Kurt Vonnegut's books, the sardonic comeuppance stories of John Collier and Roald Dahl, Edward Gorey's little albums, and reruns of "The Twilight Zone." Other respected practitioners of science fiction have compared Sheckley (when he's at his best) to Voltaire. The opinionated writer Harlan Ellison has said, "If the Marx Brothers had been literary rather than thespic fantasists ... they would have been Robert Sheckley."

I'd add this advice: If you enjoy anthropology as a mind-stretching experience (those strange other tribes are not us and yet are us), and if your brand of humor includes satire rooted in the age-old lesson, Lord what fools these mortals be, then this guy Sheckley's for you.

So a first foray into Sheckley's world should begin where? I think STORE OF THE WORLDS is an ideal port of entry.

Don't be misled by the fact this volume appears under the imprint of New York Review Books, whose reputation is built on the resurrecting of out-of-print literary gems. Sheckley may not a "literary" writer at least not as that term is generally understood. Not to worry. Your reward as a reader is not the quality of his prose (although he is no slouch in that regard). No, your reward is spending time inside a playful, fertile mind -- a mind that births ideas like some boundless cornucopia, ideas sometimes antic, typically sardonic, always honest.

There's one other collection of the author's stories currently in print to consider as an alternative: The Masque Of Manana. It's a hardback containing 41 stories, 15 more than the paperback STORE OF THE WORLDS. One notable story, "The Lifeboat Mutiny," which reviewer John Gault praises in his Amazon review on this page and which he regrets is missing from STORE, does appear in MASQUE OF MANANA. On the other hand, another fan-favorite "Watchbird," a cautionary tale that presaged by half a century the controversy over domestic use of drones, is found in STORE but not in MASQUE.

Still on the fence? You can get a complimentary taste of Sheckley in Amazon's Kindle Store which lists a dozen or more stories available for free download. Amazon seems to rotate stories in and out of the "free" category. Try these (available as of January, 2013): Watchbird; Warrior Race; and Cost of Living. Also worthwhile is Sheckley's short novel, The Status Civilization (it's also a free Kindle download, at least as of 01/2013).

There's a few periodicals out there that publish genre short stories. They seem to be harder to find that they used to be - packets of short stories of fantasy, mystery, science fiction - but they're still out there. If you were ever a fan of them, you remember the excitement of the new issue, sucking up the wood pulp aroma and plowing through the stories one by one. Many of the material wasn't very memorable but if you remember ones from the science fiction collections, Robert Sheckley's stories have a high memorable factor. Short, sweet, to the point and the punchline ... well, his stories weren't jokes exactly but they inevitably had some twist of plot that stuck to the mind.

This NYRB edition is a collection of 26 of his stories, originally published from 1953 through 1978 in pulp magazines such as "Analog Science fiction" and "Galaxy Science Fiction" on up to glossier publications like "Playboy". The bulk of the stories were published in the 1950s.

Each one is a pure gem of the kind of story you used to find in those old pulp science fiction magazines. That's the upside.

Of course, it's also the downside. Character development except in the advancement of the plot to the twisting point is minimal, as is descriptive prose. Some of them haven't aged as well as you might have hoped; some of the plot mechanics are a bit too transparent. You need to approach them as story-teller's craft, and as signposts for the fascination of a culture. Sheckley avoids most of the space opera clichés if you happen to be allergic to those.

If you're OK with these caveats and ready for a collection of classic short science fiction stories from the '50s and beyond, you'll probably enjoy this book.