Reviews

With Douglas Adams' name - and his praise - plastered prominently on the back cover, I fully expected to enjoy reading this book.

What I didn't expect was that this slim volume of short stories would be the closest thing to a perfect genre fit for my own book 'Empty When Full'. This, despite the blurb promising strange and surreal humour, because well, my five hundred or so book reading history said otherwise. Now, I'm left with a mixture of feelings. The first is, inevitably, inadequacy. My own work seems little more than fumbling, set against this mastery. Any claim to uniqueness I might have made to counter the fumbling, is also dispelled. (I never made such a claim, because everybody stands on the shoulders of giants, but hypothetically.)

The second is, after a moment's reflection, delight. The fact that a Sheckley exists, has an audience, is prolific and respected, is something to cheer. I'm currently not writing Sheckley-SF, but my natural temper seems to draw me again and again to the style, and when I do come back, I know where I can seek an audience.

OK, what *is* the book about? It is firstly, a book of ideas. Not scientific ideas like 'what sort of physics might make time travel possible', but philosophical ideas like 'what might an alien morality look like in a snake-like species with vastly different evolutionary pressures?'. If 'snake-like' didn't make that clear, these ideas are often housed in worlds as alien as can be. And yet, these stories are peopled by everyday, ordinary characters. Where they are human, they tend to be male, middle-class, paunchy, unheroic, and... normal. That normality is shocking, set against something like the hero's journey, but for me, perfect. What better way to explore difficult questions of ethics than by leeching them totally of their immediate emotional heft? Moral dilemmas that would, in our own worlds, set us into entrenched, political turfs with angry words shouted at the other side and none heard, become clearer, free of red mist, transmuted by Sheckley's vision. The alien settings bring emotional distance, but the everyman characters close it - just enough, just right.

Don't let all that sound like these stories are dry and intellectual. They're laced all the way through with sharp, self-aware, satirical humour. The stories are lean and rush along at a great pace. They're just entertaining.

One final thought: it might seem obvious that I'd enjoy reading what I enjoy writing. I'm not sure that it's that obvious. The stream-of-consciousness memoir being an obvious counterpoint: I see the therapeutic value in writing one, but reading them, even my own a few years on, is often torture. With Sheckley, it's different. Despite the differences in skill, this is as close I can get to reading my own style as a stranger. And there's something there. I come away rejuvenated as a writer.

cgill1710's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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