3 1/2I did quite enjoy a lot of these but the collection took an unfortunate turn toward labored satire/farce toward the end. Sheckley has a PKD aspect to his stuff: I've often felt that Dick sometimes just stuck sci/fi elements into his books as a backdrop to his larger agenda (not that I'm co...
Chapter 32 and 33, the last two chapters, were superlative, resolving enough of the issues raised within the story to please a reader, but the book throughout featured so many missed-opportunities I have to give a mixed review. In reading other reviews and the blurbs on the book it seems a critic...
In The Alternative Detective Sheckley once again creates a mystery with a comic heart. Hob Draconian, the Alternative Detective, is, in the tradition of Roger L. Simon's The Big Fix, an aging ex-hippie turned private investigator. Still suffering from the culture shock of returning to an America ...
I am a big fan of both The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Neil Gaiman, so when I saw that this was one of Neil's recommended/produced audiobooks, and that it was very similar to HHGTTG (though it came first), I decided to give it a listen. And it was... interesting. It was quirky and differ...
Treading the thin line between wheels-within-wheels mystery and shaggy dog story, this is dated but still justifies the jacket quote from Douglas Adams. I had forgotten almost the whole book since first reading it (the few exceptions inevitably including one of the mucky bits, plus the scene wher...
"When the time comes to choose your target, be sure to pick the right one. Because you will only get one shot . . ." The Shadow War is long over, and the Interstellar Alliance--presided over by former Babylon 5 commander John Sheridan--is about to celebrate the fifth anniversary of peace among i...
Will Barrent had no memory of his crime . . . but he found himself shipped across space to a brutal prison-planet. On Omega, his only chance to advance himself -- and stay alive -- is to commit an endless series of violent crimes. The average inmate's life expectancy from time of arrival is three...
He is a tortured soul. Separated at an early age from two conflicting personalities, Alistair Crompton has decided on a daring scheme to reintegrate himself. But installed in different bodies and despatched to different planets, his two other selves have developed lives of their own: Loomis, who ...
The night wind whispered threats to the chimneys. The waters of the canal chewed with a soft toothless mouth on decaying stone piles. The high-shouldered old houses huddled together for comfort. Renaissance figures walked on the sunken street, dressed in twilight blue and pretending they were ali...
THE NATIVE PROBLEM Edward Danton was a misfit. Even as a baby, he had shown pre-antisocial leanings. This should have been sufficient warning to his parents, whose duty it was to take him without delay to a competent prepubescent psychologist. Such a man could have discovered what lay in Danton’s...
Peter was a specialist in hashish and a fanatic about quality. He was said to have his own farm in Morocco, where he personally supervised the conversion of marijuana leaf into hashish. The fact that there was a Peter Two implied that there was a Peter One. The island was divided on the question ...
There must be something about the mentality that appeals to me, makes me seek out the arid zeitgeist of Hispanicism. Countries exist as models for our minds, and they give us coloration beyond our individual mannerisms. My tie with Spain was profound, ironic, and as delusional as the adventures o...
Properly speaking it was without intelligence, for intelligence was unnecessary. It had awareness, however, and certain tropisms, affinities, reactions. It was resourceful. Its purpose was stamped into the very metal, impressed into the circuits and tubes. And perhaps the ...
A big African-American man in his early forties, he was standing at the helm. His first officer, Framer, was hovering nearby, looking more than a little nervous.Finally Framer said, “Are you quite sure about this, Captain?”Anderson turned. “Quite sure, Commander. Why? Is there a problem?”“No, sir...