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

Robert Sheckley was science fictionвЂTMs in-house reply to the black humorists of the 1950s and 60s: Bruce Jay Friedman, Terry Southern, and the young Thomas Pynchon were his nonetoo- distant relatives; Mort SahlвЂTMs comedy, Charles SchultzвЂTMs cartoons, and Tom LehrerвЂTMs songs all mined similar veins. Sheckley targeted the conformity and consumerism of our mid-century technotopia while it was still under construction. His new worlds, alternate universes, and future dystopias have only become more present with the passing years, even as his career, played out both in the pulp magazines and in front-line venues like Playboy and Omni, is a glimpse of a time when “science fiction writer” could be a kind of hipster credential. Mordant, absurdist, and deadpan, the best of SheckleyвЂTMs dissident farces represent science fictionвЂTMs high-water mark as an allegorical clearinghouse for twenty-century angst.

An NYRB Classics Original

Robert Sheckley was an eccentric master of the American  short story, and his tales, whether set in dystopic city­scapes, ultramodern advertising agencies, or aboard spaceships lighting out for hostile planets, are among the most startlingly original of the twentieth century. Today, as the new worlds, alternate universes, and synthetic pleasures Sheckley foretold become our reality, his vision begins to look less absurdist and more prophetic. This retrospective selection, chosen by Jonathan Lethem and Alex Abramovich, brings together the best of Sheckley’s deadpan farces, proving once again that he belongs beside such mordant critics of contemporary mores as Bruce Jay Friedman, Terry Southern, and Thomas Pynchon.

Presents a collection of short stories by the famed science fiction author