Search Worlds Without End

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Robert Sheckley
• The Last Days of (Parallel?) Earth - short story by Robert Sheckley
• The Day After the End of the World - short story by Harry Harrison
• A Very Good Year ... - (1979) - short story by Roger Zelazny
• Fire and/or Ice - short story by Roger Zelazny
• Exeunt Omnes - short story by Roger Zelazny
• Sungrab - novelette by William F. Nolan
• Where Are You Now, Erik Scorbic? - short story by K. Copeland Shea
• Bud - short story by Ian Watson
• The Making of Revelation, Part I - novelette by Philip José Farmer
• Rebecca Rubinstein's Seventeenth Birthday - short story by Simon Gandolfi
• The Revelation - short story by Thomas M. Disch
• Nirvana Is a Nowhere Place - short story by Joel Schulman
• Heir - short story by J. A. Lawrence
• The Kingdom of O'Ryan - novelette by Bob Shaw
• Just Another End of the World - short story by Maxim Jakubowski

Sheckley's eigth story collection, including:

• Starting from Scratch - (1970)
• The Petrified World - (1968)
• Aspects of Langranak - (1971)
• Can You Feel Anything When I Do This? - (1969)
• Cordle to Onion to Carrot - (1969)
• The Cruel Equations - (1971)
• Doctor Zombie and His Little Furry Friends - (1971)
• Down the Digestive Tract and Into the Cosmos with Mantra, Tantra, and Specklebang - (1971)
• Game: First Schematic - (1971)
• The Mnemone - (1971)
• Notes on the Perception of Imaginary Differences - (1971)
• Plague Circuit - (1971)
• The Same to You Doubled - (1970)
• Tailpipe to Disaster - (1971)
• Tripout - (1971)
• Pas De Trois of the Chef and the Waiter and the Customer - (1971)

Robert Sheckley's second story collection, including:

• The Mountain Without a Name
• The Accountant - (1954)
• Hunting Problem - (1955)
• A Thief in Time - (1954)
• The Luckiest Man in the World - (1955)
• Hands Off - (1954)
• Something for Nothing - (1954)
• A Ticket to Tranai - (1955)
• The Battle - (1954)
• Skulking Permit - (1954)
• Citizen in Space - (1955)
• Ask a Foolish Question - (1953)

CROMPTON DIVIDED was also published in the UK under the title THE ALCHEMICAL MARRIAGE OF ALISTAIR CROMPTON. Alastair Crompton skilled nosologist at Psychosmell, Inc. sniffs out something he's been missing his whole life--his other selves. His disturbed psyche was divided into three parts and the other parts were implanted in other bodies on other planets. His obsession to re-unite himself leads to disturbing discovers about the underpinnings of the society he lives in, personal conflicts, a vastly destructive war and a shocking ultimate revelation. The master of SF madness operates at the top of his form.

Thomas Carmody wins the Intergalactic Sweepstakes and leaves Earth behind. He ends up following his fast-talking Prize from place to place, seeing talking dinosaurs, a perfect city smothering its residents with motherly love, a giant slightly bored God and much more. The only problem is that Death is chasing closely after him and there seems to be no way to get safely home...

NESFA's omnibus edition of Sheckley novels, including:

• Immortality, Inc. (1959)
• The Journey of Joenes [aka Journey Beyond Tomorrow] (1962)
• Mindswap (1966)
• Dimension of Miracles (1968)
• The Minotaur Maze (1990 novella)

Dramocles, an ordinary king on an ordinary planet, finds himself thrust into an adventure that combines soap opera, Greek tragedy and Shakespearean drama as he unwillingly, and disastrously, seeks to fulfill a momentous destiny that is only revealed to him a piece at a time as he managed to foment an interplanetary war, precipitate the disintegration of his family, lose all his friends and uncover betrayal among his closest advisers as barbarian invaders besiege his realm.

Arthur Fenn is an ordinary young professor with an esoteric specialty, Comparative Mythology. He is in financial trouble and suddenly finds himself in possession of a magical spell that allows him access to the realm of the gods. He may be a professor, but he's got no common sense--so when he goes there, he makes the mistake of inviting a con-man god and his companions back to Earth. What develops is a fantastic mess full of rich opportunities for humor, satire, and surprise.

Arthur's mistake unbalances his own life, life on Earth, and the lives of the gods in their realm... and universal darkness threatens to cover all. Chaos spreads on a greater and greater scale until all creation is threatened. It's a good thing that Arthur is able to find the courage and self-confidence to save the day, even if the universe has to die and be reborn.

Want to be immortal? You can be in AD 2110. Just go to the Hereafter Insurance Corporation and hook yourself up to the Machine. There's nothing to fear. That is, if it happens to be working right, and if nobody slips another mind into your body when you're not looking, and if you're not on a poltergeist hate-list...

First published in 1959 as a startling, revolutionary novel of the future--then pushed to new cinematic limits as the feature film adaptation Freejack in 1992--Robert Sheckley's unsettling vision of tomorrow is a trenchantly witty novel of a future where everything has improved except the bumbling human race, which just can't let itself enjoy a good thing when it finally gets it.

Thomas Blaine awoke in a white bed in a white room and heard someone say, "He's alive now." Then they asked him his name, age, and marital status. Yes, that seemed normal enough--but what was this talk about "death trauma"?

Thus was Thomas Blaine introduced to the year 2110, when science had discovered the technique of transferring a man's consciousness from one body to another, when a man's mind could be snatched from the past, as his body was at the point of death, and brought forward into a "host body" in this fantastic future world.

But that was only a small part of it, for the future had proved the reality of life after death and discovered worlds beyond or simultaneous with our own--worlds where, through scientific techniques, a man could live again, in another body, when he died here--and had in the process established the reality of ghosts, poltergeists, and zombies.

What did it all mean? How had this discovery of what they called the "hereafter" shaped the world of 2110?

Thomas Blaine found himself living in a future where the discoveries and techniques imagined by people of his time, though realized, were completely overwhelmed by discoveries no one had ever dreamed of.

2110 --- For a price, the Hereafter Corporation guaranteed life afer death --- but they couldn't promise what it would be like...

Sheckley's tenth short story collection--a mix of previously uncollected stories with a selection from previous collections, including:

• "The Language of Love" (1957, appeared in Notions: Unlimited)
• "The Accountant" (1954, appeared in Citizen in Space)
• "A Wind Is Rising" (1957, appeared in Notions: Unlimited)
• "The Robot Who Looked Like Me" (1973, appeared in The Robot Who Looked Like Me)
• "The Mnemone" (1971, appeared in Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?)
• "Warm" (1953, appeared in Untouched by Human Hands)
• "The Native Problem" (1956, appeared in Notions: Unlimited)
• "Fishing Season" (1953, appeared in The People Trap)
• "Shape" (1953, appeared in Untouched by Human Hands, also known as "Keep Your Shape")
• "Beside Still Waters" (1953, appeared in Untouched by Human Hands)
• "Silversmith Wishes" (1977, appeared in The Robot Who Looked Like Me)
• "Fool's Mate" (1953, appeared in Shards of Space)
• "Pilgrimage to Earth" (1956, appeared in Pilgrimage to Earth, also known as "Love, Incorporated")
• "All the Things You Are" (1956, appeared in Pilgrimage to Earth)
• "The Store of the Worlds" (1959, appeared in Store of Infinity, also known as "The World of Heart's Desire")
• "Seventh Victim" (1953, appeared in Untouched by Human Hands)
• "Cordle to Onion to Carrot" (1969, appeared in Store of Infinity)
• "The Prize of Peril" (1958, appeared in Store of Infinity)
• "Fear in the Night" (1952, appeared in Pilgrimage to Earth)
• "Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?" (1969, appeared in Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?)
• "The Battle" (1954, appeared in Citizen in Space)
• "The Monsters" (1953, appeared in Untouched by Human Hands)
• "The Petrified World" (1968, appeared in Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?)
• The stories that were not published in previous collections of short stories are:
• "Is THAT What People Do?" (1978)
• "Meanwhile, Back at the Bromide" (1962)
• "Five Minutes Early" (1982)
• "Miss Mouse and the Fourth Dimension" (1982)
• "The Skag Castle" (1956)
• "The Helping Hand" (1981)
• "The Last Days of (Parallel?) Earth" (1980)
• "The Future Lost" (1980)
• "Wild Talents, Inc." (1953)
• "The Swamp" (1981)
• "The Future of Sex: Speculative Journalism"(1982)
• "The Life of Anybody" (1984)
• "Good-Bye Forever to Mr. Pain" (1979)
• "The Shaggy Average American Man Story" (1979)
• "The Shootout in the Toy Shop" (1981)
• "How Pro Writers Really Write—Or Try To" (1982)

Once man had ruled Earth. His intelligence and skill had multiplied his power a billion times. He was supreme..........

But that was long ago, before technology had become master of its creator. Now a monstruous tyranny had risen, its shadow falling over every moment of every life..........

How could Jones hope to defeat this overwhelming force? What chance had one lone man against the vast tidal wave of unreason about to swallow up all mankind?

JOURNEY BEYOND TOMORROW, tells the tale of a Picaresque journey through an imagined future taken by a naive and innocent man unprepared for the wonders and oddities he encounters. Sheckley examines the present through the distorting lens of a future wonderfully skewed from and yet darkly, hilariously similar to our own world.

Also published under the title The Journey of Joenes.

In the future, interstellar travel to alien worlds will be too expensive for most ordinary people. It certainly is for Marvin, a college student who wants to take a really good vacation. And so he signs up for what he can afford, a mindswap, in which your consciousness is swapped into the body of an alien lifeform. But Marvin is unlucky, and finds himself in the body of an interstellar criminal, a body that he has to vacate fast. But that criminal consciousness has stolen Marvin's earthly body, and Marvin has to find a body on the black market.

Travel from world to world with Marvin, each one crazier than the last, as he keeps finding far from ideal bodies in awful situations, just to stay alive.

When Sheckley creates a modern take on the myth of the minotaur, he creates a tour de force of imagination, fantasy and creative confusion. Through brief chapters running from 1. How Theseus got his first Mintoauring job to 3. I hate to blame Daedalus for everything, 20. The Attack of the Self Pity Plant and 22. Daedalus Dispenses with Causality and ending with 30. Falling Through the Story we travel a maze as lethally complicated as the Minotaur's and arrive at the end breathless with wonder, surprise and laughter.

Sheckley's fourth story collection, including:

• "Gray Flannel Armor" (Galaxy 1957/11)
• "The Leech" (Galaxy 1952/12)
• "Watchbird" (Galaxy 1953/2)
• "A Wind Is Rising" (Galaxy 1957/7)
• "Morning After" (Galaxy 1957/11)
• "The Native Problem" (Galaxy 1956/12)
• "Feeding Time" (Fantasy Fiction 1953/2)
• "Paradise II" (Time to Come, collection edited by August Derleth, 1954)
• "Double Indemnity" (Galaxy 1957/10)
• "Holdout" (F&SF 1957/12)
• "Dawn Invader" (F&SF 1957/3)
• "The Language of Love" (Galaxy 1957/5)

Tom Mishkin is piloting another routine supply flight when he hears an unusual noise and gets the distressing news: he's about to be stranded on a backward planet and forced to hike across unknown, and probably hostile, terrain to find a cache of spare parts and get going again. Mishkin's journey introduces him to strange aliens like a five-headed man-eating snake with Mob connections as his trek slowly warps into a metaphysical search for his soul and the meaning of human existence...

From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. Rediscover, or discover for the first time, a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times, was "a precursor to Douglas Adams."

Table of Contents

• Pilgrimage to Earth (1956)
• All the Things You Are (1956)
• Trap (1956)
• The Body (1956)
• Early Model (1956)
• Disposal Service (1955)
• Human Man's Burden (1956)
• Fear in the Night (1952)
• Bad Medicine (1956)
• Protection (1956)
• Earth, Air, Fire and Water (1955)
• Deadhead (1955)
• The Academy (1954)
• Milk Run (1954)
• The Lifeboat Mutiny (1955)

Neubla Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Galaxy Magazine, October 1965. The story can also be found in the collections The People Trap (1968), The Wonderful World of Robert Sheckley (1979), The Collected Short Fiction of Robert Sheckley: Book Three (1991), The Masque of Mañana (2005) and Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley (2012).

Sheckley's sixth story collection, including:

• "Prospector's Special" (Galaxy December 1959)
• "The Girls and Nugent Miller" (F&SF March 1960)
• "Meeting of the Minds" (Galaxy February 1960)
• "Potential" (Astounding November 1953)
• "Fool's Mate" (Astounding March 1953)
• "Subsistence Level" (Galaxy August 1954, under the pseudonym Finn O'Donnevan)
• "The Slow Season" (F&SF October 1954)
• "Alone at Last" (Infinity Science Fiction February 1957)
• "Forever" (Galaxy February 1959, under the pseudonym Ned Lang)
• "The Sweeper of Loray" (Galaxy April 1959)
• "The Special Exhibit" (Esquire October 1953)

This short story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 2002. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 8 (2003), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and The Mammoth Book of New Comic Fantasy (2005), edited by Mike Ashley.

This short story originally appeared in Playboy, September 1955. It can also be found in the collections Citizen in Space (1955), The Collected Short Fiction of Robert Sheckley: Book One (1991), and The Masque of Mañana (2005).

Sheckley's fifth story collection, including:

• "The Prize of Peril" (1958)
• "The Humours" (1958)
• "Triplication" (1959)
• "The Minimum Man" (1958)
• "If the Red Slayer" (1959)
• "The Store of the Worlds" (1959)
• "The Gun Without a Bang" (1958)
• "The Deaths of Ben Baxter" (1957)

Robert Sheckley was science fiction's in-house reply to the black humorists of the 1950s and 60s: Bruce Jay Friedman, Terry Southern, and the young Thomas Pynchon were his none-too-distant relatives; Mort Sahl's comedy, Charles Schultz's cartoons, and Tom Lehrer's 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 Sheckley's dissident farces represent science fiction's high-water mark as an allegorical clearinghouse for twenty-century angst.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology New Legends (1995), edited by Greg Bear and Martin H. Greenberg. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF (1996), edited by David G. Hartwell. The story is included in the collection Uncanny Tales (2003).

Contents:

• The Leech
• The Demons
• Fool's Mate
• The Monsters
• Seventh Victim
• Shape
• Untouched by Human Hands
• Something for Nothing
• The Accountant
• A Thief in Time
• The Battle
• Milk Run
• Ghost V
• The Laxian Key
• Skulking Permit
• Squirrel Cage
• The Lifeboat Mutiny
• The Necessary Thing
• Citizen in Space
• A Ticket to Tranai
• The Skag Castle
• All the Things You Are
• Bad Medicine
• Early Model
• Pilgrimage to Earth
• The Native Problem
• The Language of Love
• The Deaths of Ben Baxter
• A Wind Is Rising
• Gray Flannel Armor
• Holdout
• The Prize of Peril
• The Minimum Man
• The Sweeper of Loray
• Triplication
• The Store of the Worlds
• Prospector's Special
• Shall We Have a Little Talk?
• What Is Life?
• Sarkanger
• Dukakis and the Aliens

This short story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2000. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 6 (2001), edited by David G. Hartwell. The story is included in the collection Uncanny Tales (2003).

Sheckley's seventh story collection, including

• "The People Trap" (F&SF 1968/6)
• "The Victim from Space" (Galaxy 1957/4)
• "Shall We Have a Little Talk?" (Galaxy 1965/10)
• "Restricted Area" (Amazing 1953/6&7)
• "The Odor of Thought" (Star Science Fiction Stories No.2, edited by Frederik Pohl, 1953)
• "The Necessary Thing" (Galaxy 1955/6)
• "Redfern's Labyrinth"
• "Proof of the Pudding" (Galaxy 1952/8)
• "The Laxian Key" (Galaxy 1954/11)
• "The Last Weapon" (Star Science Fiction Stories No.1, edited by Frederik Pohl, 1953)
• "Fishing Season" (Thrilling Wonder Stories 1953/8)
• "Dreamworld"
• "Diplomatic Immunity" (Galaxy 1953/8)
• "Ghost V" (Galaxy 1954/10)

Sheckley's ninth story collection, including:

• The Robot Who Looked Like Me - (1973)
• Slaves of Time - (1974)
• Voices - (1973)
• A Supplicant in Space - (1973)
• Sneak Previews - (1977)
• Zirn Left Unguarded, the Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead - (1972)
• Welcome to the Standard Nightmare - (1973)
• The Never-Ending Western Movie - (1976)
• What Is Life? - (1976)
• I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair Is Biting His Leg - (1968) [with Harlan Ellison]
• Is That What People Do? - (1978)
• Silversmith Wishes - (1977)
• End City - (1974)
• The 1982 Bantam collection with the same title had a somewhat different table of contents.

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 years. Can Barrett survive, escape, and return to Earth to clear his name?

Sheckley's final original story collection, including:

• "A Trick Worth Two of That" (2001)
• "The Mind-Slaves of Manitori" (1989)
• "Pandora's Box—Open with Care" (2000)
• "The Dream of Misunderstanding" (2002)
• "Magic, Maples, and Maryanne" (2000)
• "The New Horla" (2000)
• "The City of the Dead" (1994)
• "The Quijote Robot" (2001)
• "Emissary from a Green and Yellow World" (1998)
• "The Universal Karmic Clearing House" (1986)
• "Deep Blue Sleep" (1999)
• "The Day the Aliens Came" (1995)
• "Dukakis and the Aliens" (1992)
• "Mirror Games" (2001)
• "Sightseeing, 2179" (2002)
• "Agamemnon's Run" (2002)

People hunt and kill one another as public entertainment and to win prizes in "Seventh Victim," the short version of Sheckley's novel The 10th Victim, which was made into a movie.

The twelve other stories in this collection are "The Monsters," "Cost of Living," "The Altar," "Shape," "The Impacted Man," "Untouched by Human Hands," "The King's Wishes," "Warm," "The Demons," "Specialist," "Ritual," and "Beside Still Waters."

From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. Open Road is proud to republish his acclaimed body of work, with nearly thirty volumes of full-length fiction and short story collections. Rediscover, or discover for the first time, a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times, was "a precursor to Douglas Adams."

Table of Contents:

• "The Monsters" (F&SF 1953/3)
• "Cost of Living" (Galaxy 1952/12)
• "The Altar" (Fantastic 1953/7&8)
• "Keep Your Shape" (Galaxy 1953/11; also known as "Shape")
• "The Impacted Man" (Astounding 1952/12)
• "Untouched by Human Hands" (Galaxy 1953/12; also known as "One Man's Poison")
• "The King's Wishes" (F&SF 1953/7)
• "Warm" (Galaxy 1953/6)
• "The Demons" (Fantasy Magazine 1953/3)
• "Specialist" (Galaxy 1953/5)
• "Seventh Victim" (Galaxy 1953/4)
• "Ritual" (Climax 1953; also known as "Strange Ritual")
• "Beside Still Waters" (Amazing 1953/10&11)

WFA nominated short story. It originally appeared in Playboy, December 1976. The story can also be found in the collections The Robot Who Looked Like Me (1978), The Collected Short Fiction of Robert Sheckley: Book Five (1991) and The Masque of Mañana (2005).

What would you do if your brother, the God of Destruction, tricked you back into a human body and sent you to hell? Xolotl finds himself in New Hell, the wonderful world of eternal damnation. He wants to escape but has only the aid of the dense prophetess Cassandra, who talks too much, They become two prophets who don't know where they're going, sharing one horse on their way to save the cosmos.

The People Trap

Collection containing:

• The People Trap - (1968) - short story
• The Victim from Space - (1957) - short story
• Shall We Have a Little Talk? - (1965) - novelette
• Restricted Area - (1953) - short story
• The Odor of Thought - (1953) - short story
• The Necessary Thing - (1955) - short story
• Redfern's Labyrinth - (1968) - short story
• Proof of the Pudding - (1952) - short story
• The Laxian Key - (1954) - short story
• The Last Weapon - (1953) - short story
• Fishing Season - (1953) - short story
• Dreamworld - (1968) - short story
• Diplomatic Immunity - (1953) - novelette
• Ghost V - (1954) - short story

Mindswap

In the future, interstellar travel to alien worlds will be too expensive for most ordinary people. It certainly is for Marvin, a college student who wants to take a really good vacation. And so he signs up for what he can afford, a mindswap, in which your consciousness is swapped into the body of an alien lifeform. But Marvin is unlucky, and finds himself in the body of an interstellar criminal, a body that he has to vacate fast. But that criminal consciousness has stolen Marvin's earthly body, and Marvin has to find a body on the black market.

Travel from world to world with Marvin, each one crazier than the last, as he keeps finding far from ideal bodies in awful situations, just to stay alive.

The Status Civilization

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 years. Can Barrent survive, escape, and return to Earth to clear his name?

Notions: Unlimited

Human beings wired for spontaneous romance... machines intercepting murderers before they kill... an organization that makes hangover nightmares come true... a killer organism that feeds on atom bombs and thrives on being blown up from time to time! Notions: Unlimited, a fantastic exploration into the galaxies of probability.

This time the humans are taking the offensive! Stan Myakovsky is a once-famous scientist fallen on hard times. Now he dodges spaceship repo men and dreams of the marketability of his cybernetic ant. Then a woman named Julie Lish walks into his life. She is beautiful, mysterious, and totally amoral. She is also skilled in the arts of thievery and Oriental self-defense. What's more, she has a plan so outrageous there might be one chance in a million to pull it off.

Together Stan and Julie become the most unlikely pair of pirates in the universe. With a hijacked spaceship and a crew of hardcase misfits, they're searching for the ultimate pot of gold at the end of a bloody intergalactic rainbow: royal jelly from an alien hive. The only problem is that the fortune lies on the universe's most godforsaken planet. And once they get their hands on it, the'll have to fight their way past the aliens to get off the planet alive.

Contents:

• 5 - Seventh Victim - [Victim] - (1953) - shortstory
• 26 - Diplomatic Immunity - (1953) - novelette
• 54 - One Man's Poison - (1953) - shortstory (variant of Untouched by Human Hands)
• 74 - The Perfect Woman - (1953) - shortstory
• 80 - Cost of Living - (1952) - shortstory
• 94 - What a Man Believes - (1953) - shortstory
• 105 - What Goes Up - (1953) - shortstory
• 128 - Warrior Race - (1952) - shortstory
• 144 - Writing Class - (1952) - shortstory
• 148 - Final Examination - (1952) - novelette
• 176 - Specialist - (1953) - shortstory
• 199 - Beside Still Waters - (1953) - shortstory
• 205 - Restricted Area - (1953) - shortstory
• 228 - Watchbird - (1953) - novelette
• 259 - Keep Your Shape - (1953) - novelette (variant of Shape)
• 286 - The Hour of Battle - (1953) - shortstory
• 296 - We Are Alone - (1952) - shortstory

"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 its united member worlds.

But a planet, annihilated by an unspeakable weapon, appears in chilling dreams. And on that world there lies a terrifying promise of Armageddon. For the Drakh, once servants of the bloodthirsty Shadows, are following in the footsteps of their vanquished masters -- preparing to launch a devastating interstellar war. Their first target is Earth.

This threat will draw Sheridan back to Babylon 5 -- and into an uneasy partnership with a beautiful and deadly survivor of Shadow genocide. In the desperate race to warn Earth, he must face an apocalyptic showdown with the ultimate war machine -- one capable of killing an entire world...

Bill, the galactic hero, is sent on a suicide mission to a planet from which no one has ever returned. En-route, he must cope with the likes of Captain Dirk of the starship Gumption. Harry Harrison's previous books include "Bill, the Galactic Hero", while Robert Sheckley's include "Mindswap".

Hob Draconian, American-born but a two-decade resident of Ibiza and a tie-dyed-in-the-wool hippie philosopher, finds himself in Snuff's Landing, New Jersey, doing import/export work on equipment for communes and a little private eye work on the side as The Alternative Detective Agency. His alternate world exists alongside America and Europe but crosses whole other sets of boundaries and ventures into dimensions that are alien to most normal humans but feel like home to Hob. Sultry blondes, missing persons and mysterious circumstances are standard equipment.

Hob Draconian, American-born but a two-decade resident of Ibiza and a tie-dyed-in-the-wool hippie philosopher, is happily back from America and living in Ibiza--until he learns that the property he's renting is about to be sold for re-development and he needs a quick $10K to save his house. Time for the Alternative Detective Agency to find a lucrative case to solve--one where he can avoid danger, get away with being a smart-mouth quipster and still save the day--and get paid.

Hob Draconian, American-born but a two-decade resident of Ibiza and a tie-dyed-in-the-wool hippie philosopher divides his time between Paris and Ibiza--and when Soma, a new drug, turns up in Paris in the hands of a murdered Ibizan drug-dealer, it's time for the Alternative Detective Agency to spring into action and defeat the crime syndicate that has infiltrated his beloved expatriate community.

"Sheckley was a fantasist not entirely unknown to the public. For fifty years he had pursued his calling, inventing worlds both characteristic of the genre and unique to himself. From his brain had come planets of pleasure and worlds of pain. Nor had he neglected the multitudinous possibilities between."

So wrote Robert Sheckley in 2005, and so it was. And oh, those possibilities between!

From his first published work of fiction in 1952 until his death in 2005, Robert Sheckley gave us more than two hundred short stories, along with dozens of novels. He is generally known as one of the great humorists in the science fiction field -- his comedies are sometimes wry and often gonzo. They were very influential (Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy shows signs of Sheckley's sway) and you'll find them in fine form in such stories as "The Day the Aliens Came," "What Is Life?," and "The Two Sheckleys."

But Robert Sheckley's short fiction did more than just make us laugh. His stories, scared, thrilled, amused, excited, beguiled, inveigled, alarmed, charmed, and disarmed readers of science fiction anthologies and magazines for the better part of a century... and with this collection, they'll continue to do so.

Robert Sheckley wrote frequently of everyman heroes caught in a world they don't understand, and you'll find honest, hard-working joes in stories here like "The Altar," "A Ticket to Transai," and "The Mountain without a Name."

But he also liked to explore mythology and the nature of heroism, which you'll find in full force in such stories as "Agamemnon's Run," "The Quijote Robot," and "The Never-Ending Western Movie." Two other topics that interested Sheckley were the ways in which humans interact with their machines, and the ways in which humans interact with each other. Both themes are on grand display in stories like "Watchbird," "The Girls and Nugent Miller," and "Seventh Victim."

With thirty-one of his best stories -- including the short novels Dramocles and Minotaur Maze -- this collection is equally good for readers revisiting old friends and for those discovering Sheckley's work for the first time. From the dangers of courtship to the perils of the surveillance state, from the troubles with utopia to the meaning of life, these stories offer rewards for every reader.

Robert Sheckley was born in Brooklyn in 1928 and began publishing fiction in 1951. His short stories appeared in magazines such as Galaxy, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Playboy. He published more than twenty novels and edited Omni magazine. His stories were adapted for television and film many times, most notably in the movies Freejack and The Tenth Victim. He received the Author Emeritus career honor from the Science Fiction Writers of America in 2001. He died in 2005.

A riotous new fantasy series that will challenge the funniest the field has to offer--from the creator of the bestselling Amber series and one of the genre's legendary humorists. Azzy Elbub, demon, has his sights set on the Millenial Evil Deeds Award, given to the being whose acts do the most toward reshaping the world. But his evil plans go far astray. . . .

The last Millennial contest--between the forces of Good and Evil for control of the universe--didn't work out quite so well for Evil and its rooters. But it's time for the next round, and this time the demon Mephistopheles is carrying the ball for the forces of Darkness. But all is not as it seems. The harried archdemon mistakenly signs up a medieval cutpurse names Mack the Club, thinking him the learned Dr. Faust. The demon Azzie, still stinging from the Evil's last defeat (and not being chosen to head the current effort), takes events into his own claws. And the pious angel Michael--well, let's just say some of his tactics in the titanic struggle to come are not quite cricket.

On a devilish sabbatical in Europe, Azzie discovers that morality plays are all the rage. He decides to strike back by producing an "immorality play", in which seven nondescript human pilgrims will be allowed by magic to attain their hearts' desires. But the forces of Good are determined to close the play before it opens. New characters suddenly start roaming the stage, such as a Grateful Dead-listening Cyclops, and Azzie's own protagonists begin changing their hearts' desires on the slightest whim. This is one theatrical production that could do without an angel - and there's even worse news waiting in the wings...

When a mysterious alien woman from the planet Laertes convinces Dr. Bashir to gamble for her at Quark's gaming tables, things seem innocent enough. Yet the more Dr. Bashir wins, the more things go wrong in the Federation: Ore ships vanish. Planets lose their atmosphere. Suns go nova. The cause and effect is hard to understand, but is proven by the bizarre Laertian science called Complexity Theory.

When Bashir tries to stop gambling, a Laertian warfleet appears to force him to continue, while on the planet Laertes itself Major Kira and Science Officer Dax must battle their way through chaos and danger to find a way to stop the Laertians -- and save Deep Space Nine and the Federation from utter destruction!

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1991) - essay by Roger Zelazny
• The Monsters - (1953) - short story
• Cost of Living - (1952) - short story
• The Altar - (1953) - short story
• Shape - (1953) - novelette
• Untouched by Human Hands - (1953) - short story
• The King's Wishes - (1953) - short story
• Warm - (1953) - short story
• The Demons - (1953) - short story
• Specialist - (1953) - short story
• Seventh Victim - (1953) - short story
• Ritual - (1953) - short story
• Beside Still Waters - (1953) - short story
• The Mountain Without a Name - (1955) - short story
• The Accountant - (1954) - short story
• Hunting Problem - (1955) - short story
• A Thief in Time - (1954) - novelette
• The Luckiest Man in the World - (1955) - short story
• Hands Off - (1954) - novelette
• Something for Nothing - (1954) - short story
• A Ticket to Tranai - (1955) - novelette
• The Battle - (1954) - short story
• Skulking Permit - (1954) - novelette
• Citizen in Space - (1955) - short story
• Ask a Foolish Question - (1953) - short story

Table of Contents:

• Introducing One of My Very Few Heroes - (1991) - essay by Mike Resnick
• Pilgrimage to Earth - (1956) - short story
• All the Things You Are - (1956) - short story
• Trap - (1956) - short story
• The Body - (1956) - short story
• Early Model - (1956) - short story
• Disposal Service - (1955) - short story
• Human Man's Burden - (1956) - short story
• Fear in the Night - (1952) - short story
• Bad Medicine - (1956) - short story
• Protection - (1956) - short story
• Earth, Air, Fire and Water - (1955) - short story
• Deadhead - (1955) - short story
• The Academy - (1954) - novelette
• Milk Run - (1954) - short story
• The Lifeboat Mutiny - (1955) - short story
• Gray Flannel Armor - (1957) - short story
• The Leech - (1952) - short story
• Watchbird - (1953) - novelette
• A Wind Is Rising - (1957) - short story
• Morning After - (1957) - novelette
• The Language of Love - (1957) - short story
• The Native Problem - (1956) - novelette
• Feeding Time - (1953) - short story
• Paradise II - (1954) - short story
• Double Indemnity - (1957) - novelette
• Holdout - (1957) - short story
• Dawn Invader - (1957) - short story

Table of Contents:

• The Brides of Sheckenstein - (1991) - essay by Harlan Ellison
• The People Trap - (1968) - short story
• The Victim from Space - (1957) - short story
• Shall We Have a Little Talk? - (1965) - novelette
• Restricted Area - (1953) - short story
• The Odor of Thought - (1953) - short story
• The Necessary Thing - (1955) - short
• Redfern's Labyrinth - (1968) - short
• Proof of the Pudding - (1952) - short
• The Laxian Key - (1954) - short story
• The Last Weapon - (1953) - short story
• Fishing Season - (1953) - short story
• Dreamworld - (1968) - short story
• Diplomatic Immunity - (1953) - novelette
• Ghost V - (1954) - short story
• Prospector's Special - (1959) - novelette
• The Girls and Nugent Miller - (1960) - short story
• Meeting of the Minds - (1960) - novelette
• Potential - (1953) - short story
• Fool's Mate - (1953) - short story
• Subsistence Level - (1954) - short story
• The Slow Season - (1954) - short story
• Alone at Last - (1957) - short story
• Forever - (1959) - short story
• The Sweeper of Loray - (1959) - short story
• The Special Exhibit - (1953) - short story

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1991) - essay by Damon Knight
• The Prize of Peril - (1958) - short story
• The Humours - (1958) - novella
• Triplication - (1959) - short story
• The Minimum Man - (1958) - novelette
• If the Red Slayer - (1959) - short story
• The Store of the Worlds - (1959) - short story
• The Gun Without a Bang - (1958) - short story
• The Deaths of Ben Baxter - (1957) - novelette
• Can You Feel Anything When I Do This? - (1969) - short story
• Cordle to Onion to Carrot - (1969) - short story
• The Petrified World - (1968) - short story
• Game: First Schematic - (1971) - short story
• Doctor Zombie and His Little Furry Friends - (1971) - short story
• The Cruel Equations - (1971) - short story
• The Same to You Doubled - (1970) - short story
• Starting from Scratch - (1970) - short story
• The Mnemone - (1971) - short story
• Tripout - (1971) - short story
• Notes on the Perception of Imaginary Differences - (1971) - short story
• Down the Digestive Tract and Into the Cosmos with Mantra, Tantra, and Specklebang - (1971) - short story

Table of Contents:

• Sheckley and I Go Back a Long Ways - (1991) - essay by K. W. Jeter
• The Robot Who Looked Like Me - (1973) - short story
• Slaves of Time - (1974) - novelette
• Voices - (1973) - short story
• A Supplicant in Space - (1973) - novelette
• Zirn Left Unguarded, the Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead - (1972) - short story
• Sneak Previews - (1977) - short story
• Welcome to the Standard Nightmare - (1973) - short story
• End City - (1974) - short story
• The Never-Ending Western Movie - (1976) - short story
• What Is Life? - (1976) - short story
• I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair Is Biting His Leg - (1968) - novelette with Harlan Ellison
• Is That What People Do? - (1978) - short story
• Silversmith Wishes - (1977) - short story
• Meanwhile, Back at the Bromide - (1960) - short story
• Five Minutes Early - (1982) - short story
• Miss Mouse and the Fourth Dimension - (1982) - short story
• The Helping Hand - (1981) - short story
• The Last Days of (Parallel?) Earth - (1980) - short story
• The Future Lost - (1980) - short story
• The Swamp - (1981) - short story
• The Life of Anybody - (1984) - short story
• Goodbye Forever to Mr. Pain - (1979) - short story
• The Shaggy Average American Man Story - (1979) - short story
• Shootout in the Toy Shop - (1981) - short story
• The Universal Karmic Clearing House - (1986) - short story
• Sarkanger - (1991) - short story
• At the Conference of the Birds - (1988) - short story
• Love Song from the Stars - (1989) - short story
• Divine Intervention - (1988) - short story
• The Destruction of Atlantis - (1989) - short story
• The Eye of Reality - (1982) - short story
• There Will Be No War After This One - (1991) - novelette
• Wormworld - (1991) - novella
• Robotvendor Rex - (1986) - short story
• Message from Hell - (1988) - short story
• Dial-a-Death - (1987) - short story

It is common and legal to murder someone if you want. The only catch is that if you want to kill someone, you must later be a voluntary victim, and it is up to you survive the murder attempt and be able to eliminate the would-be murderer. A man who has already done six murders (and survived six attempts against his own life) gets a name of his seventh victim, and it is a woman!

It's the 21st Century and the ugliness of war no longer exists, except on a very personal level. Nowadays, people like Marcello Polletti, seller of Roman sunsets, and Caroline Meredith, lithe, beautiful, blonde and backed by corporate sponsors and the Roy Bell Dancers, hunt, chase and kill each other for sport and for the entertainment of the masses--until something oddly like personal human feelings pops up to confuse the players and up the stakes...as each of them seeks to kill their 10th victim and rise in the ranks of the hunters.

In conjunction with the production of an Italian film based on Sheckley's 1953 short story "The Seventh Victim," Sheckley expanded the story into this novel.

In 2092, the world's ecology is in ruins, drought and famine are widespread and survival is a never-ending challenge. Harold Erdman leaves his dying community with one goal, to make his way to Esmeralda, an island paradise run by the Huntworld Corporation which has turned public murder, among willing competitors, into a thriving and lucrative business. Can he survive the journey and then the many rounds of deadly competition on his way to the Big Payoff. His neighbors lives, as well as his own, hang in the balance.

Take a look at a dark, deadly future where the game is hunting and the results are killing--human to human--with status, money, power and sex as the prizes. The operation runs underground and Frank Blackwell is a new recruit who is destined to change the game and turn it into legitimate popular entertainment for the masses.