I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN (APRIL 2025 EDITION)

[defrog]

It’s looking a bit grim, isn’t it?

My reading pace, I mean.

Ah well. At least I’m enjoying myself.

Can You Feel Anything When I Do This? by Robert Sheckley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After reading and enjoying two novels from Robert Sheckley, this is my first time trying out his short stories. This collection, published in 1971, illustrates clearly that while Sheckley was known mainly for science fiction, he also expanded his absurdist take into modern-day social satire and surrealist dream worlds.

This collection starts off with a woman being courted by an AI-powered vacuum cleaner and ends with a satire on two-fisted Golden Age SF in which veteran space Johnny Draxton is saddled with a green co-pilot. In between, we have a space explorer matching wits with a logical security robot, literal deals with the devil, a doctor creating hybrid monstrosities in his Mexico City apartment, a time traveller selling cures for a plague that hasn’t broken out yet and a Rashoman-style story of a regular customer in a failing Indonesian restaurant.

The main consistent thread is Sheckley’s penchant for the absurd, which he deploys to good effect through most of these. Like with most collections, a few don’t quite work for me, and some linger in the memory more than others, but at least I was entertained while I was there. I will say the story "Cordle to Onion to Carrot" – in which a guy tries to improve his life by becoming a complete asshole to everyone over the slightest inconvenience – is practically prophetic, given how things seem to be going in America in 2025.

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