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 complaining, I love the guy). Sheckley is kind of like that but probably overall more light-hearted. Good fun. I'm not much of a huge sci-fi fan but I thought this collection was awesome. Though many of the stories are formulaic, I suspect that they are really meant to be, since they were written for sci-fi pulp mags of the past, and although the reader quickly learns to expect the twist if reading this collection straight through, there is really a lot to get out of these weird tales. I won't bother to go into what I got out of them, except to say it is the best of the morality of sci-fi tales: a strange mix of criticism of humanity morals (with a healthy dose of anti-imperialism thrown in) with a conservative defense of the "old ways" of the world and a naked fear of the future, progress, and technology. Isn't this inherent in all good sci-fi? I hope so (at various levels and with various highlighting) but it is important to remember that these stories are from the 50s and 60s, and therefore a true progenitor, at least in my eyes.And also the style is so fun. Or should I say, funny. Some of these stories are absolutely hilarious. The word play and dialogue is incredibly inventive (I guess easy to do when the writers is inventing news names of people, races, and places, as well as new and changing languages), and the writing always engaging. If you are a sci-fi fan and haven't read Sheckley you should. If you are not a sci-fi fan and like good literature, and are curious about the evolution of US genre fiction, this is also a book for you.
