Customer Reviews

Is That What People Do?: Short Stories

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Well, maybe. It's a tough call because his short story collections are so damned good. Sheckley is known as the master of the lean and mean, the witty and the funny. He is one of the great wits of our age and his genius is most obvious in his very accessible and modest-looking stories. But the stories in this collection are like Borges puzzles or Calvino novels, posing simple but important problems and turning the plots in on themselves as only Sheckley can do.

It's interesting to think about comparing the styles of Sheckley and Bradbury, both genius short story writers. Both are extremely bold storytellers and both have a lyrical conciseness. Both are funny and twisted and both are touching. But Sheckley is like a smirking master poker player while Bradbury deals you an amazing hand of hearts. Sheckley is to acid as Bradbury is to ecstacy.

Sheckley's stories are simply as good as any stories in fantasy and science fiction. His characters are usually at the end of their rope and find extraordinary solutions to extraordinary problems. Sheckley is the original thinking-out-of-the-box guy. He's alternately nuts, a genius jokewriter, a philosophical scholar and a hard-hitting action writer. I'm tellin' ya, you've gotta read his stories and IS THAT WHAT PEOPLE DO?, along with CITIZEN IN SPACE and UNTOUCHED BY HUMAN HANDS, are the collections to start with.