Still Untouched by Human Hands: Short Stories

Robert Sheckley was cracking jokes about the future while other science fiction writers were still taking it seriously. Long before Douglas Adams gave us the hitchhiker's guide, Sheckley was already looking at humanity's grandest ambitions and seeing... absurdity. These nine stories dismantle space operas, corporate logic, and human hubris with gleeful cynicism. In "The Academy," students graduate into something farcical. In "The Minimum Man," the question of what makes a human being is answered with uncomfortable precision. "Seven Soup Rivers" offers a feast of linguistic and cultural satire. Throughout, Sheckley pokes at the machinery of progress and finds it rattling. The future, as he sees it, isn't dystopia or utopia. It's a mirror held up to our present anxieties, decorated with rocket ships. These are short, sharp demolitions of pretension, perfect for readers who want their science fiction served with a wink and a sense that somewhere, something is very wrong.