Robert Sheckley
 Robert
Sheckley (July 16, 1928 – December 9, 2005) was an American author. Who was
first
published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s. His numerous
quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist and
broadly comical.
Sheckley was given the Author Emeritus honor by the Science Fiction and Fantasy
Writers of America in 2001. There are those who were shocked he was not given
the Grand Master Award instead. Commented one scholar, "Kingsley Amis's critical
overview of Science Fiction named Sheckley as our field's brightest light.
Robert Sheckley was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in New Jersey. He was
in the U.S. Army from 1946 to 1948 and served in Korea. He then attended New
York University. In 1951 he began to sell stories to science-fiction magazines,
eventually producing several hundred short stories and novels. He also wrote
episodes of the TV series Captain Video.
In the 1970s he lived on the Spanish island of Ibiza. He then returned to New
York City as fiction editor of OMNI Magazine. After leaving OMNI in 1981 he
lived and wrote in the Florida Everglades, Manhattan again, Paris, France, Ibiza
again, Connecticut, Portland, Oregon and Red Hook, New York.
Until his death in 2005, Robert Sheckley continued to write at his home in Red
Hook, New York. His early pen names included Phillips Barbee and Finn O'Donnevan.
Sheckley's first four marriages (to Barbara Scadron, Ziva Kwitney, Abby Schulman
and writer Jay Rothbell Sheckley) ended in divorce. At the time of his death, he
was separated from his fifth wife, Gail Dana. His son, Jason, is from his first
marriage, and daughter Alisa Kwitney is from his second. His daughter Anya, and
his son Jed, came from his third marriage. Alisa Kwitney is a novelist, the
author of Till the Fat Lady Sings (1991), The Dominant Blonde (2002) and Does
She or Doesn't She?" (2003).
During a 2005 visit to Ukraine for the Ukrainian Sci-Fi Computer Week, an
international event for science fiction writers, Sheckley fell ill and had to be
hospitalized in Kiev on April 27, 2005. His condition was very serious for one
week, but he appeared to be slowly recovering. Russian news sources referred to
him as "The unkillable Robert Sheckley". The official Web site of Robert
Sheckley ran a fundraising campaign to help cover Sheckley's treatment and his
return to the United States. However, only a large donation from a Ukrainian
businessman allowed him to pay the hospital bill and return home. In New York he
also underwent open heart surgery.
Robert Sheckley had vowed he would write fiction until slumped dead over the
typewriter. Indeed, he was still writing the last day he was conscious.
On November 20 he had surgery for a brain aneurysm. He died in a Poughkeepsie
hospital on December 9, 2005.
Pseudonyms: Finn O'Donnevan , Ned Lang , Phillips Barbee
Selected Bibliography
Complete
Bibliography
Series
- Bill, the Galactic Hero
- 3 Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains (1990)
with
Harry
Harrison
- Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming
- Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming (1991) with
Roger Zelazny
- If at Faust You Don't Succeed (1993) with Roger
Zelazny
- A Farce to be Reckoned With (1995) with Roger
Zelazny
- Hob Draconian
- 1 The Alternative Detective (1993)
- 2 Draconian New York (1996)
- 3 Soma Blues (1997)
- Star Trek Universe
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- 12 The Laertian Gamble (1995)
- Victim
- 1 The Tenth Victim (1965)
- 2 Victim Prime (1987)
- 3 Hunter/Victim (1988)
Novels
- Immortality, Inc. (1958)
- The Status Civilization (1960)
- Variant Title: Omega! (1960)
- Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962)
- Variant Title: The Journey of Joenes (1962)
- Mindswap (1966)
- Dimension of Miracles (1968)
- Options (1975)
- The Alchemical Marriage of Alistair Crompton (1978)
- Crompton Divided (1978)
- Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera (1983)
- Minotaur Maze (1990)
- Alien Starswarm (1991)
- Godshome (1999)
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