Showing results by author "Robert Sheckley" in All Categories

X Minus One premiered in April 1955 on NBC and ran until January 1958. Like its predecessor series, Dimension X, X Minus One featured stories by the greatest names in modern science fiction: Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Robert Bloch, and many more.

X Minus One premiered in April 1955 on NBC and ran until January 1958. Like its predecessor series, Dimension X, X Minus One featured stories by the greatest names in modern science fiction: Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Robert Bloch, and many more.

Here are 10 stories from the May and June 2003 issues of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, including a tribute to SF great Barry M. Malzberg.

Ready for a story? Here's a selection of some of the finest science fiction shorts of recent years, including stories from Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, William Gibson, Robert Sheckley, Terry Bisson, Avram Davidson, and Philip K. Dick.

It's the 21st Century and the ugliness of war no longer exists, except on a very personal level. Nowadays, people like Marcello Polletti, seller of Roman sunsets, and Caroline Meredith, lithe, beautiful, blonde, and backed by corporate sponsors and the Roy Bell Dancers, hunt, chase, and kill each other for sport and for the entertainment of the masses - until something oddly like personal human feelings pops up to confuse the players and up the stakes...as each of them seeks to kill their 10th victim and rise in the ranks of the hunters.

Interstellar travel to alien worlds is too expensive for Marvin, a college student in need of a good vacation. And so he signs up for what he can afford: a mind swap, in which his consciousness is swapped into the body of an alien life-form. Unfortunately, Marvin finds himself in the body of an interstellar criminal—a body that he has to vacate, fast.

Want to be immortal? You can be in AD 2110. Just go to the Hereafter Insurance Corporation and hook yourself up to the Machine. There’s nothing to fear. That is, if it happens to be working right, and if nobody slips another mind into your body when you’re not looking, and if you’re not on a poltergeist hatelist.

As the winds howl, two men stationed on an alien world ignore the natives' advice - and head into danger. Based on a story by Robert Schekley, this episode of X Minus One originally aired on October 3, 1957.

A lonely man accepts a free offer from a matchmaking service: success guaranteed. Based on a story by Robert Sheckley, this episode of X Minus One originally aired on January 9, 1958.

The colonists on New Delaware are told they need to be "civilized". That means they must have jails. The only problem is, they have no criminals. Based on a story by Robert Sheckley, this episode of X Minus One originally aired on February 15, 1956.

Launch your imagination and break the bonds of time and space with radio's highly acclaimed science-fiction anthology X Minus One! Produced in cooperation with science fiction magazines of the day, the series featured provocative stories by the genre's top genre authors. Ray Bradbury, Ernest Kinoy, Robert Sheckley, and more helped Americans of the 1950s look to the future. Dramatized with an atmosphere of excitement, top radio voices like Raymond Edward Johnson, Les Damon, Staats Cotsworth, Ruby Dee, Mandel Kramer, Joe DeSantis, and Bill Lipton gave voice to their visionary tales.

Learn the truth behind the mask of Hollywood in these 10 bizarre tales of dreams and dream weavers, movies and movie-makers, by some of the most respected fantasy writers of our time.

Are you a fan of science fiction and suspenseful short stories? Look no further than Robert Sheckley's Wild Talents, Inc. This audiobook takes you into a unique talent agency that deals with individuals possessing psychic abilities - some of whom are quite peculiar and on the fringe of lunacy.

Sheckley's satirical humor shines through as Edward Moran Archer previews the different levels of hell, from the mundane to the outrageous. Each punishment is tailored to fit the individual's sins, and Archer quickly realizes the gravity of his choices. As he reflects on his life and the impact of his actions, Archer must come to terms with his own beliefs and face the consequences of his decisions. As time passes, he is forced to confront the reality of his existence and the choices that led him to this moment.

Follow Charles Dennison, an inventor with a groundbreaking creation that could change the world. With so much at stake, Dennison must stay vigilant and protect his invention at all costs. But, are there larger forces at play here?

Introducing "The Monsters" by Robert Sheckley, a thrilling sci-fi audiobook that explores the fascinating and bizarre world of a distant planet inhabited by sentient aliens who refer to themselves as "humans." On this strange planet, the aliens may look nothing like us, but their society is both intriguing and terrifying. While they pride themselves on being rational and ethical beings, their tendencies towards violence and argumentation make them truly monstrous. Witness their struggles with truth and deception.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the poem "Brahma" in 1856, synthesizing the essence of spirituality and Hinduism; exploring the mysteries of life and death. Robert Sheckley in his short story, "If The Red Slayer", a line taken from Emerson's poem takes us to a battlefield of the future where dead men can be brought back to life seen from the eyes of a soldier who has been killed three times and brought back to life three times.

"The Special Exhibit" by Robert Sheckley is a short story narrated by Mike Vendetti that provides a fascinating and sure solution to a problem marriage.

First, the stars in the Milkey Way go dark. Then everyone on earth hears in their minds a very real voice speaking in their own language, dialect, and gender at the precise same time: ''Judgment of the inhabitants of the planet Earth will be held in five days. Please prepare yourselves for the final examination and departure. That is all". Humanity prepares for the rapture. But wait, fate takes a turn.

Man was leaving Earth. Man--but not woman. Light-years from Earth were little worlds without women - and men were not happy about it. Since real women could not go to them, scientists on Earth developed substitutes. Android females were developed, the surrogates, and shipped to the colonies. Everything seemed to go well - for a while. Ralph Garvey is about to find that the package containing the promise of extreme sexual delight is not quite what he had expected.