Abbas AbdulhusseinDec 9, 2022
Neil Gaiman
Robert Sheckley died on this day 17 years ago. He was a brilliant, witty writer, one of the finest short story writers of Science Fiction, an inspiration to Douglas Adams. His grave is near me and I clean the weeds off when I pass.
Dec 9, 2022 at 3:03pmWeb
Show threadpotentate hawtshotDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself my grandfather's (and my) favorite line of Sheckley's:
"The vulgarity hung in the air like a chrome-plated fart"
Show threadShawn in MontrealDec 9, 2022

@neilhimself Neil, I thought Douglas claimed he wasn't inspired by Robert... although perhaps you're not speaking of Dimension of Miracles specifically?

I love Sheckley's work as well.

Show threadNeil GaimanDec 9, 2022
@shawngoldwater He was definitely an inspiration to Douglas. But Douglas read Sheckley (or at any rate, Dimension of Miracles) after he wrote Hitchhiker's.
Show threadechopapaDec 9, 2022

@neilhimself Sheckley's short stories are always a pleasure to read. Very funny and often with a dark humour.

The Prize of Peril adapted as "Das Millionenspiel" in 1970 for German TV is still a visionary movie:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Millionenspiel

Das Millionenspiel - Wikipedia

Show threaddoomcruiserDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself will be digging in to some of his work!
Show threadMamiepouleDec 9, 2022
@doomcruiser @neilhimself me too.. I do remember his name from my distant past..
Show threadRockDadDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself He and I share a birthday, just a few years apart.
Show threadTziganeDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself Hob Draconian will always be one of my favorite characters.
Show threadCliff Jones Jr.Dec 9, 2022
@neilhimself That's such a poignant image: one old master tidying the grave of another, links in an unbroken chain. People die, but the work lives on.
Show threadBodhipaksaDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself My grandmother had a collection of his short stories, which I must have read when I was 10 or 11, because she died before I turned 12. I absolutely loved them. I'd no idea that stories could be so clever and witty. I must try to find out which collection it was. If I remember correctly there was a set of wooden stairs in a desert, and a man was running up them (possible trying to escape flying arrows?).
Show threadBodhipaksaDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself Found it! It was "Untouched by Human Hands." The title doesn't ring a bell, but the cover is exactly as I remember it from 50 years ago.
Show threadLittle Mike Dec 9, 2022
@neilhimself This is so incredibly sweet. You do his memory proud.
Show thread🌻 Welcome Back 🌻Dec 9, 2022
@neilhimself https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/109554944/robert-sheckley
Robert Sheckley (1928-2005) – Find a Grave...

writer of science fiction,mystery and espionage, short stories, and fiction, tinsmith, copper smith, sheet metal worker, Army veteran in the Panama Canal Department He was first published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s,Sheckley was nominated for Hugo- and Nebula awards and was named Author Emeritus by...

Show threadllewellyDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself
I think Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming and its sequels are the only Sheckley novels I recall. (All coauthored with Roger Zelazny). But I really enjoyed them. Maybe I should read more.
Show threadDammitjanetDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself I loved Schecklys work, although I have so few of his books, they were bonkers see:Dramocles and of course Immortality Inc
Show threadMhartain MeandersDec 9, 2022

@neilhimself

The 10th Victim was one of my favorite books as a kid!!

Show threadSean ODec 9, 2022
@neilhimself I was just at Westminster Abbey and found Stephen Hawking buried next to Isaac Newton.
Show threadSimon LucyDec 9, 2022

@seano @neilhimself

They shuffle the pack every now and then whilst Blake sulks on Bunhill Fields with Defoe.

Show threadAbby NormalDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself
I like si-fi but have never read anything he wrote. What’s your favorite book/collection of Sheckley’s? I’ll add it to my list.
Show threadNeil GaimanDec 9, 2022
@AbbyFla I'd probably suggest Store of the Worlds -- https://amzn.to/3uATHrq -- or one of the other Best of collections. Mindswap and Dimension of Miracles are wonderful novels.
Show threadDr Christopher NorthDec 12, 2022
@neilhimself @AbbyFla I think Options is one of his best
Show threadAbby NormalDec 12, 2022

@christo67114454 @neilhimself

Thanks, added it my list. I need to live to 135 to read everything I want to read!

Show threadJust StaciDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself ooh, thank you for sharing, there’s a collection of his classic sci-fi on Amazon for very cheap! (I would indeed love to purchase them in physical copy, but alas, I live in a small space and I’m currently mobility impaired.)
Show threadedwardchampionDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself At his best, Sheckley was every bit as witty as Terry Pratchett and Gregory Mcdonald, and he could be as enjoyably dark-humored as Simon Raven. It's interesting how revered he was in Russia near the time of his death, but how little regarded he was in America, except by voracious all genre-reading outliers such as myself.
Show threadColin FryDec 9, 2022

@neilhimself I was horrified … until I reread the last word and it wasn’t actually ‘piss’

Sorry, it’s 4am and my eyes are blurry.

Show threadGeoff WinklessDec 11, 2022
@colinfry666 @neilhimself glad it wasn't just me 😁
Show threadJani PulkkaDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself Haven’t seen Courier on a gravestone before – very befitting!
Show threadRonald DrimmelDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself whao! Wait.. is that a galaxy image on his grave?
Show threadSascha BollDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself one of the most underrated authors. Thanks, for sharing!
Show threadquatrezoneilllesDec 9, 2022

@neilhimself

I don't read much science fiction anymore, but that story of a man who goes to buy an IBM psychotherapy machine and is mistakenly given the model designed for Martians will be with me forever.

Show threadRational Brit #FBPEDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself @devora Mindswap introduced me to Robert Sheckley’s writing as a teenager. His work was always a favourite of mine particularly his short stories.
Show threadBritish Tech GuruDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself it is such a shame the Douglas Adams died so young. Maybe he would have written 5th and 6th books for the trilogy
Show threadJohn ShirleyDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself Bob Sheckley was a good friend of mine. He even married my wife--that is, he married the woman who had recently been my wife. We hung out a lot in Portland. He was a unique artist. Very funny guy too.
Show threadNeil GaimanDec 9, 2022
@JohnShirley2023 was that Jay?
Show threadJohn ShirleyDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself Oh yes, indeed. Jay. I am a veteran of Jay. We veterans of Jay meet once a year. We wear special caps and give each other medals.
Show threadNeil GaimanDec 9, 2022
@JohnShirley2023 I remember Jay overseeing a signing I did at Dark Carnival long ago, and I have forgotten so many signings, but that one lives on in my brain...
Show threadJohn ShirleyDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself Ha! I bet! She had one for Fritz Leiber that infuriated him. The threw herself on his coffin at his funeral. Well, she has her points, which I can't discuss online. Bless her heart, in recent years she went through a terrible struggle with throat cancer and didn't come out of it unscathed. She and Katherine Dunn ("Geek Love" et al) and I were a trio of pals in Portland; I dated Katherine for a while but married Jay because she thought it a good idea.
Show threadNeil GaimanDec 10, 2022
@JohnShirley2023 I'm so sorry to hear about her struggles. She certainly made the world more interesting. And (sigh) Katherine Dunn. What an astonishing writer.
Show threadJohn ShirleyDec 10, 2022
@neilhimself Katherine chain-smoked hand-rolled cigarettes of the very cheapest tobacco. She could roll them without looking, while talking to me and looking right at me. She was much more mature than me and was very kind and patient. We were in poetry slams together and then I read the ms of Geek Love. I don't remember what i said except I was really impressed by it. Her earlier novels are very interesting too. They're like hyper-real. Anyway the cigarettes gave her terminal cancer.
Show threadNeil GaimanDec 10, 2022
@JohnShirley2023 It's the ones we didn't have to lose that hurt the most. Kathy Acker didn't have to go the way she went. She could be around now, in her 70s, if she hadn't decided to go the fruit juice cure for cancer way.
Show threadJohn ShirleyDec 10, 2022
@neilhimself Yes I knew Kathy A quite intimately. She was into steroid body building (really!) before people started to see the risks. It affected her state of mind, in that partof her life, and might've triggered her cancer. I was dismayed when she went to the "alternative" cancer thing and sure enough, it killed her.
Show threadNeil GaimanDec 11, 2022
@JohnShirley2023 I think she knew the risks on Steroids. At least, she knew it was dangerous to take them but she loved being part of the bodybuilding subculture. At least that was the way that I took it from what she said.
Show threadSimon LucyDec 9, 2022

@neilhimself
Mindswap was the first of his that I read somewhere around the mid-sixties.

I've collected his works ever since, including the non-Science Fiction, the thrillers and probably one of the best psychological dramas at sea since Hemingway,

Show threadDrfillgutDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself Thank you. He inspired me too.
Show threadFigbash Dec 9, 2022
@neilhimself I loved both Sheckley and Adams (a man gone way too soon). I'm not only glad you loved them and were influenced, but are thoughtful enough to clear the weeds off Robert. Thank you. ♥️
Show threadBefDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself I met him at The Semana Negra in Gijón in 2000. He was a nice gentleman who blushed every time he was told how mythic he was.
Show threadKeiþ 🔭Dec 9, 2022
@neilhimself I remember reading Dimensions of Miracles. Wonderful stuff.
Show threadPhDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself Perhaps the best headstone conceivable for the man.
Show threadMichael SchmidDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself An inspiration to more than Douglas. It's nice you clean his stone. Love the lettering. If you know, is the pattern in the center that's reminiscent of a galaxy or Saturn's rings part of the natural stone or something that was engraved? Douglas who passed (so young) a few years before him has just "Writer" on his stone, too.
Show threadCharlotte WalkerDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself @Andi I happen to be reading The Status Civilisation right now
Show threadThrash CardiomDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself Mun mun mun mun. Mun mun. Mun mun? Mun, mun mun mun. Mun mun.
Show thread@Bradbury1959Dec 9, 2022
@neilhimself I love his work. It is so thoughtful about the human condition, and possible remedies.
Show threadPenguinfamyDec 9, 2022
@neilhimself Immortality Inc. was rather prescient I think
Show threadKassie S 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 9, 2022
@neilhimself Robwert Sheckley is among my all time favorite writers. Thanks for the reminder that I need to reread some of his work.
Show threadJasper TalemakerDec 9, 2022

@neilhimself though for a moment you said "it's close to MINE"!

still very nice of you