n a genre that oftentimes is lampooned or satirized or just plain made fun of, Robert Sheckley has done just that—only from within instead of from without—and has built a legendary career because of it. His works such as Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming, If at Faust You Don't Succeed and A Farce to Be Reckoned With (all co-written by Roger Zelazny) are testament not only to his command of
storytelling, but also to his obvious love of the science-fiction genre. He may poke fun, but he is never mean-spirited.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in New Jersey, Sheckley went into the U.S. Army after graduating high school and served in Korea. After discharge, he attended New York University, where he graduated with a degree in arts. He would go on to write for the television series Captain Video and The People Trap, the latter of which became a two-hour television special.
Those unfamiliar with his written words may have seen the movie adaptation of his Immortality, Inc., under the title Freejack. He also wrote the story on which the film The Tenth Victim was based. He remains a leading voice in the school of fantastic thought after 50 years of thought-provoking fiction.
His official Web site can be found at www.sheckley.com
The Robert Sheckley stories "A Wind Is Rising," "Bad Medicine," "Cordle to Onion to Carrot," "Protection" and "The Prize of Peril" can be read on SCI FICTION.
Why did you choose to take a humorous slant in your SF?
Sheckley: For me there was no choosing involved. I think in a number of modes—humorously, parodistically and there are other words, but it would be both immodest of me and impossible for me to tell you what makes up my style. There was no choosing involved. Humor is one of the things I do, not think about. If a story idea involves a humorous response in me, I follow it. Then there's the matter of the humor of the overall situation.
I find also that as I grow older, the humor becomes harder to attain to. That is because so many things now strike me as tragic or unfortunate. I can't rise above them as easily as perhaps I once could.
Themes that used to be the driving force of much SF of the Golden Age, like interstellar travel, seem to have lost some of their appeal. Do you agree or disagree? And what do you think are the main preoccupations people want SF to reflect nowadays?
Sheckley: I inherited my themes from the writers who came before me, Heinlein, Van Vogt, Kuttner, Leiber and many others. These were the important themes. There was no arguing that. But now I find myself in an age where the justification of greed and the rationalizations for using up the Earth and laying waste to its species is considered of far more importance. The mass electorate has voted, inferentially, at least, to own guns and fight for religions. The people in their wisdom have voted to maintain a form of government where lobbyists are powerful and have things their way. Where our present prosperity in the United States and much of Western Europe is achieved by having people poorer than us do our legal work, our research, our manufacture. These people are content—at the moment—with wages very much less than ours. How long they will stay content remains to be seen. There is a theme here, because we Americans want all the right things from the old days of science fiction, and it's not just that we won't fight for it. But we are overwhelmed by the greatest demon of all—the Power of Going About Business in the Usual Way. Look, I don't want to try to make a reasoned article out of this. These are just thoughts I find myself having, concerns of mine, fears. I'll just throw them out here and hope maybe somebody else wouldn't mind trying to put better reasons to them.
It's an ideological war we're fighting here in the U.S. And what is the point of it? That we and our children can have more security than our neighbors, better-looking wives, too, if it comes to that. And that they should do the same by their children. That we should drive our cars until the gas is all gone. Gasoline is going to kill all of us.
My own views on the Iraqi war: I think we should have gone in, bombed the hell out of the place, as we did, then gotten right out. Left them alone, to repair their damaged infrastructure, put up their own government, and see it taken over by their next strong man. When he got too dangerous to our interests, we could go in again and destroy his stuff. As long as we got out without taking on the impossible task of changing the hearts and minds of those millions. Our grand and noble plan now seems to be to build two client states, Afghanistan and Iraq, and to somehow make them work on a Western democratic ideal. An ideal which is mainly big words, but filled, in our case, with paltry deeds. We want to pacify the Iraqis, not democratize them. Just as we want to pacify our own unruly populations.
Well, this is all a little vague. But this is the sort of stuff I'm feeling. And it makes writing humor, or, indeed, anything at all, quite difficult.
What made you write your first novel?
Sheckley: In those tender years of my writing career, I was still trying to prove to myself that I was indeed a writer. In quite a short time I had achieved two of my goals: I had written and sold several short stories, and after that I put together and sold a collection of my short fiction. The next thing I needed, to prove myself to myself, was to write and sell a novel. Although short stories seemed to be my natural tier, I loved the novel, too, and wanted to excel at it. Also, after a few years of short-story writing, it struck me how hard it was to earn a living from short stories alone. I turned to the novel form, not only out of interest, but also in self-defense.
I had no idea whether I could write a novel or not. I assumed I could. I also assumed I could write one good enough to sell. I had had a novel idea for years. I sat down and outlined the whole thing, laying it out as a four-part magazine serial. I showed my outline to Horace Gold of Galaxy, my chief short-story market, and he agreed to buy the magazine rights for Galaxy. It was no struggle to sell it. The struggle lay in writing it. Writing at great length was not a natural ability with me. Both short stories and humor writing called for conciseness. Scenes I laid out and thought would run, say, 5,000 words, often ran for a thousand or two. I didn't want to pad. I did the best I could, inventing new material rather than trying to pad out the old.
My first wife and I went to Acapulco for our honeymoon, and to write my novel. I thought it was a romantic notion to go away somewhere to write a novel. We rented a nice small cottage on Hornitos Bay. We lived above an indigent who lived in a hovel a hundred yards from our place. His one possession was a radio, and he played it day and night. There were other difficulties, like going broke. Finally, my wife returned to the States and found the apartment of a friend we could use. It was on Sheridan Square in the Village, and I finished the novel there. After the magazine serial sale, I sold the novel to Bantam Books, and for the hardbound sale, to Dutton. I was very pleased until the day I discovered that my editor had never read my book. Dutton was buying it,
as far as I could see, because their share of the Bantam money would underwrite the cost of their
production. I got angry and withdrew the book. Bantam was not chartered at that time to publish original novels, only reprints. So I left Bantam, too. I'm still surprised at my effrontery. But it worked out well. I showed the novel to Ian and Betty Galantine, and they agreed to publish it.
I don't remember all the ins and outs of it now, but I believe I sold Immortality, Inc. as Immortality Delivered to be sold as the original edition by Avalon books. My editors, however, turned out to be religious men of conscience, though not enough conscience to tell me of their scruples before rewriting the ending so that my hero was killed rather than suicide. I demanded that their edition be withdrawn, and sold the book after that to the Ballantines.
Since you've been called "the first SF absurdist," what effect have you seen absurdisim have on contemporary SF?
Sheckley: It has long been my contention that being an absurdist does not imply or entail being an expert on absurdism, absurdism in SF, or any other kind of absurdism. Indeed, studying absurdism is a sure path to not understanding it. I acquired a taste for absurdism by reading material by Raymond Queneau and others. After that, it was just a matter of my natural
facility or lack of it.
Does SF take itself too seriously these days?
Sheckley: I read very little SF these days. But I'm pretty sure it partakes of the American tendency of taking itself too seriously, America being a place where rate of payment goes up according to how significant the piece is.
Do you think modern technology, in the way it creates new ways of communicating, can imperil, or diminish, the importance in the cultural life of the species? How do you see the situation?
Sheckley: Modern technology ... So different from the typewriter technology I grew up with. The importance of what is being said seems to diminish with the number of ways you have of saying it. But you can't go backwards. We are flotsam on the ever-mounting wave of the future.
Can absurdist SF be approached accurately in a visual medium, i.e., Red Dwarft?
Sheckley: If absurdism indeed partakes of the absurd, there is no reason why it cannot be approached accurately in a visual medium. I have not seen Red Dwarf, but I wish it good luck.
Satire is a predominant element in your work. Who were the satirists that you read? And why do you feel humor and SF work together well? Is it hard or easy to satirize dystopian SF?
Sheckley: Satire ... another scholastic-type question. I do satire by the power of the sneer. That's all there is to it. As for satirizing Dustpan SF—one can satirize anything. Satires on satires are a little hard on some readers, but that's no reason to exclude them.
What is your opinion of the humor used as parody in films like Galaxy Quest?
Sheckley: I haven't seen Galaxy Quest, but probably would not like it if I did see it.
Would you consider the late Douglas Adams to be a contemporary? How do you feel about other writers who write satire SF like Connie Willis and Frederik Pohl?
Sheckley: Douglas Adams was definitely a contemporary by common definition. I've read little Connie Wills, and less Fred Pohl. They both have my permission to continue doing whatever it is they do.
How do you maintain a fascination for SF?
Sheckley: My fascination for SF wore out a long time ago. But I still have an interest in what's going on around me. In deterioration, that is.
You wrote the adaptation of Babylon 5: A Call to Arms. Were you a fan of the show?
Sheckley: I never saw Babylon 5 until I got a contract to write
A Call to Arms. So I could not be called a fan of the show. This was due in large part to my being unable to receive the show on my small, stripped-down television set.
What are some of your favorite SF films over the years?
Sheckley: Favorite SF films over the years. I really liked the movie made from Phil K. Dick's story of a modern Los Angeles, replicants and Harrison Ford, Blade Runner.
Last words?
Sheckley: Eliot had it right. He wrote, "I shall grow old, I shall grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."
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