Dimensions of Sheckley: Selected Novels of Robert Sheckley

by Robert Sheckley

A collection of five novels: Immortality, Inc.; Minotaur Maze, Journey Beyond Tomorrow, Mindswap, and Dimension of Miracles.

Genres: Science Fiction, Humor, Fiction

538 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2002

About the author

One of science fiction's great humorists, Sheckley was a prolific short story writer beginning in 1952 with titles including "Specialist", "Pilgrimage to Earth", "Warm", "The Prize of Peril", and "Seventh Victim", collected in volumes from Untouched by Human Hands (1954) to Is That What People Do? (1984) and a five-volume set of Collected Stories (1991). His first novel, Immortality, Inc. (1958), was followed by The Status Civilization (1960), Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Mindswap (1966), and several others. Sheckley served as fiction editor for Omni magazine from January 1980 through September 1981, and was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2001.

Reviews

[Joseph Sobanski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dimensions of Sheckley is a collection of four short novels and one novella which offer an overview of Robert Sheckley's literary career. This is my first exposure to Sheckley's works, and perhaps I was a bit unprepared for the level of absurdity prevalent in his writings. Many of his stories, especially Dimension of Miracles, read like proto-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels, although Adams has claimed he did not read Sheckley after writing the first volume of the series.

The first short novel is Immortality Inc. (1959), which of all the other novels is the most straightforward. Our main character dies in a car accident and is revived centuries later into a future where the afterlife is a scientific fact. The theological aspects are not really explored, to my disappointment, and instead the story is mostly a fish-out-of-water type thriller (a style shared by nearly all the stories in this collection). Its an alright story, more impressive considering it came out in 1959, and it has a nice conclusion surrounding a mysterious zombie figure that follows our protagonist around the globe. 3/5

Next is Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), a more experimental story following a white Pacific Islander who returns to the United States to explore the land of his forefathers. Here we get a lot more Kafkaesque and absurdist elements added to Sheckley's style. For example there is a famous scene in the "Octagon" (the even more secret version of the Pentagon), where our main character struggles to locate his assigned meeting room. This is because the Octagon is so secretive even the maps are falsified, resulting in a confounding period of fruitless searching. In particular I like the chapter about the story of the spy, in which a potential spy must extrapolate meaning from the falsified maps of the Octogon.

"It is of a building, and conforms to the rules for drawing buildings. It has been judge false; but it has been judge so by an official mapmaker who knew the truth, and was able to decide about every detail of the map on the basis of his knowledge of the true building. The so-called false map, then, is merely a sort of reversed or distorted image of the truth known by the official mapmaker; and the relationship between the true building and the false map has been established through his judgment, since he knew both true and false and judged the dissimilarity." (232)

This type of local rumination is typical of Sheckley's characters, and I enjoyed how seemingly logical he makes it seem, when a closer look reveals just how absurd the entire thing is. 3.5/5

Then comes Mindswap (1965), which continues this route towards absurdism. Mindswap is about exactly that, our protagonist, Marvin, swaps his mind with an being from Mars in a desire to tour Mars as a Martian. But, of course, in typical Sheckley fashion, things begin to go off the rails as Marvin must vacate this alien body after it becomes established that it was promised to another mind before him. Thus Marvin travels the galaxy, mind to mind, searching for his stolen original body. Early on Marvin is informed about the concept of metaphoric deformation, which is when "we experience too much novelty; it becomes unbearable, and the mind seeks relief through the buffering process of analogizing." (275) As Marvin travels he begins to lose grasp of reality, resulting in a variety of bizarre scenes, especially towards the end of the novel. Sheckley commits to this bit so thoroughly that at parts I was wondering if I wasn't reading a completely separate novel. 3.5/5

This type of absurdist non sequitur style continues in the next novel in this collection. Dimension of Miracles (1968) is considered to be Sheckley's masterpiece, and it manages to successfuly combine the absurdism, humor, and social commentary of his previous works into a generally cohesive whole. This is the novel that most resembles Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as it is about a normal guy transported into the heart of the galaxy after he erroneously wins the Intergalactic Sweepstakes. He then struggles to return to his version of the Earth, and along the way meets Gods, dinosaurs, and his Predator, all to an amusing degree. Besides the humor, I appreciated some of the religious commentary as well, such as when the protagonist discusses free will with a contractor who created the Earth for God.

"It’s the deep, fundamental bedrock of hypocrisy upon which religion is founded. Consider: no creature can be said to worship if it does not possess free will. Free will, however, is free. And just by virtue of being free, is intractable and incalculable, a truly Godlike gift, the faculty that makes a state of freedom possible. To exist in a state of freedom is a wild, strange thing, and was clearly intended as such. But what do the religions do with this? They say, ‘Very well, you possess free will; but now you must use your free will to enslave yourself to God and to us.’"

Dimension of Miracles has another advantage over the other novels in this collection, in that it actually has a satisfying conclusion. Both Mindswap and Journey Beyond Tomorrow just sort of end, which makes some sense considering its absurdism, but in Dimension of Miracles our protagonist actually makes a decision, instead of just being thrown across the universe willy-nilly. 4.5/5

Finally there is the short novel Minotaur Maze, which the editors include to showcase Sheckley's later style. Here Sheckley takes the Greek mythology of the Theseus and the Minotaur and injects it with his signature absurdity. In a way it really reminded me of Barth's Chimera, as it plays with the archetypes of mythology and literature, with Daedalus's labyrinth a sort of metaphor for the author's narrative control and causality. This is one of those novels where glazing over even a paragraph can leave you lost, as the story goes in absurd directions. For example, in almost Loony Tunes fashion, Theseus waits by the phone for several chapters for the Minotaur's call after the Minotaur promised to let him know if he would let Theseus kill him or not. This novel above any other in the collection showcases Sheckley's critique of literary causality and even authorial control in general. It other words it is a meta-novel of the postmodern variety, meaning it is absurdly confusing, but intentionally so to expose literary conventions. Therefore, not easy reading, but still satisfying on an intellectual level, in my opinion. 3.5/5

Overall 3.5/5, rounded up due to the sheer creativity and inventiveness. Plus, I barely touched on the absurd humor, a style of which Douglas Adams would later perfect.

[Ushan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Novels by the brilliant satirist, famous in Russia but almost completely forgotten in his native country. Unfortunately, my favorite novel of his, "The Status Civilization", is not there.

[Guido Eekhaut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah, excellent collections of this almost forgotten writer, who was a great and comic talent. NESFA is again doing a great job of collecting his books in ons very nice volume. Higly recommended.

[Reet · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5
Immortality Inc.
2 ⭐
An early work by sheckley. I believe his works get more sophisticated as time goes on. For this one, the premise and characterization is just not that believable.

Mindswap
2 ⭐
I used to like this type of sci-fi, but my tastes have changed. I didn't appreciate the homophobia in chapter 13. I feel like if the author couldn't solve a plot problem, he just made things up, instead of trying to make it believable. I know sheckley meant this to be humorous; I found it unfunny.

Journey Beyond Tomorrow
1 ⭐
DNF
This is just a supreme waste of the reader's time, IMO. And I resent that.

Dimension of Miracles
Not Read.

Minotaur Maze
The reason I got this book out of the library.
1 ⭐
Meh. DNF

[Timothy]

5 novels/novellas:

Immortality, Inc. (1959)
The Journey of Joenes (1962) (variant of Journey Beyond Tomorrow)
Mindswap (1966)
***** Dimension of Miracles (1968)
Minotaur Maze (1990)

[Richard Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific collection of Sheckley novels beautifully presented.

[Daniel Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this collection basically in order to read the short novel Dimension of Miracles, which is contained therein. It was mentioned on a list of classic humorous science fiction, which is a thing that I enjoy, and fulsomely praised in several places.

Coming off of Alfred Bester's The Computer Connection, which was a bit of a disappointment, I was appropriately skeptical. And, as it happens, rightfully so.

The stories in this collection are brilliant. I am completely serious-- these stories are collectively extremely well written satire. The writing is tight, evocative, and contains some fascinating ideas. The satire of contemporary culture--political, artistic, military, religious, judicial, and more-- is in turns (and sometimes simultaneously) incisive, biting, scathing, and amusing. But not hilarious. And in many ways, not even especially funny.

The problem with satire as humor is that by its very nature, it is humor at the expense of something. It's not just for the sake of being funny, or silly, or zany madcap hi-jinks. It's making a point, and it's making a point about the failings of someone or something. The someone or something in question may well deserve being mocked, but it is still mockery, which means that there is an element of anger involved. And I just can't quite let myself go and be that amused when witnessing someone else's anger. Douglas Adams can make me laugh, because for most of his work he was just lampooning the Universe (the creation of which was, as we all know, widely regarded as a bad move).

I also have to say that Dimension of Miracles has an extremely startlingly weak ending. To the point where I flipped back a couple of pages to make sure I hadn't missed anything. It builds up to a climax, and then... just sort of stops. No lesson, no moral, no resolution, just... ends. I kind of wanted to paste the ending of the previous novel (Mindswap, which had a very similar feel and explored similar concepts) onto this one just to get some resolution.

[Gela Tevzadze · Rating 4 out of 5]

This edition contains five novels by Sheckley, I am familiar with (or, at least, remember most clearly) one of them: "Mindswap". Another similarly impressive novel by the same author is "Four in One". Both challenge their readers with an amazing display of boundless imagination. I am quite sure the other four novels in the present edition are equally astounding.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic speculative fiction, with plenty of humor in the mix. If you are a fan of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you will probably enjoy the works of Robert Sheckley.

[Nicklas von · Rating 4 out of 5]

END - MINOTAUR MAZE ****