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Notions: Unlimited
Human beings wired for spontaneous romance... machines intercepting murderers before they kill... an organization that makes hangover nightmares come true... a killer organism that feeds on atom bombs and thrives on being blown up from time to time! Unlimited, a fantastic exploration into the galaxies of probability.
Gray Flannel Armor
The Leech
Watchbird
A Wind is Rising
Morning After
The Native Problem
Feeding Time
Paradise II
Double Indemnity
Holdout
Dawn Invader
The Language of Love
Gray Flannel Armor
The Leech
Watchbird
A Wind is Rising
Morning After
The Native Problem
Feeding Time
Paradise II
Double Indemnity
Holdout
Dawn Invader
The Language of Love
170 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
14 people are currently reading
146 people want to read
About the author
Robert Sheckley
1,395 books669 followersOne 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.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 2, 2024
This 1960 book was Sheckley's fourth collection of science fiction short stories. They were first published 1952- '57, all but four of them in H. L. Gold's Galaxy magazine. One is from Fantasy magazine, a couple from F & SF, and one from an August Derleth original anthology. Sheckley was one of the most prolific writers in the field in the 1950s and is notable because his work was consistently entertaining and usually amusing, while at the same time thought-provoking. He was a master of satire and made dark points about human nature. I think of him as a happy Barry Malzberg. This book contains two of my all-time favorites, The Language of Love and Gray Flannel Armor.
June 28, 2012
not really sure how i made it this far without ever reading any sheckley before. happened upon a fancy new NYRB collection of his stories in a bookstore last week (Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley) and picked it up (judging it purely by its spooky purple cover) and read the first story and laughed all the way through it. then i read the second story and laughed all the way through it. then i had to go and i didn't buy the book because there was a long line but then i found this older collection in another bookstore the next day for $2 so i bought it and laughed all the way through it. it's not that these stories are hilarious, exactly, it's just that they're really fun and smart and fast-moving and all the boring parts are cut out and every story just has a brilliant classic SF premise that makes you go, OH, WHAT A GREAT IDEA! I HOPE HE PULLS IT OFF! OH LOOK HE PULLED IT OFF! you get the feeling that he probably wrote about 70 stories a week, and maybe didn't edit them a whole helluva lot, but it's okay because they're all just a huge amount of fun. people seem to talk about sheckley as a precursor to douglas adams, and i can see that, but he's not as spastic as adams (who i love, don't get me wrong), and has a darker, less sarcastic, more ironic (and humane?) worldview. he contains multitudes whereas adams just invents them, if that makes any sense. in any case, i really just enjoyed the hell out of this book and will now read every story sheckley ever wrote.
March 7, 2016
Necesitamos más humor, señores. No sólo en la literatura, sino en nuestras vidas. Bajo una máscara de humor absurdo, los relatos de 'Paraíso II' describen algo que se parece demasiado a nuestra propia vida. A pesar de suceder en un planeta lejano, o de que aparezca algún animal mitológico, o de que...
Así que léanla, y conocerán mejor los desiertos por los que transcurren sus propias vidas ;)
Así que léanla, y conocerán mejor los desiertos por los que transcurren sus propias vidas ;)
January 3, 2020
Some gems of an early delightful Sheckley for you!
June 17, 2020
ENGLISH: Twelve stories by Robert Sheckley. I liked best "The native problem," but there are several others, also quite good, where Sheckley directs his ironical look on the future, which he usually describes by extrapolationg bad things he sees in his society, some of which are dangerously near to our present society.
Sheckley's heroes are usually persons misadjusted to live in those dystopical future societies, who are transplanted to another planetary environment (sometimes completely alone) and manage to overcome their own flaws there.
SPANISH: Doce historias de Robert Sheckley. La que más me gustó fue "El problema de los nativos", pero hay otras, también bastante buenas, en las que Sheckley dirige su mirada irónica hacia el futuro, que usualmente describe extrapolando cosas malas que ve en su propia sociedad, algunas de las cuales son peligrosamente cercanas a nuestra sociedad actual.
Los héroes de Sheckley suelen ser personas mal adaptadas para la vida en esas sociedades distópicas del futuro, que se trasplantan a otro entorno planetario (a veces en soledad absoluta) y logran superar allí sus defectos.
Sheckley's heroes are usually persons misadjusted to live in those dystopical future societies, who are transplanted to another planetary environment (sometimes completely alone) and manage to overcome their own flaws there.
SPANISH: Doce historias de Robert Sheckley. La que más me gustó fue "El problema de los nativos", pero hay otras, también bastante buenas, en las que Sheckley dirige su mirada irónica hacia el futuro, que usualmente describe extrapolando cosas malas que ve en su propia sociedad, algunas de las cuales son peligrosamente cercanas a nuestra sociedad actual.
Los héroes de Sheckley suelen ser personas mal adaptadas para la vida en esas sociedades distópicas del futuro, que se trasplantan a otro entorno planetario (a veces en soledad absoluta) y logran superar allí sus defectos.
May 8, 2020
Una colección de relatos de hace seis décadas con temas muy actuales: personas que buscan a su pareja perfecta mediante el equivalente de la época de nuestro Tinder; otras incapaces de expresar sus sentimientos y, cuando lo aprenden mediante un cursillo, estropean las situaciones (¡el autor estuvo casado cinco veces!); microorganismos que terminan con la vida sobre la faz de la Tierra debido a la idiocia humana... ¡Era un visionario! Por cierto que su estilo me resulta similar al de Kurt Vonnegut Jr., que también lo era.
Destaca la prolijidad en la producción de relatos que experimentan con diferentes sabores de racismo y xenofobia, desde los malentendidos entre personas que creen que el de enfrente pertenece a otro grupo humano sin ser cierto como los que explotan el odio contra la propia facción mientras se tiene en alta estima a las personas de otras razas. No son sesudos estudios antropológicos, pero apuntan en direcciones interesantes.
Destaca la prolijidad en la producción de relatos que experimentan con diferentes sabores de racismo y xenofobia, desde los malentendidos entre personas que creen que el de enfrente pertenece a otro grupo humano sin ser cierto como los que explotan el odio contra la propia facción mientras se tiene en alta estima a las personas de otras razas. No son sesudos estudios antropológicos, pero apuntan en direcciones interesantes.
January 14, 2025
More clever stories by that most clever of writers, Robert Sheckley. Bright, imaginative, satirical and insightful, these tales would’ve made great EC Comics or Twilight Zone episodes.
This edition’s cover is a random crop from Heinrich Kley.
This edition’s cover is a random crop from Heinrich Kley.
September 27, 2023
12 stories:
Gray Flannel Armor (1957)
The Leech (1952)
Watchbird (1953)
A Wind Is Rising (1957)
Morning After (1957)
The Native Problem (1956)
Feeding Time (1953)
Paradise II (1954)
Double Indemnity (1957)
Holdout (1957)
Dawn Invader (1957)
The Language of Love (1957)
Sheckley's 4th original story collection (I think). His first, "Untouched by Human Hands", recently republished in the Penguin sf series is one of my favorites and this is nearly as good.
Gray Flannel Armor (1957)
The Leech (1952)
Watchbird (1953)
A Wind Is Rising (1957)
Morning After (1957)
The Native Problem (1956)
Feeding Time (1953)
Paradise II (1954)
Double Indemnity (1957)
Holdout (1957)
Dawn Invader (1957)
The Language of Love (1957)
Sheckley's 4th original story collection (I think). His first, "Untouched by Human Hands", recently republished in the Penguin sf series is one of my favorites and this is nearly as good.
July 14, 2025
Ah Robert Sheckley. Every time I blitz my way through one of his short story collections, I sit there chuckling like an idiot, while feeling like I've just been shown something profound. I'm also struck each time that there really don't seem to be many doing what he's doing. I'm also left with the thought that the typical Sheckley story is exactly like the kind of story I try to write. (Tighter, better, more accomplished, and from a different era. But eerily so.)
So what is it he's doing? His stories have everyman protagonists who have everyman desires - to be loved, to be left alone, to impress the boss, or just through the day. They get caught up in forces well beyond their control - economic, technological, imperial, or an unkillable alien from space. Where they meet - there's absurdist comedy gold.
What if that spark of true love, to take an example from one of my favourite stories, the spontaneous moment under the moonlight were to be commoditised by corporations? That desire - to be loved - is perhaps the most human of all. That sincere core - a wish to cherish the simple, unvarnished human being - is something a lot of these stories have. In the absurdity of its encounter with those vast forces, we laugh, and we empathise.
All that is me introspecting after the fact because that is not the *experience* of reading these stories. (Don't be put off.) With his spare prose, sprinkled with witty lines and rollicking twists, they're just plain enjoyable. They zoom at pace, and you're swept up, and you're chuckling along. Twenty three seconds later, when you're done and you've put the book down, is when you realise that you've learnt something about what it is to be human.
So what is it he's doing? His stories have everyman protagonists who have everyman desires - to be loved, to be left alone, to impress the boss, or just through the day. They get caught up in forces well beyond their control - economic, technological, imperial, or an unkillable alien from space. Where they meet - there's absurdist comedy gold.
What if that spark of true love, to take an example from one of my favourite stories, the spontaneous moment under the moonlight were to be commoditised by corporations? That desire - to be loved - is perhaps the most human of all. That sincere core - a wish to cherish the simple, unvarnished human being - is something a lot of these stories have. In the absurdity of its encounter with those vast forces, we laugh, and we empathise.
All that is me introspecting after the fact because that is not the *experience* of reading these stories. (Don't be put off.) With his spare prose, sprinkled with witty lines and rollicking twists, they're just plain enjoyable. They zoom at pace, and you're swept up, and you're chuckling along. Twenty three seconds later, when you're done and you've put the book down, is when you realise that you've learnt something about what it is to be human.
April 10, 2019
A shorter Sheckley collection, but very very good. If you haven't seen my comments on his stories elsewhere, Robert Sheckley was a rock-solid sf writer in the Fifties and onward whose main characteristics are being sharp-witted, satirical, and even hilarious in his stories. Sharp-witted prediction (of a sort) is prominent in two of the selections here.
"Gray Flannel Armor," while rather Fifties in the details ("gray flannel"!), slam-dunks the feeling of Big Tech taking over intimate details of human life. Dating, for example...!
"Watchbird" is a bit over the top, but still, it's basically "what if we gave UAVs *fully* autonomous artificial intelligence and directed them to 'stop murder'?"
"The Leech" is a more straightforward story of first contact and human hubris.
"Double Indemnity" is a clever premise but if you know time-travel stories you already have good odds on predicting the ending.
Overall another solid collection with a few gems. 3.5 stars rounded up because <3 Sheckley.
"Gray Flannel Armor," while rather Fifties in the details ("gray flannel"!), slam-dunks the feeling of Big Tech taking over intimate details of human life. Dating, for example...!
"Watchbird" is a bit over the top, but still, it's basically "what if we gave UAVs *fully* autonomous artificial intelligence and directed them to 'stop murder'?"
"The Leech" is a more straightforward story of first contact and human hubris.
"Double Indemnity" is a clever premise but if you know time-travel stories you already have good odds on predicting the ending.
Overall another solid collection with a few gems. 3.5 stars rounded up because <3 Sheckley.
April 6, 2023
Notions: Unlimited is a book comprised of 12 short stories Robert Sheckley wrote in the 1950’s. For the most part, the stories are quite enjoyable. Robert Sheckley’s writing is absurd, comedic and surprising progressive considering the time these stories were written.
My favorite stories in the book were: The Leech, The Native Problem, Double Indemnity, Holdout and The Language of Love.
I look forward to trying more Sheckley in the future. He very well may be a gem, long forgotten.
6.5/10
My favorite stories in the book were: The Leech, The Native Problem, Double Indemnity, Holdout and The Language of Love.
I look forward to trying more Sheckley in the future. He very well may be a gem, long forgotten.
6.5/10
April 12, 2022
3,5
Que han envejecido de manera desigual. Tanto la época como el autor premiaban los relatos con un giro final sorpresivo, o estar basados en una idea que articula todo alrededor.
https://liblit.com/robert-sheckley-pa...
Que han envejecido de manera desigual. Tanto la época como el autor premiaban los relatos con un giro final sorpresivo, o estar basados en una idea que articula todo alrededor.
https://liblit.com/robert-sheckley-pa...
January 10, 2021
Includes some of his best stories: wry, sinister, ironic.
May 26, 2022
Another funny and thought provoking set of short stories. Great stuff!
April 28, 2024
It took me ~45 years to track this book down again, only to find that it takes a little more to amaze me these days.
5/10
5/10
March 2, 2025
Sheckley fue un gran cuentista, siempre sorprende.
Mi favorito: "Problemas con los nativos".
Mi favorito: "Problemas con los nativos".
May 15, 2024
Another great collection from one of the masters of humorous science fiction and fantasy, comprising tales published chiefly in the 1950s, including some of Sheckley's all-time classics such as 'Gray Flannel Armor', 'The Leech', 'A Wind is Rising' and 'The Native Problem'. Highly recommended.
September 9, 2022
A TIER BELOW THE BEST OF THE GENRE...
...but Robert Sheckley's Notions:Unlimited, with its humor, plain language, and tongue-in-cheek ribbing of common human follies, is a good introduction to scifi for those not really interested in scifi.
***
Notions:Unlimited is a 1960s anthology of 12 short stories about common themes in scifi (time travel, encounters with extraterrestrials, artificial intelligence) but also includes imaginative stories on mythology, racism, and the pitfalls of overthinking.
While Sheckley's scifi seems to me naive, almost childish, compared to the best of the genre (such as Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life or Carl Sagan's Contact), I still found this anthology endearing because it doesn't take itself too seriously.
My favorite story in this collection, and perhaps the most illustrative of Sheckley's humor, is "Double Indemnity," a story about time travel...and how to take advantage of loopholes in insurance contracts.
All told, while the cover promises "an eerie excursion into fantastic adventures," expect instead a funny foray into what scifi can be if it were also a perfectly satisfactory bedtime read.
...but Robert Sheckley's Notions:Unlimited, with its humor, plain language, and tongue-in-cheek ribbing of common human follies, is a good introduction to scifi for those not really interested in scifi.
***
Notions:Unlimited is a 1960s anthology of 12 short stories about common themes in scifi (time travel, encounters with extraterrestrials, artificial intelligence) but also includes imaginative stories on mythology, racism, and the pitfalls of overthinking.
While Sheckley's scifi seems to me naive, almost childish, compared to the best of the genre (such as Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life or Carl Sagan's Contact), I still found this anthology endearing because it doesn't take itself too seriously.
My favorite story in this collection, and perhaps the most illustrative of Sheckley's humor, is "Double Indemnity," a story about time travel...and how to take advantage of loopholes in insurance contracts.
All told, while the cover promises "an eerie excursion into fantastic adventures," expect instead a funny foray into what scifi can be if it were also a perfectly satisfactory bedtime read.
May 1, 2022
Возвращение к форме. Шекли поймал волну, весело катится по ней и развлекает нас по дороге. Особенно удачно вышли рассказы про отношения.
1. Рыцарь в серой фланели / Gray Flannel Armor (1957) - 5
2. Пиявка / The Leech (1952) - 4,5-5
3. Страж-птица / Watchbird (1953) - 3
4. Поднимается ветер / A Wind is Rising (1957) - 3,5
6. Похмелье / Morning After (1957) - 4,5
8. Проблема туземцев / The Native Problem (1956) - 3
10. Регулярность кормления / Feeding Time [= Чем питается грифон?] (1953) - 2
11. Второй рай / Paradise II [= Парадиз II; Рай-2] (1954) - 2,5
12. Раздвоение личности / Double Indemnity [= Двойная выплата] (1957) - 2,5
14. Зацепка / Holdout [= Загвоздка] (1957) - 3
15. Вторжение на рассвете / Dawn Invader (1957) - 3
16. Язык любви / The Language of Love [= Любовный язык] (1957) - 3,5
Я прочитал эту книгу для обсуждения на подкасте про научную фантастику «Худо Не Было». Послушать можно тут: https://share.transistor.fm/s/6c0875c6
1. Рыцарь в серой фланели / Gray Flannel Armor (1957) - 5
2. Пиявка / The Leech (1952) - 4,5-5
3. Страж-птица / Watchbird (1953) - 3
4. Поднимается ветер / A Wind is Rising (1957) - 3,5
6. Похмелье / Morning After (1957) - 4,5
8. Проблема туземцев / The Native Problem (1956) - 3
10. Регулярность кормления / Feeding Time [= Чем питается грифон?] (1953) - 2
11. Второй рай / Paradise II [= Парадиз II; Рай-2] (1954) - 2,5
12. Раздвоение личности / Double Indemnity [= Двойная выплата] (1957) - 2,5
14. Зацепка / Holdout [= Загвоздка] (1957) - 3
15. Вторжение на рассвете / Dawn Invader (1957) - 3
16. Язык любви / The Language of Love [= Любовный язык] (1957) - 3,5
Я прочитал эту книгу для обсуждения на подкасте про научную фантастику «Худо Не Было». Послушать можно тут: https://share.transistor.fm/s/6c0875c6
October 28, 2023
A good science fiction collection of Robert Sheckley, one of my favorite science fiction writers. I liked most of the stories but not all of them. The story "The leech" was the most freightening story and one of the most interesting.
May 13, 2013
Listened to "Morning After".
Read
January 14, 2017Short Stories. Love Robert Sheckley, very down to Earth....
April 1, 2017
This is my fifth or sixth collection of Sheckley short stories. And quite by accident they keep getting better. Sheckley was apparently boundless. His 1950-60’s imagination went in all directions. Some of the stories are really short: like ‘The Care and Feeding of Your Griffin” which is four pages—and one of the best in the collection so far. I think I have said this before—but, if you loved the ‘Twilight Zone,’ ‘Outer Limits’ and ‘One Step Beyond,’ you will feast on these stories.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews