Author | Robert Sheckley |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Ballantine Books |
Publication date | 1954 |
Media type | print (paperback) |
Pages | 169 |
ISBN | 978-1-345-00437-3 |
Followed by | Citizen in Space |
Untouched by Human Hands is a collection of science fiction short stories by American writer Robert Sheckley. It was first published in 1954 simultaneously by Ballantine Books (catalogue number 73), both in hardback and paperback.
The collection includes the following stories (magazines in which the stories originally appeared given in parentheses):
Critic Groff Conklin reviewed the collection for Galaxy Science Fiction in 1954; although generally favorable, the review claimed that Sheckley was "still trying to discover his own particular bent" and that he "hasn't quite found his footing." [1] Sheckley himself, according to a 1980 interview, was aware of the extreme stylistic diversity of the collection and the fact that some stories were not science fiction in the usual sense of the word:
I felt I wasn't really writing science fiction. I was in some way writing a commentary on science fiction, and this sometimes made me feel, a little sadly, that I was not really into it. [2]
Writing in The New York Times , Villiers Gerson wrote that Sheckley was "a writer not quite like any other [whose] forte is his own brand of strange and wonderful humor." [3] Boucher and McComas found it "as brightly individual and entrancing a group of science-fantasies as we've seen in some time." [4] P. Schuyler Miller compared Sheckley to Ray Bradbury, citing his "fresh point of view", his "wry distortions of the familiar", and his "touch of the same poetry." [5] Science fiction historian Michael Ashley, in his 2005 volume on the history of science fiction magazines, praised Sheckley's early work, including "Untouched by Human Hands", for the "sheer lack of sophistication—his ability to run circles around the establishment. [...] Sheckley's work highlights the fact that man's worst enemy is himself." [6]
The collection was reprinted several times by different publishers. In 1965 the story "Seventh Victim" was adapted into The 10th Victim , an Italian film starring Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress, also known as La decima vittima. Sheckley wrote a novelization of the film in 1966 (The Tenth Victim), and, in late 1980s, two more novels set in the same world.
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made Galaxy the leading science fiction magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology.
Edward Groff Conklin was an American science fiction anthologist. He edited 40 anthologies of science fiction, one of mystery stories, wrote books on home improvement and was a freelance writer on scientific subjects as well as a published poet. From 1950 to 1955, he was the book critic for Galaxy Science Fiction.
Robert Sheckley was an American writer. First published in the science-fiction magazines of the 1950s, his many quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist, and broadly comical.
Expedition to Earth (ISBN 0-7221-2423-6) is a collection of science fiction short stories by English writer Arthur C. Clarke.
The Body Snatchers is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Finney, originally serialized in Collier's magazine in November–December 1954 and published in book form the following year.
Tales from Gavagan's Bar is a collection of fantasy short stories by American writers L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, illustrated by the latter's wife Inga Pratt. It was first published in hardcover by Twayne Publishers in 1953; an expanded edition rearranging the contents and adding pieces not in the first was published in hardcover by Owlswick Press in June 1978. The original illustrations were retained in this edition. It was subsequently issued in paperback by Bantam Books in January 1980. An e-book edition was published by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form. The collection has also been published in German.
The Tritonian Ring and Other Pusadian Tales is a 1953 collection of stories by American science fiction and fantasy author L. Sprague de Camp, first published in hardcover by Twayne Publishers. An E-book edition was published as The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian [sic] Tales by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form. The pieces were originally published between 1951 and 1953 in the magazines and anthologies Two Complete Science Adventure Books, Fantasy Fiction, Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy, and Fantastic Adventures. The title story, the novel The Tritonian Ring has also been published separately.
Shards of Space is a collection of science fiction short stories by American writer Robert Sheckley. It was first published in 1962 by Bantam Books.
The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1954 is a 1954 anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty. An abridged edition was published in the UK by Grayson in 1956 under the title The Best Science Fiction Stories: Fifth Series. The stories had originally appeared in 1953 in the magazines Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, Fantastic, Astounding and Galaxy Science Fiction.
Mutant is a 1953 collection of science fiction short stories by Lewis Padgett. It was first published by Gnome Press in 1953 in an edition of 4,000 copies. The stories all originally appeared in the magazine Astounding.
Iceworld is a science fiction novel by American writer Hal Clement. It was published in 1953 by Gnome Press in an edition of 4,000 copies. The novel was originally serialized in the magazine Astounding in 1951.
The Forgotten Planet is a science fiction novel by American writer Murray Leinster. It was released in 1954 by Gnome Press in an edition of 5,000 copies. The novel is a fix-up from three short stories, "The Mad Planet" and "The Red Dust", both of which had originally appeared in the magazine Argosy in 1920 and 1921, and "Nightmare Planet", which had been published in Science Fiction Plus in 1953.
Science Fiction Terror Tales is an anthology of science fiction horror short stories edited by Groff Conklin. It was first published in hardcover by Gnome Press in January 1955; it was reprinted, unabridged, by Pocket Books in March 1955, and reprinted again in June 1971. The first British edition was published under the alternate title Possible Tomorrows in hardcover by Sidgwick & Jackson in June 1972; a paperback edition was issued by Coronet under the same title in September 1973. It was later gathered together with the Donald A. Wollheim-edited anthology Trilogy of the Future into the omnibus anthology Science Fiction Special 9.
The Black Star Passes is a fixup of science fiction short stories by American author John W. Campbell Jr. It was first published in 1953 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 2,951 copies. The book is the first in Campbell's Arcot, Morey and Wade series, and is followed by the novels Islands of Space and Invaders from the Infinite. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Amazing Stories and Amazing Stories Quarterly, and were "extensively edited" for book publication, with Campbell's approval, by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach.
Cloak of Aesir is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer John W. Campbell, Jr. It was published in 1952 by Shasta Publishers in an edition of 5,000 copies. The stories originally appeared in the magazine Astounding SF under Campbell's pseudonym Don A. Stuart.
This article presents an incomplete list of short stories by Robert Sheckley, arranged alphabetically by title.
Angels and Spaceships is a 1954 collection of science fiction and fantasy stories by American writer Fredric Brown. It was initially published in hardcover by E. P. Dutton; a later Bantam paperback edition was retitled Star Shine.
Science Fiction Adventures in Mutation is a theme anthology of science fiction stories edited by American anthologist Groff Conklin, published in hardcover by Vanguard Press in 1955. An abridged paperback edition was issued by Berkley Books in 1965.
The Undying Fire is a science fiction novel by Fletcher Pratt. It was first published in both hardcover and paperback by Ballantine Books in 1953. The novel has also been translated into Italian. The book is an expansion of the author's novella "The Conditioned Captain," originally published in the magazine Startling Stories in the issue for May, 1953.
The Explorers is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer C. M. Kornbluth, originally published in paperback by Ballantine Books in 1954. Ballantine reissued the collection, which was Kornbluth's first, in 1963. While no further editions of the collection were published, six of its nine stories were included in Ballantine's 1977 The Best of C. M. Kornbluth, and all the stories are contained in NESFA's 1997 His Share of Glory: The Complete Short Science Fiction of C. M. Kornbluth.