A vintage paperback, collecting ten stories (in the UK edition) from the early to mid-1950s. Indeed, reading a slender A-format paperback (only 125 pages) was a pleasure in itself when compared with the somewhat inflated B-format books now so commonplace. I read through this in three sittings in the course of one day.

Sheckley was a master of the short form; I visualised some of these stories as Twilight Zone episodes, and indeed The Altar almost played itself out for me in black-and-white! Cost of Living has a timely warning on consumer debt.

A couple of the stories betray their age in their attitudes to women, but even then Sheckley undermines even a modern reader's expectations by giving female characters agency in sometimes surprising ways.

The title story is a classic where two spaceship pilots running short of supplies find themselves stranded in an alien warehouse full of food they cannot eat, with labels like "VIGROOM - FILLS ALL YOUR STOMACHS AND FILLS THEM RIGHT!" and "VORMITASH - AS GOOD AS IT SOUNDS!".

Perhaps the stand-out story for me was Watchbird, where robot birds are deployed to predict murderous intent and prevent the crimes happening (a theme familiar from the "Precrime" in Philip Dick's 1956 novella - and [much] later film - Minority Report). But the robot birds have "learning circuits" and begin to learn human behaviour too well. This story could be almost contemporary - change some of the vocabulary to include the words "AI", "algorithm" and "drone", and a modern reader wouldn't turn a hair.

The collection ends with another classic, The Seventh Victim.

Many of the best of these stories have been reprinted since in other collections. but this is worth acquiring if you see a copy. And frankly, any Robert Sheckley is worth acquiring. ( )

Good short story collection. This is where Sheckley excels. ( )

Really fun and imaginative stories each exploring a different aspect of human nature. And a little bonus- blatantly where King got his idea for The Running Man from. ( )

Very readable classic sci-fi, structured in the Twilight Zone tradition. Often funny, always concise. ( )

Some of the best speculative fiction I have ever read. This is what it should be about. Philosophically grounded in real-world issues, doesn't take itself too seriously or try to be a boring sage of the future, alternative POVs in a fun and engaging manner. Ultimately this is a humanist book, such a relief from neo-fascist drek that makes up so much of this genre particularly from this period. Sheckley himself said that he was in effect writing "a commentary on science fiction", in other words anti-science fiction and that's what makes it so great, sets it above. Sheckley deals with issue of post-colonialism quite well, turning the tables on the colonizer and colonized. Also the condition of modernity, "Cost of Living" it's even more relevant today in this age of eternal debt. The last story, "Beside Still Waters", is beautiful. ( )