Robert Sheckley has 10 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 10 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 8 ratings. The most-rated is Dimension of Miracles.
Dimension of Miracles
Summary
Audie Award Finalist, Solo Narration - Male, 2014 Award-winning author, narrator, and screenwriter Neil Gaiman personally selected this book, and, using the tools of the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), produced this work for his audiobook label, Neil Gaiman Presents. A few words from Neil on Dimension of Miracles: "Dimension of Miracles is probably not [Sheckley's] most famous book…. but I think it's probably his best-loved book. It's about the joys and tribulations (mostly the tribulations) of winning the lottery—the galactic lottery—accidentally. And wrongly. Tom Carmody is awarded a remarkable prize, is taken half way across the universe to collect it, finds himself hopelessly lost, and needs to find his way home again to Earth…to this Earth, not an alternate, weirdo Earth. He's got to get back. And the price is high. In its style of humor—and even in some of the jokes—Dimension of Miracles is very obviously a precursor of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas actually hadn't read Dimension of Miracles until very shortly after Hitchhiker came out, when people pointed him to it, and he told me that he found the experience almost shocking—it was like reading himself. He was a huge admirer of Bob Sheckley and a huge admirer of this book, and in later life, I had the privilege of introducing both of them. Now the challenge for me with a book this funny, this strange, this perceptive was to try and find a narrator who was as iconic, somebody who could deliver the goods, somebody who could give you a book like this as it deserved to be given. And the first, and the last, and actually the only person to come to mind was John Hodgman. So I asked John, and he said yes! And he did it; he pulled it off. Listening to John—not just the suave, sensible, sane narrator of this book, but all the peculiar accents and incarnations that he is forced to adopt through here—he does it delightfully, he does it brilliantly, he's really, really funny. And so is this book. Enjoy your journey through a Dimension of Miracles." Dimension of Miracles is a satirical science fiction novel first published by Dell in 1968. It's about Tom Carmody, a New Yorker who, thanks to a computer error, wins the main prize in the Intergalactic Sweepstakes. Tom claims his prize before the error is discovered and is allowed to keep it. However, since Tom is a human from Earth without galactic status and no space traveling experience, he has no homing instinct that can guide him back to Earth once his odyssey begins - and the galactic lottery organizers cannot transport him home. Meanwhile, his removal from Earth has caused a predatory entity to spring into existence - one that aims to destroy him. Carmody is on the run, and he ends up transporting from Earth to Earth - different phases and realities of the planet.
©1968 Robert Sheckley (P)2013 Robert Sheckley
Mindswap
Summary
Interstellar travel to alien worlds is too expensive for Marvin, a college student in need of a good vacation. And so he signs up for what he can afford: a mind swap, in which his consciousness is swapped into the body of an alien life-form. Unfortunately, Marvin finds himself in the body of an interstellar criminal—a body that he has to vacate, fast. But that criminal consciousness has stolen Marvin’s earthly body. Now Marvin has to find a body on the black market just to stay alive! Travel with Marvin from world to world, each one crazier than the last, as he keeps finding far-from-ideal bodies in awful situations.
©1966 Robert Sheckley (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Crompton Divided
Summary
From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. E-Reads is proud to re-publish his acclaimed body of work, with nearly thirty volumes of full-length fiction and short story collections, all with striking new covers. Rediscover - or discover for the first time - a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times, was "a precursor to Douglas Adams." Crompton Divided was also published in the UK under the title The Alchemical Marriage Of Alistair Crompton. Alastair Crompton skilled nosologist at Psychosmell, Inc. sniffs out something he's been missing his whole life - his other selves. His disturbed psyche was divided into three parts and the other parts were implanted in other bodies on other planets. His obsession to re-unite himself leads to disturbing discovers about the underpinnings of the society he lives in, personal conflicts, a vastly destructive war and a shocking ultimate revelation. The master of SF madness operates at the top of his form."
©1978 Robert Sheckley (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Hunter/Victim
Summary
From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. E-Reads is proud to re-publish his acclaimed body of work, with nearly 30 volumes of full-length fiction and short story collections, all with striking new covers. Rediscover - or discover for the first time - a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times, was "a precursor to Douglas Adams". Take a look at a dark, deadly future where the game is hunting and the results are killing - human to human - with status, money, power, and sex as the prizes. The operation runs underground and Frank Blackwell is a new recruit who is destined to change the game and turn it into legitimate popular entertainment for the masses.
©1987 Robert Sheckley (P)2014 Audible Inc.
The Journey of Joenes
Summary
From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. Rediscover - or discover for the first time - a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times, was "a precursor to Douglas Adams". The Journey of Joenes, also published as Journey Beyond Tomorrow, tells the tale of a picaresque journey through an imagined future taken by a naive and innocent man unprepared for the wonders and oddities he encounters. Sheckley examines the present through the distorting lens of a future wonderfully skewed from and yet darkly, hilariously, similar to our own world. "I have always loved Robert Sheckley... I don't know of anyone else in SF who has written quite so many classic stories... wittier than Pohl... blacker than Lenny Bruce, subtler and more bent that the Firesigns and Monty Python put together... The key words with Sheckley are clever, deadly cool, and crazy as a bedbug." —Spider Robinson
©1962 Robert Sheckley (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Untouched by Human Hands
Summary
Untouched by Human Hands consists of 13 stories of beings who dwell on the strange borders of reality. Some of these stories tell of people you know or of events that might happen - but haven't yet. Some will take you to the furthermost reaches of the sky and to planets whose names are unknown this side of Arcturus. And some - perhaps the richest and most memorable of these stories - open into the interior of strange minds to reveal the reflection of ourselves. This classic collection consists of the following short stories: "The Monsters" "Cost of Living" "The Altar" "Shape" "The Impacted Man" "Untouched by Human Hands" "The King's Wishes" "Warm" "The Demons" "Specialist" "Seventh Victim" "Ritual" "Beside Still Waters"
©2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc., and Skyboat Media, Inc. (P)1954 Robert Sheckley
The Game of X
Summary
From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. Rediscover - or discover for the first time - a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times, was "a precursor to Douglas Adams". All secret agents need to look out for William Nye, now known as Agent X. His recruitment was simple and his legend is brilliant but un-earned. Somehow, he thinks he's the best there is and we all know how pride goeth before a fall. The master of SF hilarity and biting social satire creates a spy world that has gathered praise from the greats of the genre.
©1965 Robert Sheckley (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Victim Prime
Summary
From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. E-Reads is proud to re-publish his acclaimed body of work, with nearly 30 volumes of full-length fiction and short story collections, all with striking new covers. Rediscover - or discover for the first time - a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times, was "a precursor to Douglas Adams". In 2092, the world's ecology is in ruins, drought and famine are widespread and survival is a never-ending challenge. Harold Erdman leaves his dying community with one goal, to make his way to Esmeralda, an island paradise run by the Huntworld Corporation which has turned public murder, among willing competitors, into a thriving and lucrative business. Can he survive the journey and then the many rounds of deadly competition on his way to the Big Payoff. His neighbors lives, as well as his own, hang in the balance. Hilarious, savagely funny, and imaginative - this is Sheckley at his best!
©1987 Robert Sheckley (P)2014 Audible Inc.
The 10th Victim
Summary
From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. E-Reads is proud to re-publish his acclaimed body of work, with nearly 30 volumes of full-length fiction and short story collections, all with striking new covers. Rediscover - or discover for the first time - a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times, was "a precursor to Douglas Adams". It's the 21st Century and the ugliness of war no longer exists, except on a very personal level. Nowadays, people like Marcello Polletti, seller of Roman sunsets, and Caroline Meredith, lithe, beautiful, blonde, and backed by corporate sponsors and the Roy Bell Dancers, hunt, chase, and kill each other for sport and for the entertainment of the masses - until something oddly like personal human feelings pops up to confuse the players and up the stakes...as each of them seeks to kill their 10th victim and rise in the ranks of the hunters.
©1965 Robert Sheckley (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Immortality, Inc.
Summary
Want to be immortal? You can be in AD 2110. Just go to the Hereafter Insurance Corporation and hook yourself up to the Machine. There’s nothing to fear. That is, if it happens to be working right, and if nobody slips another mind into your body when you’re not looking, and if you’re not on a poltergeist hatelist… First published in 1959 as a startling, revolutionary novel of the future—then pushed to new cinematic limits as the feature film adaptation Freejack in 1992—Robert Sheckley’s unsettling vision of tomorrow is a trenchantly witty novel of a future where everything has improved except the bumbling human race, which just can’t let itself enjoy a good thing when it finally gets it. Thomas Blaine awoke in a white bed in a white room and heard someone say, “He’s alive now.” Then they asked him his name, age, and marital status. Yes, that seemed normal enough—but what was this talk about “death trauma”? Thus was Thomas Blaine introduced to the year 2110, when science had discovered the technique of transferring a man’s consciousness from one body to another, when a man’s mind could be snatched from the past, as his body was at the point of death, and brought forward into a “host body” in this fantastic future world. But that was only a small part of it, for the future had proved the reality of life after death and discovered worlds beyond or simultaneous with our own—worlds where, through scientific techniques, a man could live again, in another body, when he died here—and had in the process established the reality of ghosts, poltergeists, and zombies. What did it all mean? How had this discovery of what they called the “hereafter” shaped the world of 2110? Thomas Blaine found himself living in a future where the discoveries and techniques imagined by people of his time, though realized, were completely overwhelmed by discoveries no one had ever dreamed of.
©1959 Robert Sheckley (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.