Robert Sheckley

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Robert Sheckley

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16 Quotations from Robert Sheckley

android n. 1983 R. Sheckley Dramocles (1984) 11 At last he came to a momentous decision and called for his psychiatric android.
artificial gravity n. 1954 R. Sheckley in Galaxy Sept. 126/1 ‘I'm looking it up right now. Hmm… you didn’t produce artificial gravity, did you?’ ‘Of course. To let the Queels feed.’ ‘Shouldn’t have done that… Queels are light-gravity creatures… When they're subjected to an unusual—for them—gravity, they shrink down to microscopic size, lose consciousness and die.’ ‘But you told me to produce artificial gravity.’
earthman n. 1983 R. Sheckley Dramocles (1984) 18 He had even grown used to the computer’s disparaging remarks about some forgotten Earthman named Sir Isaac Newton.
escape ship n. 1953 R. Sheckley Potential in Portals of Tomorrow 144 Against that background he had been selected to man the escape ship.
esp v. 1955 R. Sheckley Lifeboat Mutiny in Galaxy Science Fiction Apr. 63/2 ‘I am Lifeboat 324-A,’ the boat esped again.
intergalactically adv. 1973 R. Sheckley Welcome to the Standard Nightmare in H. Harrison Nova 3 4 It’s nice to have intelligent neighbors, speaking intergalactically, but it’s not nice if those neighbors are a great deal smarter than you are, and maybe quicker and stronger and more aggressive, too.
nova n. 1966 R. Sheckley Mindswap 56 Then I'll translate the pertinent clauses for you, as required by law. Let’s see…standard stuff about the Company not being responsible for fire, earthquake, atomic warfare, sun going nova, acts of god or gods, and so forth.
omniverse n. 1983 R. Sheckley Dramocles (1984) 138 In the totality of the universes, the omniverse, every possibility on every level, whether subatomic, molecular, or psychic, generates its own worlds of possibility, its own universe, its own particular reality stratum.
outworlder n. 1954 R. Sheckley Milk Run in Galaxy Sept. 120/2 Their visitor was an outworlder, to judge by his stocky frame, small head and pale green skin.
skin job n. 1 1958 R. Sheckley Time Killer in Galaxy Nov. 108/1 Man I know, his dead mother-in-law tracked him down through three aliases, a Transplant and a complete skin job.
space fleet n. 1983 R. Sheckley Dramocles (1984) 123 Two spacefleets were coming together in the immensity of space.
stasis field n. 1955 R. Sheckley in Galaxy Science Fiction Oct. 15/2 Goodman knew that Mrs. Melith had come out of a derrsin stasis field; he had recognized the characteristic blue haze. The derrsin was used on Terra, too. Sometimes there were good medical reasons for suspending all activity, all growth, all decay. Suppose a patient had a desperate need for a certain serum, procurable only on Mars. Simply project the person into stasis until the serum could arrive.
teleport v. 1 1979 R. Sheckley I Can Teleport Myself to Anywhere in M. Jakubowksi Twenty Houses of Zodiac 75 I can teleport myself to anywhere in the universe. This may seem an enviable ability to those who do not possess it, but I can assure you that it raises more difficulties than it solves. I found this out recently when I decided to make my first real journey as a teleporter. The latent ability had developed in me only a year before that, and I had used it at first rather timidly, and mainly in my own apartment, popping in and out of rooms and scaring my cat so badly that she took off and has never come back.
teleporter n. 1 1979 R. Sheckley I can teleport Myself to Anywhere in M. Jakubowksi Twenty Houses of Zodiac 75 I can teleport myself to anywhere in the universe. This may seem an enviable ability to those who do not possess it, but I can assure you that it raises more difficulties than it solves. I found this out recently when I decided to make my first real journey as a teleporter. The latent ability had developed in me only a year before that, and I had used it at first rather timidly, and mainly in my own apartment, popping in and out of rooms and scaring my cat so badly that she took off and has never come back.
temporal paradox n. 1954 R. Sheckley Thief in Time in Galaxy Science Fiction July 13/1 He went on to the so-called time paradoxes—killing one’s great-great grandfather, meeting oneself, and the like…. Alfredex went on to explain that all temporal paradoxes were the inventions of authors with a gift for confusion.
time warp n. 1966 R. Sheckley Mindswap 132 ‘I stepped into a time warp on the twelfth hole,’ Uncle Max said.