Is That What People Do?: Stories

A collection of thirty-nine short science fiction stories by Robert Sheckley. Twenty-six stories are drawn from his ten other Open Road collections, while thirteen additional pieces appear here for the first time. The volume includes well-known works such as "The Eye of Reality," "The Language of Love," "The Accountant," "A Wind Is Rising," "The Robot Who Looked Like Me," "The Mnemone," "Warm," "The Native Problem," "Fishing Season," "Shape," "Beside Still Waters," "Silversmith Wishes," "Meanwhile, Back at the Bromide," "Fool's Mate," "Pilgrimage to Earth," "All the Things You Are," "The Store of the Worlds," "Seventh Victim," "Cordle to Onion to Carrot," "Is That What People Do?," "The Prize of Peril," "Fear in the Night," "Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?," "The Battle," "The Monsters," and "The Petrified World." Also included are previously uncollected stories: "Five Minutes Early," "Miss Mouse and the Fourth Dimension," "The Skag Castle," "The Helping Hand," "The Last Days of (Parallel?) Earth," "The Future Lost," "Wild Talents, Inc.," "The Swamp," "The Future of Sex: Speculative Journalism," "The Life of Anybody," "Goodbye Forever to Mr. Pain," "The Shaggy Average American Man Story," "Shootout in the Toy Shop," and "How Pro Writers Really Write—or Try To." Sheckley has been recognized throughout his career as a master storyteller and satirist in science fiction. According to the New York Times, he was "a precursor to Douglas Adams."