“Most of Seakirk’s inhabitants were indifferent to the spectacle of corruption in high places and low, the gambling, the gang wars, the teen-age drinking. They were used to the sight of their roads crumbling, their ancient water mains bursting, their power plants breaking down, their decrepit old buildings falling apart, while the bosses built bigger homes, longer swimming pools and warmer stables. People were used to it…”

Robert Sheckley, A Ticket To Tranai

First appeared in Galaxy Magazine, 1957/7.

A part of Notions: Unlimited collection of science fiction short stories by Robert Sheckley. It was first published in 1960 by Bantam Books.

This time the humans are taking the offensive! Stan Myakovsky is a once-famous scientist fallen on hard times. Now he dodges spaceship repo men and dreams of the marketability of his cybernetic ant. Then a woman named Julie Lish walks into his life. She is beautiful, mysterious, and totally amoral. She is also skilled in the arts of thievery and Oriental self-defense. What's more, she has a plan so outrageous there might be one chance in a million to pull it off.

Together Stan and Julie become the most unlikely pair of pirates in the universe. With a hijacked spaceship and a crew of hardcase misfits, they’re searching for the ultimate pot of gold at the end of a bloody intergalactic rainbow: royal jelly from an alien hive. The only problem is that the fortune lies on the universe’s most godforsaken planet. And once they get their hands on it, they’ll have to fight their way past the aliens to get off the planet alive.

It's well established now that the way you put a question often determines not only the answer you'll get, but the type of answer possible. So ... a mechanical answerer, geared to produce the ultimate revelations in reference to anything you want to know, might have unsuspected limitations.

A man looking for psychotherapy is accidentally sold a Martian therapeutic machine — with unexpected consequences.

First published in Galaxy 1956/7

The story was published in 1957 by Bantam Books as a part of the Pilgrimage to Earth collection of science fiction short stories by Robert Sheckley.

When people talk about getting away from it all, they are usually thinking about our great open spaces out west. But to science fiction writers, that would be practically in the heart of Times Square. When a man of the future wants solitude he picks a slab of rock floating in space four light years east of Andromeda. Here is a gentle little story about a man who sought the solitude of such a location. And who did he take along for company? None other than Charles the Robot.