Robert Sheckley Was the Master of Dark, Funny Sci-Fi

Robert Sheckley, author of classic stories such as "Is That What People Do?" and "Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?," was one of the top sci-fi authors of the 1950s. Humor writer Tom Gerencer corresponded with Sheckley regularly for nearly a decade. "He was so open to talking to me, this nobody who just liked him, and answering my questions about writing, and about his work," Gerencer says in Episode 475 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "He was just an amazing man, an amazing talent, but also just an amazingly kind, gracious person." Sheckley's brand of mordant cynicism helped pave the way for writers such as Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, and J.G. Ballard, and his novels Dimension of Miracles and The Prize of Peril prefigured genre classics such as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Running Man. "A lot of his ideas are so prescient," Gerencer says.