The Status Civilization, Robert Sheckley

This short novel is available freely on Gutenberg.org. Sheckley's short fiction, the free fiction I have already remarked on in an earlier post, is a bit more miss than hit in my estimation. But this book is excellent and worth every penny (it's free!). It's also worth half a day of your free time.


Of all the Sheckley stories I've read thus far, this is by far the best. It has a timelessness about it. There's usually a quaintness to most science fiction stories that are decades old. On star ships traversing massive distances there are computers whose computations are outputted on bits of paper that come out, much like state-of-the-then-art computers did in the 50s. It is interesting, though, that much of what those writers thought of computers have remained largely unchanged. Computers are still emotionless computational devices expected to answer questions that most of us cannot answer.

But this book isn't like that. It doesn't have the naive simplicity that is often in those types of novels or short stories. This is one of those books that would do well today unchanged from its original form. There would be no need to update its technology.

The novel is set in the distant future. Mankind has resolved itself, mostly. Earth is peaceful. There is no more fighting. There are no police or militaries. Children are programmed to turn themselves in should they commit a crime. When they do, they are sent to a colony. It's a planet of criminals who are murderers or scammers or whatever it is they are.

On that planet, people kill to survive and thrive. The only way to advance on the planet is by killing. One man is sent there, and he manages to survive everything that is thrown at him against all impossible odds. He is, at the very last, saved by a group who want to go back to Earth. They want to see what Earth is like. They don't know, because before they come to the planet, their memories of their past are all wiped clean.

The resistance to going back to Earth does not exist. Where Barrent expects police to track him and force him back to the planet. But they don't, because they are unneeded.

He ultimately discovers that in the first place, he did not commit any crime. Furthermore, the one who turned him into the police was himself. He had been programmed since a child to turn himself in should he be a killer. Even though he didn't do it, there was enough evidence in his own mind to suspect himself, and convict himself, of the crime he never committed.

The book is really great sci fi the way it should be. I really enjoyed it and hope you will enjoy it, too.