Solar Flare: Science Fiction News

Science fiction writer Robert Sheckley died on December 9th 2005 at the age of 77. The cause of death was a brain aneurysm according to his former wife Ziva Kwitney. Sheckley was a writer of satirical science fiction and is credited with some 15 novels and 400 short stories.

Robert Sheckley was born in Brooklyn in 1928 and grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey. After serving in the army (spending time in Korea) from 1946 to 1948, Sheckley went on to attend New York University and graduated in 1951. He sold his first short story that same year.

During the 50s and 60s Robert Sheckley wrote hundreds of stories which were published in science fiction magazines under his own name and several pseudonyms. His pen names included: Phillips Barbee and Finn O’Donnevan. Sheckley’s work has been widely adapted and has inspired many other works.

A number of his stories (both as Sheckley and Finn O’Donnevan) were adapted for the radio show X Minus One in the late 1960s including Seventh Victim, Bad Medicine and Protection. Seventh Victim was also the basis of the film The 10th Victim which starred Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress. That same story is also claimed as an inspiration for the role playing game Assassin.

Sheckley’s novel Immortality Inc. was loosely (and rather poorly) adapted in the movie Freejack which starred Mick Jagger, Emilio Estevez, Rene Russo and Anthony Hopkins.

Robert Sheckley was married five times. The first four ended in divorce and he was separated from his fifth wife Gail Dana at the time of his death. He is survived by a son from his first marriage, Jason; a daughter from his second marriage, Alisa; a daughter and son from his third marriage Anya and Jed and his sister Joan Klein.