Although I met many of the Oregon-based science-fiction and fantasy writers community over the course of a couple of two decades from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, I never had much contact with the late Robert Sheckley. For a number of years he lived within walking distance of my house; his wife, Gail Dana, wrote a couple of pieces for my book review magazine. In earlier years, I probably would have tried harder to meet with him, but I’ve tried to be more observant of authorial privacy as the years go by.
I always admired Sheckley’s wit. His stories, in particular, always seemed to have a sardonic edge to them that appealed to me. Sheckley belongs to the tail end of a generation of science-fiction writers that is fast disappearing, a generation that developed in the dark of an era where you really had to go looking for material from the genre, before it broke into the light of mainstream culture and movies. I’m already starting to regret not pressing harder to get to know him personally.