 After talking about Robert Sheckley's Dimension of Miracles a few weeks ago, I decided I really needed to read more of Robert Sheckley's work. And boy am I glad I did. Every story in here was a pure delight. I tweeted last week that I was sitting in a restaurant reading this story called Skulking Permit and I found myself grinning ear to ear. That's what these stories are like. They're excellent science fiction, they're excellent humor, and they are some of the most dead on social satire that I've ever read. And if you've been watching my reviews recently, you know how much I like good social satire. All of these stories are just so well written and so clever and original and I can't recommend them highly enough. They get my highest marks. I do have a little bit more to say about these stories. Not only did I feel that these stories were greatly entertaining, I often felt that I was reading something very important as well. All of these stories were written in the 1950s and yet Sheckley predicted so many things about 21st century society. The rise of reality television for one thing and also that reality television is not as real as it pretends to be. But most significantly there are a couple of stories in here that talk about the culture of gun ownership. Sheckley very astutely ties it directly to a culture of overblown masculinity and by extension a culture of woman hating. The first story in the book is about a near future in which gun owners can sign up for a government funded club in which the members agree to take turns hunting and assassinating each other as long as they agree to be the target every once in a while. This guy opens his envelope one day to find that his next target is a woman and it makes him mad. Here's what he says. Damn women he grumbled to himself always trying to horn in on a man's game. Why can't they stay home but they were free citizens he reminded himself. Still it just didn't seem feminine. He knew that historically speaking the emotional catharsis board had been established for men and men only. The hyper masculine sexism runs through this story all the way to the end and I highly recommend that you read it. Another example in the story pilgrimage to earth a young man from a far off colony world arrives on earth and right outside the spaceport he encounters a carnival which features a target shooting booth in which live women with targets painted on their foreheads and chests are sitting on chairs waiting to be shot. The barker is saying step up step up and kill a woman get rid of a load of repression squeeze the trigger and feel the old anger ooze out of you better than a massage better than getting drunk step up step up and kill a woman yeah Shackley makes his point and he makes sure you don't miss it