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Sheckley, Robert
UNTOUCHED BY HUMAN HANDS
book-date: 1954
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GRADING:
Ballantine
1954
1st
Paperback
Jack Coggins
.35
VG to VG+

Untouched by Human Hands, by Robert Sheckley. This is his first collection of SF stories (and his first book.) For a man who's first story was published in 1952, to have a set of this quality by 1954 is quite a feat.

The Monsters
Cost of Living
The Altar
Shape
The Impacted Man
Untouched by Human Hands
The King's Wishes
Warm
The Demons
Specialist
Seventh Victim
Ritual
Beside Still Waters

These are from Magazine of F&SF, Galaxy, Fantastic, Astounding, Fantasy, Climax and Amazing - 2 are from 1952, the rest are from 1953.

Some plot teasers [excerpted from a review in Astounding December 1954]: In "The Monsters," a human expedition appears monstrous because of its "inhuman" social customs; in "Ritual" another expedition struggles against what the aliens believe to be human customs. "Cost of Living" is very close to a number of Bradbury treatments of our mechanized future... "Shape" shows us the revolt of an alien people against its stereotypes; "Specialist" counterpoises with a wholly shapeful civilization in which we have an unexpected part... Finally, "Warm" goes devilishly into a doomed mind and "Seventh Victim" has (let's face it!) a Fritz Leiber savagery to the close. I wish I had thirteen stories as good as these when I was twenty-four - or forty-four, for that matter. [-P. Schuyler Miller]