Dimension of Miracles (1968)

Intelligent, bizarre, witty, absurd and mesmerizing, this may be the book which inspired the phrase, "I'm having a moment here." I had never heard of Robert Sheckley until I saw this book being promoted by Neil Gaimen on Audible. Since it was touted as a precursor to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I thought I would try it. Actually, it has nothing to do with that story which was written by Adams two years after this, but it is eerily similar in many ways. I will seek out more of Mr. Sheckley's work, because this was brilliant. ( )

The most Douglas Adams-like of Sheckley's book, Dimension of Miracles takes an average American on a crazed tour of the Universe. Carmody is desperately trying to get home, while being chased by his own unique predator. It flows so quickly that you never have time to get tired of the contrived circumstances Carmody finds himself in. The prize he wins is never described... and alternatively chivvies and chides him into action. In the end it appears Carmody has reached peace with his place in the Universe after rejecting the excesses of his original world in favour of a short-lived life on his own terms. My favourite Sheckley, I think. ( )

Fiction, Science Fiction, Satire, Mr. Carmody finds one day that he has been awarded the main prize in the Intergalactic Lottery, Carmody is whisked away to the Galactic Center to collect his Prize and he has no idea how to get home, First published by Dell, 1968, 213 pp.; First Italian edition published by Mondadori, Urania, Milano, December 1969, under the title: "Il difficile ritorno del signor Carmody", translated by Maria Benedetta De Castiglione; First UK edition, London, Panther SF., 1969 ( )

Robert Sheckley was arguably science fiction’s greatest satirist and its closest equivalent to the absurdist Flann O’Brien. Dimension of Miracles is his best novel. Carmody, an atheist (“more by rote than conviction”), is whisked off the Earth to collect the prize for a Galactic Sweepstake he had not realised he had entered. He is then stranded without knowing how to return to Earth. On his travels, he meets an ex-god (“a job for a simple-minded egomaniac”), talking dinosaurs and a nagging city. The obvious comparison is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy but this is its much funnier, and darker, precursor. ( )