Pilgrimage to Earth

Robert Sheckley was a master of science fiction short stories that warned us to be careful what we wish for because disaster could follow if our dreams come true.

The collection’s title story, “Pilgrimage to Earth,” is the best of the bunch. It first appeared as “Love, Inc.” in Playboy. A young man from a farming planet comes to Earth to find true love. He finds just what he wants for sale at a good price, but it is not, of course, what he bargained for. Reading it is like watching a train wreck—you don’t want it to happen, but you can’t stop watching, and in this case, laughing—and feeling guilty about doing so.

The stories often take shots at conformity and consumerism. Characters frequently make deals with aliens and show more unscrupulous humans that backfire in creative ways. In “Protection,” for instance, a man hires an alien to warn him of dangers in his future but discovers that doing so also increases the threats he faces. It may be an allegorical critique of the 1950s arms race.

I wish Sheckley were still around to poke fun at the Internet economy. show less

A collection of Short fiction, culled from magazines from 1954 to 1956. The Title story is of the variety called Poisoned Paradise" stories. It is the most memorable in the book, and I read this collection in the after glow occasioned by " Mindswap".