The Status Civilization

audiobook

The Status Civilization

by Robert Sheckley

EN·~4 hours·2 chapters

Chapters

2 total
1

Transcriber's Notes:

4:33:57
2

ace books

0:47

Description

He awakens in a stark, grey cell with no memory of who he is or how he got there. The only clues are a beamer in his hand, a lifeless body nearby, and a faint hum of unseen light. As he tries to piece together his lost past, the world outside the door looms as an alien prison planet where life expectancy is measured in years, not decades.

A bureaucratic overseer, Mr. Frendlyer, informs him that today is Landing Day and that, by law, he must leave the planet immediately—yet the very act of leaving would mean certain death. The society he encounters protects rights in a twisted fashion, labeling anyone destined to be killed a “victim” and allowing the hunt to begin at sundown. With humor and dread intertwined, he must navigate a legal maze that treats survival as a loophole, while grappling with the fragments of his humanity that still cling to his mind.

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Details

Language

en

Duration

~4 hours (263K characters)

Publisher of text edition

Project Gutenberg

Credits

Produced by Greg Weeks, Karina Aleksandrova and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Release date

2007-03-28

Rights

Public domain in the USA.

About the author

Robert Sheckley

Robert Sheckley

1928–2005

Best known for sharp, funny science fiction that could turn absurd in a heartbeat, this American writer made a specialty of stories that feel playful on the surface and unsettling underneath. His work helped define the satirical side of mid-20th-century SF.

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