Robert Sheckley
American writer (1928–2005)
Robert Sheckley (July 16, 1928 – December 9, 2005) was an American writer. First published in the science-fiction magazines of the 1950s, his many quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist, and broadly comical.
Nominated for Hugo and Nebula Awards, Sheckley was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2001.
Biography
Sheckley was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York City. In 1931, the family moved to Maplewood, New Jersey. Sheckley attended Columbia High School, where he discovered science fiction. He graduated in 1946 and hitchhiked to California the same year, where he tried numerous jobs: landscape gardener, pretzel salesman, barman, milkman, warehouseman, and general laborer "board man" in a hand-painted necktie studio. Still in 1946, he joined the U.S. Army and was sent to Korea. During his time in the army, he served as a guard, an army newspaper editor, a payroll clerk, and as a guitarist in the Army Band. He left the service in 1948.
The public source identifies “Robert Sheckley” as american writer (1928–2005). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Robert, Sheckley and American.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q333246. VIAF identifies the subject as 59089266. The Library of Congress control number is n50022137. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1928, 2005, 2001 and 1931.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert Sheckley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.