Robert Sheckley

I was sad to read an obituary of Robert Sheckley in the Telegraph yesterday.

I was a real fan of his quirky work when I was deeply into SF as a teen and I have always thought that 'Mindswap' - my favourite novel of his - was the template for 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. It seems to be out of print now which is a ridiculous state of affairs in this technological age and shows what headroom there still is for 'print on demand' and e-publishing.

Thinking back on my days of fandom, I was amazed to discover the other day that the Robert Conquest who used to edit annual "Best Of" SciFi story collections with Kingsley Amis is the same person as the Robert Conquest - the historian who did so much to expose the horror of Stalin's purges.