The Status Civilization
By Robert SheckleyPublisher Description
On a savage prison planet, a reluctant killer searches for his memory
He awakes in the cell, his mind blank save for a faint memory of standing over a dead man with a gun. Guilty of murder, his brain has been wiped, and he has been transported to Omega, the prison planet, where evil is worshipped as a god. His jailers inform him of his name, Will Barrent, his crime, and the average life expectancy in his new home: three years. Every day will be a battle for survival, and one day, he will lose.
Although run by criminals, Omega is hardly lawless. The population has been divided into an intricate caste system, and Barrent is on the bottom. The only way to advance in rank is to kill. While Barrent knows in his bones that he is no murderer, he sees no alternative but to give in to the crime that sent him here. He will kill if he must, but he will never lose himself again.
He awakes in the cell, his mind blank save for a faint memory of standing over a dead man with a gun. Guilty of murder, his brain has been wiped, and he has been transported to Omega, the prison planet, where evil is worshipped as a god. His jailers inform him of his name, Will Barrent, his crime, and the average life expectancy in his new home: three years. Every day will be a battle for survival, and one day, he will lose.
Although run by criminals, Omega is hardly lawless. The population has been divided into an intricate caste system, and Barrent is on the bottom. The only way to advance in rank is to kill. While Barrent knows in his bones that he is no murderer, he sees no alternative but to give in to the crime that sent him here. He will kill if he must, but he will never lose himself again.
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About Robert Sheckley
Robert Sheckley was one of the funniest writers in the history of science fiction. He did screwball comedy, broad satire, and farce. He could also be deadly serious, but he was always entertaining and always had something pointed to say about our world using the skewed versions of reality he created in his fiction. Starting in the early 1950s, he was an amazingly prolific short story writer, with a lot of his stories appearing in Galaxy Magazine. He launched his novel-writing career with Immortality, Inc., which he followed up with a sequence of excellent books: The Status Civilization, Journey Beyond Tomorrow, and Mindswap. He continued to produce novels and short stories in abundance until his death in 2005.
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