Tried and true

[threemonkeys]

There is a simple reason why some literary devices are used over and over. It isn't that authors have no imagination, it is simply that those devices work. In Journey beyond Tomorrow, Robert Sheckley uses a couple of these devices to great effect. The use of a naive observer that traverses an absurd world is a satire technique that goes back as least as far as Swift*. Classical scholars can probably trace it back much further. The other technique Sheckley uses is the far future eye. A far future historian with limited information looks at our times and misinterprets the details but still sees truth.

I have not been a fan of Sheckley's longer works, much preferring the sharp bite of his short stories. Perhaps because this book is written as a series of encounters, it retains its focus, its humour and its satirical bite. What really amazes me though is that I had never read it before. I'm glad I corrected that oversight.

*While checking Jonathan Swift in wikipedia, I notice that he started out working for an ancestor of mine - a sort of second cousin about 20 times removed - small(ish) world.