Bad Medicine

by Robert Sheckley

This book has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Ebooks, Humor

24 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

One of science fiction's great humorists, Sheckley was a prolific short story writer beginning in 1952 with titles including "Specialist", "Pilgrimage to Earth", "Warm", "The Prize of Peril", and "Seventh Victim", collected in volumes from Untouched by Human Hands (1954) to Is That What People Do? (1984) and a five-volume set of Collected Stories (1991). His first novel, Immortality, Inc. (1958), was followed by The Status Civilization (1960), Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Mindswap (1966), and several others. Sheckley served as fiction editor for Omni magazine from January 1980 through September 1981, and was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2001.

Reviews

[Ajeje Brazov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sheckley, tra i maggiori scrittori di fantascienza sociologica/umoristica, qui ci racconta di come potrebbe svilupparsi la medicina psicologica, con macchinari (robots?) per la cura dei disturbi psicologici più disparati.
Siamo nel futuro prossimo, una grande multinazionale ha sviluppato ed ingegnerizzato macchinari per la cura di disturbi mentali gravi e meno gravi. Il nostro protagonista, Caswell...
Lo stile inconfondibile dell'autore è straordinario, appena inizio un suo racconto, mi trovo in quel luogo magico ed inquietante che potrebbe essere il futuro (ora ci siamo di già?), con quell'humour imprescindibile, che caratterizza la sua narrativa.
Più Sheckley per tutti!

[Ralph McEwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun short story, with with a twist at the end..
The story is told in a narrative and conversational style.

The narrator is well spoken, her voice is clear and easy to listen to. The recording good is clean with out any backgrond noises. There plenty of volume. The editing is seamless.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

مرداد ۱۴۰۴

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published in 1956, BAD MEDICINE is the story of Elwood Caswell, a homicidal maniac who wants to murder his best friend. Knowing it was wrong, he stops to buy a therapeutic machine, one made by General Motors. In a hurry, he buys, for cash, the floor model. The clerk learns that the floor model was gauged for Martians, who knows what effect it would have on a human, and the hunt is on.

Meanwhile, Elwood has begun therapy with the machine.

An often humorous tale by one of SF's great authors.

[Andy Hickman · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Bad Medicine" by Robert Sheckley
Elwood Caswell is a psychotic delusional man intent on murdering his best friend, Magnessan.
The remedy to cure his psychosis? Well, the 1950s equivalent of Googling your diagnosis and therapy doesn't quite work, in fact the opposite.
Comical dialogue ***

[Hassan Mallah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun short story

[Al Lock · Rating 3 out of 5]

What would happen if a Martian Psychologist treated a human psychotic? Make the psychologist a machine and you've got the plot forvthis story.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an enjoyable short story, with a good ending...a little different from the norm.... Worth a read.

[Forked Radish · Rating 3 out of 5]

An overwrought protagonist in an overwrought story.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

fun story

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the best humorous science fiction stories I have ever read. I was on the edge of my seat all the way through too. You see, a customer walks into a mechanotherapy store to buy a machine to cure his mental affliction, homicidal rage, but accidentally gets the wrong version. The cure the machine offers is the source of the humor. I seldom laugh out loud as I did with this story. It has plenty of suspense too as the police try to find a homicidal maniac in time. Highly recommended.

I read the story by pulling up the original version for free from the July 1956 issue of Galaxy. It's available at Luminist: https://www.luminist.org/archives/SF/.... The advantage to reading it this way is that one can see the original illustrations that went with the story. This time those weren't that great. Cavat isn't an especially talented artist. But still, it adds enjoyment, I think, to read stories in their original published setting.

[Biblioworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Не особо интересно.

Некая проходная, не лучшая вещь в невероятно обширном наследии Роберта Шекли.
Вполне читаемая, но не вижу особого смысла ее читать, учитывая большое количество более интересных.

Объем крайне небольшой, это рассказ.

[Erin Whittaker · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a short story, it wasn't horrible, distopian society type thing, eh, not amazing.

[Charles Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Listen LibriVox. Another variation of this story was published on the old X -1 Series. You need to listen to the X -1 version, very fun and well done :)