Options (book)
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Cover for the 1975 UK edition
Options is a 1975 absurdist science fiction novel by Robert Sheckley.
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The story is ostensibly about a marooned space traveller's attempt to get a spare part for his starship, the Intrepid III. He has a robotic guard, programmed to guard him against all planetary dangers. But soon he discovers that the robot has not been programmed for the planet where they are, with comic results. However, the narrative later descends into a mass of diversions, non-sequiturs and meditations on the nature of authorship.
Representative quote:
- Mishkin wondered what a spaceship looked like. What could you compare a spaceship to? Itself? "The spaceship looked utterly like itself." ... He decided to buy a toy spaceship and describe that.
