Ask a Foolish Question

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About this book

Ask a Foolish Question is a short work by Robert Sheckley, produced from a 1953 science fiction magazine. A note at the start says the way you put a question often decides the answer you get, so a mechanical answerer built to explain anything might have unsuspected limits.

The text introduces Answerer, a being built by a departed race as a service to less-sophisticated races, who sits on his planet and can answer any legitimate question. In one scene a visitor called Lek says his kind gathers purple and builds a mound, and asks what it means. Answerer tells him the question is without meaning. In another, Morran floats beside Lingman, an old man with a feeble heart, glad of the relief of no-weight in space.

About the author

Robert Sheckley

Robert Sheckley (1928-2005) was an American science fiction writer celebrated for his witty, satirical short stories. A frequent contributor to Galaxy and other magazines in the 1950s, he became known for absurdist, ironic tales that influenced later humorists such as Douglas Adams.