It is a
simple dream that criminals might be whisked away to an isolated land, a place
to live amongst their own kind and do what it is that makes them criminals,
never to enter good society again. The
idea the opening premise of Robert Sheckley’s 1960 novel The Status Civilization, the ensuing planetary adventure gradually
evolves into a story of personal discovery in a universe gone mad. The absurd deteriorating into the merely
surreal, it is also utopian satire.
Awaking to
discover he has no memories save those of a hazy murder, on the first page of The Status Civilization Will Barrent
quickly learns he’s on a prison ship bound for a place called Omega. An insular planet where convicted criminals
live, rule, and die, the average life span is a scant three years, long term survival
unlikely. Stepping out of the ship and
onto the sidewalk, Barrent is immediately confronted by three men drawing lots
to decide who has the right to shoot him first; it is hunting day for
newbies. Escaping into a nearby building
with a victim’s sanctuary sign above the door, he discovers the room is not
intended to assist him, rather to ensure no rights violation is occurring. As newbies are legal game on hunting day, the
proprietor of the sanctuary promptly draws a gun himself. Barrent narrowly escaping the sanctuary, he
gradually but uneasily settles in to Omegan society as an owner of a shop
selling poison antidotes. He meets a
priest in the religion of Evil, talks with a mutant soothsayer, learns about
the Black One, and has a few encounters with a mysterious woman who, for
reasons he cannot scry, helps him through the ordeals Omega’s strictly hierarchical society places on him. Though
experience gains him status, unfortunately for Barrent, it also increases the
size of the cross-hairs on his back.
