View Full Version : Looking for this book


Gibbo
09-16-2007, 10:35 AM
Found this on Usenet and thought I'll post it here hoping you guys might know about this book,

I am looking for the title and author of a SCI-CI story from the 1950's.
"Ship" lands on Earth. "Ship" is actually comprised of a whole
congregation of living creatures which make up the whole "Ship". There is
"Engine", a gruff, old fellow; there is "Doctor" a kind of spider-like
creature; There are "Walls" a whole bunch of slap happy, care-free
fellows; there is "Navigator" and "Pilot" both serious creatures with
great amounts of brain power, there are "windows" and so forth ... the
only thing lacking is "Pusher". Poor Pusher had died during the
interstellar exploration trip of the Ship. So after putting Engine to
work -- a kind of nuclear impulse drive -- they reached the Planet Earth
and discovered that the whole planet was inhabited by "Primitive
Pusher-Folk". After a wandering kind of hermit fellow is found in a
forest and brought aboard Ship, eventually they are able to communicate
with him and tell him that his destiny is to be a "Pusher". Pusher,
meaning that by means of his mental powers of teleportation -- which are
inherent to ALL Pushers, even the primitives of Earth -- must some how
learn to PUSH and get the ship back to the area of Galaxy Central.

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could steer me to the name and
author of this story from the Golden Age of Sci Fi.

Sounds interesting.

CommanderROR
09-16-2007, 10:56 AM
Hey...that sounds like a cool story, but I haven't got a clue what it might be...but if anyone finds out...I'd like to read it too... ;)

UPDATE:
I looked around and could so far not find this story, but I'm moving this thread to the "book recommendations" area where it's more likely someone might know the answer.

Gibbo
09-16-2007, 03:30 PM
Found the book looks like it's a short story called "Specialist" by Robert Sheckley and it can be found in Kingsley Amis Anthology "The Golden Age of Science Fiction" published by Penguin Books in 1981 but can't find it in ebook format.

Source: Usenet reply.

CommanderROR
09-16-2007, 05:23 PM
Thanks for reporting back.
I also couldn't find the book as ebook anywhere. A realy pity, I'd have liked to read that story...the description made me curious. On the up side I found lots of other interesting SciFi titles that I could read in the near future...so all is not lost... ;)

I found that the "Specialist" short story is/was contained in a book named "Untouched by human hands" which contained 13 short stories. It appears to be out of print...

BenG
09-16-2007, 07:29 PM
According to the Locus Index to Science Fiction the story can also be found in these collections.

The Collected Short Stories of Robert Sheckley Book One, Pulphouse 1991
The SF Collection, ed. Edel Brosnan, Chancellor Press 1994
The Flying Sorcerers, ed. Peter Haining, Souvenir Press 1997