Shape-Up-Jack Vance short story

Shape-Up-Jack Vance short story

Shape-Up is an 11/15 page short story published first in Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine in November, 1953.  Our protagonist, Jarvis, reads a classified ad about four high paying positions available as space travelers and decides to apply. When he arrives at the place of interview he notes that many other men are also interested in the jobs. He finds his interview to be especially strange because they seem mostly interested in weight and blood type of the applicants and want to narrow the group down to eight.  Jarvis soon finds himself to be under suspicion for past misdeeds in what turns out to be much more than a job interview. Vance uses only a few pages to present us with another suspenseful, action story with odd characters but it is only mildly interesting. I’ve read it several times and rated it a 3 “Liked it”

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled The Augmented Agent (1989)

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Work of Jack Vance, vol. 1 (2010 Subterranean)

Included in Chateau d'If and Other Stories (2017, Spatterlight): CD (pb)

 

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