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  • 17-SEP-2025 | Excerpt from “A Wind Is Rising” by Robert Sheckley

17-SEP-2025 | Excerpt from “A Wind Is Rising” by Robert Sheckley

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Dan Bogachek
September 17, 2025

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Excerpt from “A Wind Is Rising” by Robert Sheckley

One of my favorite short stories by Sheckley.

But this time, he had had it. He and Nerishev had been eight months on Carella. The relief ship was due in another four months. If he came through alive, he was going to quit for good.

"Just listen to that wind," Nerishev said.

Muffled, distant, it sighed and murmured around the steel hull of the station like a zephyr, a summer breeze.

That was how it sounded to them inside the station, separated from the wind by three inches of steel plus a soundproofing layer.

"It's rising," Clayton said. He walked over to the windspeed indicator. According to the dial, the gentle-sounding wind was blowing at a steady 82 miles an hour --

A light breeze on Carella. 🏁 

Note how much tension Sheckley injects throughout. Calm and ominous.

Also pay attention to the contrast in sentence length. Just like in film — the long flowy sentences feel like long shots, and the choppier sentences are like faster closeups as the characters speak and move in the scene.