SOURCE: "Keep Your Shape" (Galaxy, November 1953) by Robert Sheckley

DESCRIPTION: "Obediently his two crewmen flattened out, going immediately Shapeless. But Pid had a more difficult time." ("Keep Your Shape" by Robert Sheckley)

NOTES: The Glom are an amorphous race who can take any shape they like. Culturually they are forced into strict choices of shapes, based on their role. For example an Pilot has four approved shapes, each designed for maximum efficiency under certain conditions. Other castes include Repairmen, Radio Operators, Invasion Chiefs, Hunters, etc. The young and the low-caste flirt with ideas of less strict restrictions on shapes. The concept of Shapelessness is given to an icon of evil known as The Shapeless One (a devil type). The Glom reproduce quickly so must invade more an more planets. This is usually done with an invasion fleet but their radioactive elements have become depleted after so many conquests. To conquer the Earth they will use a transmat beam known as a Displacer. This device has to be placed beside a nuclear reactor to fuel the connection. All the expeditions to Earth have mysteriously failed. The Glom can not defeat the single most tantalizing effect of Earth, the multitude of shapes that can be assumed. On Glom there are only eight distinct forms of life, but on Earth there are millions...

HISTORY: Sheckley has fun imagining a culture for a shapeless race, something of a cliche in SF stories, the blob creature. (See Philip K. Dick's Blobel for another.) Sheckley changed the title of the story to just "Shape" when he reprinted it in Untouched By Human Hands (1954)