I just now reread “Placet Is a Crazy Place,” in his collection Star Shine (the paperback version of the hardcover Angels and Spaceships). Vintage Fredric Brown. I never met anyone who didn’t like his work. I first read that when I was about 13 or 14 and read though all of his available short stories and his two most famous novels. He was primarily a mystery novelist, and is one of the few SF writers who won an Edgar award for best mystery novel of the year, in the late 1940s. Sadly, I have never been able to find one of his mysteries, as the mystery field does a poor job of keeping its classics in print.
When I read your post, I looked up the story and reached over and grabbed the May 1946 Astounding off the shelf, an arm’s reach away. (I do my computing in my “library” room, although in truth my whole house is library.) In addition to “Placet…,” that issue featured Arthur C. Clarke’s classic “Rescue Party”; the outstanding, but now forgotten cover story, “The Nightmare” by Chan Davis; as well as excellent stories by Henry Kuttner (writing as Lewis Padgett), A. E. van Vogt, and William Tenn; and the conclusion of George O. Smith’s novel, Pattern for Conquest. Wow! They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. As you can see, I am hardcore when it comes to SF.
You may be interested in the non-go book thread, which has a lot of talk about SF and other books of all kinds: What non-Go book are you reading right now?