Archive for the ‘Clifford Simak’ Category
Welcome to Vintage Science Fiction Month! my first review is for Clifford Simak’s The Goblin Reservation. I’ve been meaning to read Simak for a while now, and this was the perfect place to start. A lifelong newspaperman, Simak started selling short stories to the SF pulp magazines in the 1930s, and by 1940 became a regular contributor to Astounding Stories, and would continue writing science fiction and fantasy for the next 4 decades. Enjoy!
The Goblin Reservation
written in 1968
where I got it: purchased used (the copy on the left is mine, the copy on the right belongs to another friend. We were comparing cover art)
.
.
.
.
.
.
I actually read this book about a month ago, and I’m kicking myself for not taking better notes, or not just writing the review back when I read it.
In this future, Earth has become renowned for its universities, we have interstellar travel (similar to the transporters from Star Trek), alien civilizations, and Time travel. In fact the University has an entire college devoted to Time Travel, with the specialty of sending researchers back in Time to bring back artifacts, data, even people and animals. While civilians might enjoy having saber toothed tigers as pets, the History and English departments can’t stand those jerks over at Time, who keep proving published history to be wrong or incomplete. The English department just about has kittens when Time brings William Shakespeare into the future, and he happily admits to having not written the plays. You can’t help but chuckle at that!
At the beginning of the story, professor Peter Maxwell is returning from a trip to another planet, and he finds to his surprise that he’d already returned a few weeks ago, and died in an accident. Once he convinces the authorities that he truly is Peter Maxwell, and really is alive and well, he realizes that since everyone thought he was dead his apartment has been rented to someone else and his job at the University doesn’t exist anymore. It’s discovered that while Peter was being transported from Earth to the planet he was supposed to be researching, his signal was split. One Peter went where he was expected to go (and then back to Earth and killed) and the other Peter was diverted to an amazing Crystal Planet where the natives offered him their knowledge of the universe, so long as Peter was willing to negotiate the sale to Earth. Knowledge isn’t free, and the aliens want something the Time University has.
Recent Comments