A Choice of
Gods is classic Simak. Who?
Right. Clifford Simak is one of the champions of early science fiction. He is
credited with creating the “pastoral science fiction” genre, sci-fi set in the
countryside. Heinlein once said, “to read science fiction is to read Simak.
Anyone who doesn’t like Simak doesn’t like science fiction.”
It would be hard
to find many who agree with that sentiment today. Though his book, Way
Station, won the Hugo, and four other books, including A Choice of Gods,
were nominated for the Hugo, most of Simak’s books are out of print. He is
largely ignored. And he is one of the neglected masters of the form.
You will not
find space battles, swords, sorcery, blasters, urban dystopias, or zombies in A Choice of Gods. What you will find is a tale set on planet
earth, in the far future, with bucolic descriptions of rural life. A tale of
country folk who encounter extraordinary events. A beautifully written,
well-conceived story that moves right along without seeming hurried. It’s
old-school writing. And pastoral. He takes time to smell the flowers. And it
may annoy some modern readers.
But to put some
perspective on it, it was published in 1972. And he talks about travelling to
other planets in the galaxy by the parapsychic power of the mind alone. He
brings mysticism and fantasy into his science fiction picture. And AI. And
sentient robots. And musical trees. And truly alien aliens. He sprinkles
non-chronological journal entries into the narrative—something we modernists
take for granted today. On the downside, his anti-technological stance is a bit
heavy-handed, even illogical—there’s a small army of robots to do the manual
labor in this rural paradise. And a lot of the significant action occurs
off-stage, and is reported later in conversations. Finally, his pleasant pastoral
style may be a bit too bucolic for some of today’s hyper-wired readers.
But to my mind,
it’s well worth haunting second-hand bookstores to find copies of Simak’s work.
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