A Choice of Gods

It's hard to believe the author of a great novel like "City" could write this boring and disappointing tirade.

I am a huge Clifford Simak fan & this book is one of the best I have read. I felt as if I knew the robots from his other books, especially Dogs. The people in the book are thinkers, no doers, but that is ok - thinking works sometimes. Loved this book as well as all that I have read by this author. I believe he has a gentle soul.

There are a handful of science fiction writers who should be as highly respected as some of the best-loved writers of regular fiction. If this book is indicative of Simak's work, then he is one of those writers. This is a book that reads like a warm summer night- it is gentle and warm. And yet some of the ideas are timeless, philosophically deep, and give you a sense of wonder. For example, what is the real meaning of life? At what point do our machines become deserving of equal respect? What is the nature of the universe? Are we perhaps an experiment ? These are some of the concepts explored in this wonderful novel. Don't be put off by the fact that it's no longer in print, and don't be afraid of reading sci-fi that fits the description "pastoral". If you like sci-fi that makes you think, that makes you wonder, that makes you believe that things can improve, then find this book.

One day on Earth, something strange happens-- the People vanish. The vast majority of humans are suddenly gone for the earth, leaving only an isolated pocket of remnants and all the robots. 5000 years passes and instead of developing new technology, the remaining humans find themselves expanding in unexpected ways and in the meantime the robots, deprived of people to serve, take up the abandoned task of serving God. As noted before, here and elsewhere, Simak is the King of pastoral science fiction. The action is gentle and philosophical rather than exciting and violent, but nonetheless compelling to read. One of his best and the book that introduced me to his work.

When I first started reading Simak over 30 years ago it was primarily for his nostalgic, bucolic settings and the refreshing down-to-earth humanity of his characters. This book has both of those features in abundance. Only now, am I coming to truly realise the depth and breadth of Mr. Simak's philosophy. It is a philosophy than runs true in all of his books (at least I believe that I've managed to track down and read them all.) It is a philosophy of humanity over technology and progress. It is the idea that sometime in the past humanity made the wrong decision, took the wrong path. Yet, here and there, there are a few isolated oddballs and misfits who have somehow managed to remain human, even though it must put them at odds with the majority. As for the breadth of his thinking, this book alone touches on so many things, my favorite things: love of ancestral homes and the land, good stewardship of the land and it's creatures, American Indians, astral travel, telepathy, God and the soul.... Even his "Dark Walker" shows a true understanding of Jungian Shadow. And there is always the "twist", the new idea, such as aliens and robots with more humanity to them than most of the human race. What's more, Simak always leaves you with a feeling of hope, though sometimes it is a bitter sweet hope.Sometimes I think that perhaps Simak wasn't speaking so much of this world, but that he was intuiting a better world for humane spirits on the other side....

This is one of my favorite books by Simak. As usual, the detail of the characters themselves is somewhat sparse. Simak wastes no time in getting right to the plot, and that is what I like about his books. He can pack more story into a 200-page book than some authors do in several 500-page books. This book is a story of Earth in the future, when most of humanity has been mysteriously taken from Earth, but a few people are still left on Earth. The people that are left barely age, living thousands of years, and are able to teleport themselves to other planets (a concept also visited in Simak's "Time is the Simplest Thing"). After 3,000 years, Earth is rediscovered by the people that were taken away from it.