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Out of Their Minds
Out of their minds and the force of their imagination, men have created countless beings, from demons and monsters of legend to comic-strip characters. What if their world were real--if dragons, devils and Don Quixote hobnobbed with Dagwood Bumstead and Charlie Brown? Such a world would have its facinations..and its dreadful perils--if it existed. Horton Smith found out that it did..and that he was right in the middle of it!
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1970
About the author
Clifford D. Simak
973 books1,094 followers"He was honored by fans with three Hugo awards and by colleagues with one Nebula award and was named the third Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) in 1977." (Wikipedia)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford...
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
July 14, 2019
Simak and his parallel-world ideas...
Q:
I think that we are haunted," he had said, "by all the fantasies, all the make-believe, all the ogres that we have ever dreamed, dating from that day when the caveman squatted in the dark beside his fire and stared out into the blackness of the night which lay beyond the cave. Imagining what might be out there. Knowing, of course, what might be out there, for he would have been the one to know — a hunter, a gatherer, a roamer of the wilderness. (c)
Q:
Why, I wondered, should a man so yearn toward his past, knowing even as he yearned that no autumn tree could flame as brightly as it had on a certain morning thirty years before, that the waters of the creek could not run as clear or cold or deep as he remembered them, that much, in fact, of what he did remember were experiences reserved for someone no more than ten years old? (c)
Q:
There had been a hundred other places (and more convenient places) I could have chosen—places where there also would have been freedom from the clatter of the phone, where there'd be no memos to be written, no deadlines to be met, no important persons one must know, no need of being continuously well-informed and knowledgeable, no necessity of conforming to a complicated set of sophisticated folk customs. A hundred other places where a man would have time to think and write, where he need not shave except when he wanted to, where sloppy clothes could be worn and no one would notice them, where one could be lazy if one wished, unconcerned if one wished, ignorant if one wished, where a person never needed to be clever and never needed to be witty and could deal in a comfortable sort of gossip that was entirely insignificant. (c)
Q:
Q:
I think that we are haunted," he had said, "by all the fantasies, all the make-believe, all the ogres that we have ever dreamed, dating from that day when the caveman squatted in the dark beside his fire and stared out into the blackness of the night which lay beyond the cave. Imagining what might be out there. Knowing, of course, what might be out there, for he would have been the one to know — a hunter, a gatherer, a roamer of the wilderness. (c)
Q:
Why, I wondered, should a man so yearn toward his past, knowing even as he yearned that no autumn tree could flame as brightly as it had on a certain morning thirty years before, that the waters of the creek could not run as clear or cold or deep as he remembered them, that much, in fact, of what he did remember were experiences reserved for someone no more than ten years old? (c)
Q:
There had been a hundred other places (and more convenient places) I could have chosen—places where there also would have been freedom from the clatter of the phone, where there'd be no memos to be written, no deadlines to be met, no important persons one must know, no need of being continuously well-informed and knowledgeable, no necessity of conforming to a complicated set of sophisticated folk customs. A hundred other places where a man would have time to think and write, where he need not shave except when he wanted to, where sloppy clothes could be worn and no one would notice them, where one could be lazy if one wished, unconcerned if one wished, ignorant if one wished, where a person never needed to be clever and never needed to be witty and could deal in a comfortable sort of gossip that was entirely insignificant. (c)
Q:
November 23, 2024
Out of Their Minds is a novel from 1970 that's a fun, whimsical, early urban fantasy style romp. The idea is that fictional characters come to life on an alternate plane, a theme that's been explored by everyone from John D. MacDonald to Harlan Ellison to Neil Gaiman to Jasper Fforde and many others. Don Quixote, Dagwood Bumstead, Charlie Brown, the list is endless... Our hero, Horton Smith, has to take on the devil himself (literally) in order to win the girl. Some of the pop culture references are obviously a bit dated but just think of all the new characters who've arrived since 1970 to add to the fun. The comics and movie characters alone... There's some political satire, and Simak's trademark comparison of small town vs. big city lifestyles that may drag a bit in the opening, but it's a very engaging and amusing read.
May 5, 2016
"Hier draußen glaubten die Menschen immer noch das Heulen von Werwolfrudeln zu hören, während die restliche Welt auf einen häßlicheren Klang lauschte, der vielleicht den Atombombenuntergang ankündigte. Und ich muß gestehen, daß mir die Vorstellung von Werwölfen lieber war."
So Horton Smith, Erzähler des kurzen Romans VERTEUFELTE WELT. Smith entflieht der Geschäftigkeit der modernen Welt und kehrt nach Pilot Knob zurück, dem Dorf, in dem er seine Kindheit verbrachte. Tatsächlich ist die Zeit hier stehen geblieben, es gibt noch den Laden, in dem er vor 30 Jahren als Zehnjähriger Bonbons geschenkt bekam; und anstelle des Zynismus werden im ländlichen Fort Knob noch Werte wie die protestantische Arbeitsethik hochgehalten: "Hier war ein Land, das der Fortschritt kaum gestreift hatte." Ein wenig weht hier die Melancholie der vergangenen Jugend, wie sie Bradburys Stories oft so sympathisch macht, und in der Stille und dem Frieden des Dorfes könnte Horton die Ruhe finden, ein Buch zu schreiben.
Doch schon bei der Anreise geschehen sonderbare Dinge: Horton begegnet einem Dinosaurier (wie sinnig, bei so viel stehen gebliebener Zeit), einer real gewordenen Farmerfamilie aus einem Comic und muss sich mit Klapperschlangen plagen.
All diese "Erscheinungen" haben einen Hintergrund, der sich durch eine skurrile Evolutionstheorie erklärt, die in einem Brief eines Bekannten an Horton zum Vortrag gebracht wird. Demnach entwickelt sich das Bewußtsein des Menschen weiter mit der Folge, dass Ideen und Vorstellungen greifbare Gestalt annehmen können, kurzum aus Phantasie Realität werden kann.
Der Einbau dieser absonderlichen Theorie erinnert mich an die SF-Romane von Fanthorpe, der auch vorzugsweise "Ideenromane" schrieb.
Bei Fanthorpe ist das Risiko des erzählerischen Scheiterns immer gegenwärtig, und leider scheitert auch Simak mit VERTEUFELTE WELT.
Ich hatte mich sehr auf eine Wiederbegegnung mit diesem Autoren gefreut, dessen Erzählungen und Romane mit zu den Highlights meiner SF-Leseerfahrungen als Kind zählen. Entsprechend enttäuscht bin ich, dass dieses Büchlein mich so wenig begeistern konnte, dass ich es nach der Hälfte beiseite gelegt habe.
Der Erzählton ist mir auch hier sympathisch und die Übersetzung von Birgit Ress-Bohusch gut lesbar, aber des Rückwärtsgewandten ist es mir dann doch etwas zu viel. In diesem Zusammenhang muss gesagt werden, dass die zugrunde liegende Idee des Romans, die mich überhaupt nicht überzeugen konnte, deutlich mehr dem Genre der Fantasy als der SF zuzuordnen ist. Mit welchem Tempo Smith, der der Idee zunächst auch sehr kritisch gegenüber steht, zum bekehrten Paulus wird, ist schlichtweg unglaubwürdig, und dass die Lehrerin Kathy Adams, die Smith als schmückendes Beiwerk und potenzielle Damsel in Distress beigeordnet wird, mitzieht, noch viel mehr.
Das Eingangszitat mag belegen, dass Smith ein wenig als Alter Ego des Autors verstanden werden kann, der sich der zunehmend moderneren Science Fiction verschlossen hat; seine Themen waren nicht Technik und Atomangst, sondern eine leicht melancholische Poesie, ein Festhalten am Althergebrachten, dass vom gesellschaftlichen Wandel und technischem Fortschritt bedroht wird.
Wie schon geschrieben: Mir nicht unsympathisch, aber zumindest dieser Kurzroman hat mich nicht gepackt.
Fazit: Trotz Bedauerns nicht mehr als 2 Sterne.
So Horton Smith, Erzähler des kurzen Romans VERTEUFELTE WELT. Smith entflieht der Geschäftigkeit der modernen Welt und kehrt nach Pilot Knob zurück, dem Dorf, in dem er seine Kindheit verbrachte. Tatsächlich ist die Zeit hier stehen geblieben, es gibt noch den Laden, in dem er vor 30 Jahren als Zehnjähriger Bonbons geschenkt bekam; und anstelle des Zynismus werden im ländlichen Fort Knob noch Werte wie die protestantische Arbeitsethik hochgehalten: "Hier war ein Land, das der Fortschritt kaum gestreift hatte." Ein wenig weht hier die Melancholie der vergangenen Jugend, wie sie Bradburys Stories oft so sympathisch macht, und in der Stille und dem Frieden des Dorfes könnte Horton die Ruhe finden, ein Buch zu schreiben.
Doch schon bei der Anreise geschehen sonderbare Dinge: Horton begegnet einem Dinosaurier (wie sinnig, bei so viel stehen gebliebener Zeit), einer real gewordenen Farmerfamilie aus einem Comic und muss sich mit Klapperschlangen plagen.
All diese "Erscheinungen" haben einen Hintergrund, der sich durch eine skurrile Evolutionstheorie erklärt, die in einem Brief eines Bekannten an Horton zum Vortrag gebracht wird. Demnach entwickelt sich das Bewußtsein des Menschen weiter mit der Folge, dass Ideen und Vorstellungen greifbare Gestalt annehmen können, kurzum aus Phantasie Realität werden kann.
Der Einbau dieser absonderlichen Theorie erinnert mich an die SF-Romane von Fanthorpe, der auch vorzugsweise "Ideenromane" schrieb.
Bei Fanthorpe ist das Risiko des erzählerischen Scheiterns immer gegenwärtig, und leider scheitert auch Simak mit VERTEUFELTE WELT.
Ich hatte mich sehr auf eine Wiederbegegnung mit diesem Autoren gefreut, dessen Erzählungen und Romane mit zu den Highlights meiner SF-Leseerfahrungen als Kind zählen. Entsprechend enttäuscht bin ich, dass dieses Büchlein mich so wenig begeistern konnte, dass ich es nach der Hälfte beiseite gelegt habe.
Der Erzählton ist mir auch hier sympathisch und die Übersetzung von Birgit Ress-Bohusch gut lesbar, aber des Rückwärtsgewandten ist es mir dann doch etwas zu viel. In diesem Zusammenhang muss gesagt werden, dass die zugrunde liegende Idee des Romans, die mich überhaupt nicht überzeugen konnte, deutlich mehr dem Genre der Fantasy als der SF zuzuordnen ist. Mit welchem Tempo Smith, der der Idee zunächst auch sehr kritisch gegenüber steht, zum bekehrten Paulus wird, ist schlichtweg unglaubwürdig, und dass die Lehrerin Kathy Adams, die Smith als schmückendes Beiwerk und potenzielle Damsel in Distress beigeordnet wird, mitzieht, noch viel mehr.
Das Eingangszitat mag belegen, dass Smith ein wenig als Alter Ego des Autors verstanden werden kann, der sich der zunehmend moderneren Science Fiction verschlossen hat; seine Themen waren nicht Technik und Atomangst, sondern eine leicht melancholische Poesie, ein Festhalten am Althergebrachten, dass vom gesellschaftlichen Wandel und technischem Fortschritt bedroht wird.
Wie schon geschrieben: Mir nicht unsympathisch, aber zumindest dieser Kurzroman hat mich nicht gepackt.
Fazit: Trotz Bedauerns nicht mehr als 2 Sterne.
November 18, 2024
Check out a Simak Saturday book discussion with Shawn D. Standfast and Scott Danielson HERE.
This seems to be a slightly different book for Simak. The concept is that all the mythical and fantastical creatures or characters that people have imagined since the dawn of time have found a way into an alternate reality. Our main character has to figure out what is going on while dealing with the devil at the same time. Not one of my favorites from Simak but still enjoyable, it was also a very quick read.
This seems to be a slightly different book for Simak. The concept is that all the mythical and fantastical creatures or characters that people have imagined since the dawn of time have found a way into an alternate reality. Our main character has to figure out what is going on while dealing with the devil at the same time. Not one of my favorites from Simak but still enjoyable, it was also a very quick read.
March 1, 2025
Ο Clifford D. Simak, τρίτος κατά σειρά Science Fiction Grand Master, όπως δεν κουράζομαι ΠΟΤΕ να λέω, κάνει μια βουτιά στο σουρεαλισμό, ζωντανεύοντας ήρωες της μυθολογίας, της λογοτεχνίας και των παραδόσεων.
Ο Horton Smith (το όνομα Horton το έχει χρησιμοποιήσει και στο The Big Front Yard), είναι ο κλασικός συνηθισμένος άνθρωπος του Simak, ένας δημοσιογράφος (καμία σχέση με πορτοσαλταρισμένους ΑΡΔίτες) που βρίσκεται ξαφνικά να τον κυνηγάνε ήρωες της μυθολογίας, καρτούν και πάσης φύσεως «λογοτεχνημένοι» χαρακτήρες που εμφανίζονται με σάρκα και οστά, φακαμώντας λίγο τη ζωή του. Δεν αργεί να ανακαλύψει ότι αυτό που υποψιάζεται είναι αλήθεια: Οι ανθρώπινη φαντασία έχει αποκτήσει φυσική υπόσταση. Και τον έχουν βάλει στο μάτι.
Είναι στο χέρι (μετωπιαίο λοβό; ιππόκαμπο; αμυγδαλή; φλοιό; θάλαμο;) του αναγνώστη να διακρίνει αν η αρκετά διασκεδαστική αυτή περιπέτεια είναι μια αλληγορία για τους τρόπους με τους οποίους η ανθρώπινη φαντασία μπορεί να ξεφύγει από κάθε έλεγχο (όποιος είχε φαντασιώσεις σαν έφηβος, π.χ. ξέρει, όχι ότι ο Simak ασχολείται με οτιδήποτε ροζ) και κατά πόσο η μελαγχολική και βαθύτατα ανθρωπιστική του ματιά είναι απόρροια μια εσωτερικής του πάλης με φιλοσοφικά ερωτήματα (ψήφισα ότι είναι και με τα τέσσερά μου πόδια).
Καθώς λοιπόν ο Horton βρίσκεται κυνηγημένος από κάθε πιθανή ανθρώπινη ιδέα που έχει λάβει υπόσταση, βρισκόμαστε κι εμείς να αναλωνόμαστε σε ερωτήματα όπως «τι γίνεται όταν οι φαντασιώσεις μας κατανικούν την πραγματικότητα» (και τα χάπια δεν κάνουν δουλειά) ή «ποια είναι η ευθύνη μας απέναντι στις ίδιες μας τις δημιουργίες» (κρίνοντας από τη συνέντευξη του Π. Σιδηρόπουλου, το έργο γίνεται αυτόνομο και ο δημιουργός πάει καλιά του) και «κατά πόσο η πραγματικότητα είναι μια συλλογική ψευδαίσθηση βιωμένη μέσα από προσωπικά πρίσματα και μια σελίδα πάνω στην οποία γράφουμε τις ιστορίες που οι ίδιοι θέλουμε να πιστέψουμε» (ή, σύμφωνα με τον Χέγκελ στις διαμαρτυρίες του για το γκολ της Ελλάδας στον τελικό φιλοσοφίας μεταξύ Ελλάδας και Γερμανίας, «η πραγματικότητα είναι απλώς ένα εκ των προτέρων προσάρτημα της μη νατουραλιστικής ηθικής»).
Ως προς την πλοκή καθεαυτή, έχουμε περισσότερο μια σειρά από σουρεαλιστικά επεισόδια παρά μια παραδοσιακή μυθιστορηματική αφήγηση, καθένα από τα οποία λειτουργεί ως σημείο έδρασης αναστοχασμών πάνω στη φύση της δημιουργικότητας (Out of Their Minds λέγεται το βιβλίο, θυμίζω), χωρίς φυσικά να λείπει η ένταση και οι κορυφώσεις της δράσης, ενώ χάρη στη μοναδική ικανότητα του γερο-Clifford να βάζει τον αναγνώστη μέσα στις πιο παράξενες καταστάσεις με την άρση δυσπιστίας στο «εν λευκώ», όλα τα σουρεάλ στοιχεία «χωνεύονται» εύκολα περνώντας με αβίαστη άνεση -στο συνειδητό τουλάχιστον- ως φυσιολογικά, ιδίως η ευρηματικότατη προσέγγιση της σχέσης πραγματικότητας και φαντασίας. Ίσως η σχετική χαλαρότητα και η έλλειψη γραμμικότητας της πλοκής να ζορίσει τους λάτρεις των αφηγήσεων που είναι συντεταγμένες όπως έχει δομηθεί η Βαρκελώνη (βλ. αεροφωτογραφία με τέλεια τετράγωνα) ή οι ταφόπλακες στα νεκροταφεία των αμερικάνων στρατιωτών, αλλά δε θα προλάβει να κουράσει γιατί το βιβλίο ακόμη και με τη χαώδη του αίσθηση και τη διαρκή ροή εισόδου νέων αλλοπρόσαλλων (αλλά γεννημάτων της ανθρώπινης διάνοιας) χαρακτήρων τείνει από απόψεως μεγέθους προς το σφηνάκι κι αν όχι ακριβώς σφηνάκι, έστω, νουβέλα.
Ο Horton Smith (το όνομα Horton το έχει χρησιμοποιήσει και στο The Big Front Yard), είναι ο κλασικός συνηθισμένος άνθρωπος του Simak, ένας δημοσιογράφος (καμία σχέση με πορτοσαλταρισμένους ΑΡΔίτες) που βρίσκεται ξαφνικά να τον κυνηγάνε ήρωες της μυθολογίας, καρτούν και πάσης φύσεως «λογοτεχνημένοι» χαρακτήρες που εμφανίζονται με σάρκα και οστά, φακαμώντας λίγο τη ζωή του. Δεν αργεί να ανακαλύψει ότι αυτό που υποψιάζεται είναι αλήθεια: Οι ανθρώπινη φαντασία έχει αποκτήσει φυσική υπόσταση. Και τον έχουν βάλει στο μάτι.
Είναι στο χέρι (μετωπιαίο λοβό; ιππόκαμπο; αμυγδαλή; φλοιό; θάλαμο;) του αναγνώστη να διακρίνει αν η αρκετά διασκεδαστική αυτή περιπέτεια είναι μια αλληγορία για τους τρόπους με τους οποίους η ανθρώπινη φαντασία μπορεί να ξεφύγει από κάθε έλεγχο (όποιος είχε φαντασιώσεις σαν έφηβος, π.χ. ξέρει, όχι ότι ο Simak ασχολείται με οτιδήποτε ροζ) και κατά πόσο η μελαγχολική και βαθύτατα ανθρωπιστική του ματιά είναι απόρροια μια εσωτερικής του πάλης με φιλοσοφικά ερωτήματα (ψήφισα ότι είναι και με τα τέσσερά μου πόδια).
Καθώς λοιπόν ο Horton βρίσκεται κυνηγημένος από κάθε πιθανή ανθρώπινη ιδέα που έχει λάβει υπόσταση, βρισκόμαστε κι εμείς να αναλωνόμαστε σε ερωτήματα όπως «τι γίνεται όταν οι φαντασιώσεις μας κατανικούν την πραγματικότητα» (και τα χάπια δεν κάνουν δουλειά) ή «ποια είναι η ευθύνη μας απέναντι στις ίδιες μας τις δημιουργίες» (κρίνοντας από τη συνέντευξη του Π. Σιδηρόπουλου, το έργο γίνεται αυτόνομο και ο δημιουργός πάει καλιά του) και «κατά πόσο η πραγματικότητα είναι μια συλλογική ψευδαίσθηση βιωμένη μέσα από προσωπικά πρίσματα και μια σελίδα πάνω στην οποία γράφουμε τις ιστορίες που οι ίδιοι θέλουμε να πιστέψουμε» (ή, σύμφωνα με τον Χέγκελ στις διαμαρτυρίες του για το γκολ της Ελλάδας στον τελικό φιλοσοφίας μεταξύ Ελλάδας και Γερμανίας, «η πραγματικότητα είναι απλώς ένα εκ των προτέρων προσάρτημα της μη νατουραλιστικής ηθικής»).
Ως προς την πλοκή καθεαυτή, έχουμε περισσότερο μια σειρά από σουρεαλιστικά επεισόδια παρά μια παραδοσιακή μυθιστορηματική αφήγηση, καθένα από τα οποία λειτουργεί ως σημείο έδρασης αναστοχασμών πάνω στη φύση της δημιουργικότητας (Out of Their Minds λέγεται το βιβλίο, θυμίζω), χωρίς φυσικά να λείπει η ένταση και οι κορυφώσεις της δράσης, ενώ χάρη στη μοναδική ικανότητα του γερο-Clifford να βάζει τον αναγνώστη μέσα στις πιο παράξενες καταστάσεις με την άρση δυσπιστίας στο «εν λευκώ», όλα τα σουρεάλ στοιχεία «χωνεύονται» εύκολα περνώντας με αβίαστη άνεση -στο συνειδητό τουλάχιστον- ως φυσιολογικά, ιδίως η ευρηματικότατη προσέγγιση της σχέσης πραγματικότητας και φαντασίας. Ίσως η σχετική χαλαρότητα και η έλλειψη γραμμικότητας της πλοκής να ζορίσει τους λάτρεις των αφηγήσεων που είναι συντεταγμένες όπως έχει δομηθεί η Βαρκελώνη (βλ. αεροφωτογραφία με τέλεια τετράγωνα) ή οι ταφόπλακες στα νεκροταφεία των αμερικάνων στρατιωτών, αλλά δε θα προλάβει να κουράσει γιατί το βιβλίο ακόμη και με τη χαώδη του αίσθηση και τη διαρκή ροή εισόδου νέων αλλοπρόσαλλων (αλλά γεννημάτων της ανθρώπινης διάνοιας) χαρακτήρων τείνει από απόψεως μεγέθους προς το σφηνάκι κι αν όχι ακριβώς σφηνάκι, έστω, νουβέλα.
September 25, 2011
as with the other clifford d. simak books i've read, the ideas behind the story are simply ingenious strokes of miracle on the page, they are the ideas that you've almost thought of, but never fully realized only understanding this when confronted with a book like out of their minds. in out of your minds, simak is playing with the idea that man's own imagination is rebelling against him, that we've created beings as we imagined them, from our fears and whimsies, our comic strips, and bumps in the night, and one day they all rebel and retaliate. horton smith (!!) is the protagonist. not a lot is revealed about him, and that plays into the final act of the book, explains why he is a the centre of the maelstrom.
so here's the thing, the ideas are great, and it's really fun, but i have trouble following simak's plot pacing choices. we spend a lot of time hanging out at a cave at the beginning, and by the end, i feel like he's rushing things a little. it doesn't help matters that i read john d. mcdonald's novel Planet of the Dreamerswhich handles similar ideas right afterward reading this, and out of their minds suffers in comparison, though i would say john d.'s ending is rushed as well. i will read more clifford d. simak but i think i have to start reading his more popular ones now. :)
so here's the thing, the ideas are great, and it's really fun, but i have trouble following simak's plot pacing choices. we spend a lot of time hanging out at a cave at the beginning, and by the end, i feel like he's rushing things a little. it doesn't help matters that i read john d. mcdonald's novel Planet of the Dreamerswhich handles similar ideas right afterward reading this, and out of their minds suffers in comparison, though i would say john d.'s ending is rushed as well. i will read more clifford d. simak but i think i have to start reading his more popular ones now. :)
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February 14, 2017I think this was the first book I ever read by one of my favourite authors, so the fellow pictured on the cover alone knows how come I hadn't added it before now.
November 11, 2017
Horton Smith was after some peace and quiet so that he could write a book. A place where he could have expected to find that was his boyhood home, the sleepy, isolated village of Pilot Knob. What he didn't expect to happen when he arrived was to be chased by a Triceratops.
Escaping the dinosaur he seeks refuge and shares a meal and some moonshine whiskey with an elderly comic-strip couple brought to life, then wakes up in a cave with a rattlesnake on his chest.
To say the least, 'there was something damn funny going on.'
And that's just the start of his deadly yet decidedly wacky adventure, as Smith and his new found girlfriend are chased and harried by all manor of characters out of the collective imagination of mankind, from Disney, Don Quixote, to the very Devil himself.
A typically quirky story from Simak, a tale where 'our old and trustworthy world had been jerked from beneath our feet, and the goblins and the ghouls were no longer something for mere chimney-corner tales, but existed ... they were not illusions.'
Very silly, very enjoyable.
Escaping the dinosaur he seeks refuge and shares a meal and some moonshine whiskey with an elderly comic-strip couple brought to life, then wakes up in a cave with a rattlesnake on his chest.
To say the least, 'there was something damn funny going on.'
And that's just the start of his deadly yet decidedly wacky adventure, as Smith and his new found girlfriend are chased and harried by all manor of characters out of the collective imagination of mankind, from Disney, Don Quixote, to the very Devil himself.
A typically quirky story from Simak, a tale where 'our old and trustworthy world had been jerked from beneath our feet, and the goblins and the ghouls were no longer something for mere chimney-corner tales, but existed ... they were not illusions.'
Very silly, very enjoyable.
October 30, 2018
I love Simak's SF but not so much his fantasy. This story seemed to work too hard to make some not very interesting observations. There was none of the magical feeling you get from good fantasy. If it was suppose to be satirical it didn't accomplish that either.
April 26, 2021
In 2020 I read Clifford D. Simak's 1970 Out of their Minds in its Heyne Verlag German 1971 edition (translated by Birgit Ress-Bohusch). A very trashy sleave with pulpy art by C. A. M Thole where a small red convertible (a Matchbox-sized vehicle in proportion) is being threatened or attacked by huge looking winged dragons and a ludicrous huge demonic creature with a red fluttering cape. Even the German title "Verteufelte Welt" (more like Bedeviled World or Infernal, Devilish World) was probably aimed to attract more attention to its readers by appealing to Christian demonology or Satanist plots, sects etc I am going to detach it from its 1970 context might, so as to attempt to see how and why Out of Their Minds resonates with recent discussions about tulpomancy, meme magic, 'thought-forms', egregores etc ie various intrusions form the imaginary realm. Not limited to our species (even if mindfulness apps still locate minds into overworked westerner skulls), we live in an exciting time where minds (embodied imaginations) cease to be exclusively nested inside cranial space (especially regarding Metazoan evolution - and multicellular minds vertebrate/non-vertebrate in P.-G. Smith recent book).
Clifford D Simak's book has a much wider scope imho beside the most obvious one: the dangers of wishing or calling imaginary things (not excluding various very helpful abstractions) into reality and how the ill-effects of such releases into the world might actually affect the most vulnerable and the least protected. Although it is always important to emphasize this aspect, nowadays there are almost too many examples of it. There are many good takes on why so many of these self-fulfilling hypermediated prophecies are at work all around us. At the same time the most interesting point to take away is maybe that such intrusions have stopped being the obscure realm of specialists (philosophers, cognitivists, media gurus, technoshamans etc), with almost everyone being affected by fictions and other people's imagineering - so it becomes a common task to see why and how this ontological oscillation plays out and how normalized this has become.
Well, why is this book on top on my obligatory 'troubling imaginary ecosystems' reading list?
I will not do a regular review of the book or try to bring it into the orbit of Simak's larger oeuvre. The one other book I explored here on Goodreads is Way Station. Out of their Minds - his 1970 book maps out impossible border-crossings, btw the imaginary and the real, btw fictional and the hard facts, a border crossing that has become very casual, increasingly acquiring agential character, operativity and effectivity.
What is most endearing about it - is that this book does not make any grandiose theoretical claims. Also, it is not the first piece of fiction to incorporates a theory about fiction in its fictional mesh and intimate witnessing weave. Above all, such alarmist blurring of real/weird/strange is incredibly exciting and disturbing. Today we might have an instinctive urgh - when 'meme magic' is mentioned, with almost immediate trauma linked to toxic leadership or the rise of the most unsavory neoreactionary doctrines.
From troll factories on the payroll to 4chan dunk memes, everybody is thrilled to be playing a sorcerer's apprentice - while reality keeps unwinding, with banned and orphaned creations taking over their creators (with the caveat - almost all pop imaginary characters are now owned by a few humongous franchises).
For Simak's heroes, it is a dangerous and mortal time. Life in Lovecraft's or Simak's view keeps endangering non-fictional creatures. While clearly being a non-believer is not an option, then not being one of those creatives of franchised worlds, or crackpot speculators or a purveyors of insensed theories about the world becomes life-threatening. Trying to keep grounded, mechanistic-materialistic is risky as hell. To strive for a poor imagination might mean the difference btw getting burned by dragon fire or squashed by Godzilla let loose around the planet. Not being a superheroine, a Pokemon monster and/or a supervillain demotes one to inexistence. Being mere mortals means being killed all the time by impossible and obnoxious threats that do not figure on any insurance policy. Outside the tightly patrolled bubble of Norman Rockwell's 1950s whitewashed suburbia and (an increasingly less and less idealized) Western contemporary reality, impeding truths abound, very real 'imaginary'(imaginary just for the privileged few) lives and dystopian neverlands abound. Mind you - 'outer' for the minds of Western Euro-American gated mental worlds might mean that such scifi Nigeria reality as the one aptly described by Tade Thompson in Rosewater (Wormwood Trilogy) stay as unreal, safely tucked away ONLY if you can blindly patch up your cracking media bubble. Imaginary very real realities that one dares not think of, not only of fabulous beasts, insist on us with a life of their own and even with a politics of their own.
While action-packed - Out of Their Minds speaks powerfully and cogently about how all existing mind creations past, present or future are not our own any longer. The lack of control over our lives is mirrored by such releases into an unstable larger world. It is as if this ability to exchange or get immunity has been at the expense of living beings. Sima also opens up the question of how we might bear responsibility for animating such imaginary creations. Out of Their Minds - makes clear that there is no brain-barrier to keep things out or permanently in. Yes, minds are porous and might be just replicators of memes, and they do physically suffer the effects of these imaginary fevers good or bad. One should not just box it as mere 'ideology', superstition or for that matter artistic or poetic creation. What Out of Their Minds offers us is a universality of such imaginary proclivity, a tropism of what refuses to be confined to the mind or that never behaves as if minds=self-contained/impermeable.
This extends to various historical constructions, the invention of tradition, official accounts of the way IT played out in various periods of human history. Realities escape history book, take a life of their own - become extremist revival paradises (or hells depending). The abuse of historical middle ages is such a case in study. A reality stocked up by national feelings, money &grandious monuments of a fabulous past, ethno-fantasies enlivened by movies and historical novels - do burn and slash. Historical reenactments (what is normally not regarded as mere cosplay) recruit volunteers, search for extras and imagine various battles and people dressing up for various historical occasions playing their favored version, giving their own ethno-political spin to local medieval history. What was disregarded as poorly researched Christian Neo-Templar knighthood gameplay (as in Breivink's manifesto's) or puritanical Moslem Wahhabite return to Islam's origins has been feedbacking into thepresent. A new book (which i have no read) - "The Devil's Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past (2020) by Amy S. Kaufman and Paul B. Sturtevant practically takes the preferred versions of today's nationalistic Middle Ages at their face value.
Firstly Clifford D Simak does not separate older from newer imaginary (past and present fabulations) beings and this I find intensely attractive since, instead of disappearing one might say they have difficulty intermingling, coexisting. There is almost like a social life of imaginary beings (tulpas, egregore or thought-forms) busy vying for attention and energy input. Simak in fact takes good old Devils - in a sense key trickster players of Christian demonology (Satan, Baphomet) and searches for their feelings and thoughts about hegemonic positions, the take on the flux of new imaginary migrants/aliens.
Why does 'ancien regime' fabulation resent the new UFO or extraterrestrial beings, that steal the limelight? One has to speculate on that. If there are rules in the out-of-the-mind realms, and if somebody refuses to play along with the old rules then there is a revolution that keeps on spilling over.
In a sense the conspiracy out of the mind or mindful things that do not stay in the mind speaks about the all-out attack that feels partially motivated by the same politics of self-identity, of not changing in the face of the new. There is this desecrated imaginary realm that cannot keep up with itself. The artificial outrage of Devils that are fighting for order and respect holds such ironic justice. What cosmic joke!
The continuous production of new and more outlandish imaginary denizens has swamped the old. Clifford D Simak's has this imaginary ecosystemic hurricane and political struggle spill over from the 'outer' into our own. Instead of the Copyrighter's Inquisition, we have a place where Pluto, Disney or Ren and Stimpy might run amok and disturb the golden sleep of dragons.
We could also say that the worst of the current toxic imaginary stocked up by online hate, let's say the most horrific creations of racism and antisemitism can end up jumping minds (and epochs), possessing, literally taking over the most placid and seemingly naive Internet cartoon creatures such as Pepe, weaponizing the blandest and most dunk elements out there.
Low-brow vs elite culture wars are no more 'outer' than say the most ludicrous and sadistic Peppa the Pig entering your child's YT search, or the fixed theologically verified hierarchies of archangels, heruvims. That is why the gnostic proclivity of rearranging worlds rings true - since it is an early (almost since the beginning regarded as 'dangerous' by the proto-orthodoxy) expression of such knowhow reversals, unsettled counter-expertise that managed to temporarily unsettle hierarchies of the unreal. This is why in Simak's story, the Devil seeks some sort of truce, some sort of economical exchange of the imagination with their mindless humans as potential allies in damming and dampening the imaginary.
All the unruly material imaginary beings or events of the outer realm can and have been overflowing us, swamping and invading the waking world, shaping reality from the inside out.
'A crisis of imagination' in this restricted sense might mean exactly this - the fact that only certain visions and imaginative futures gain upper hand or have right of transit from one side to another. If reality became stranger than fiction, at least certain damaging fictions will find themselves pensioned or peacefully extinct. Clearly, since at least 1989, certain forms of utopian thinking have been slowly pettering out, while other forms of repressive imagineering have been gaining currency. Things are hopefully changing with a new generation of freshly unreal ideas, with a more sustainable and mutualistic world building.
Out of their Minds also makes clear that the rules of the imaginary world do not stick to just the flat-eartherish variants, or the anti-Newtonian or even anti-Einstein kinds. They mutate and release their consequences onto the creatures that inhabit such worlds. There is a chance for the endangered humans (and many other more-than humans) critters that enter in and out of the imaginary realm that they must obey its rules. Imaginary beings must make sure they survive their own aberrant creations. Always good to fill the G pulling even when leaving earthly gravitation. If in fairy tale world you can ONLY make three wishes, then 3 wishes it is. If Superman is vulnerable to Kryptonite, then so be it.
Fictionalization and hyperstition under capitalism (aren't financial abstractions a painful and very effective way to see terrible capitalist imagineering or meta-fictions at work?) have channeled libidinal forces, extracted value and secured an increasingly powerful role by actively devaluing all other value forms (call them virtualities, utopian flights of fancy, reveries etc as u want), basically pushing to extinction all other ways of imagining otherwise.
In a sense this is nothing new, one can say that in the past, imaginary beings, spirits, sprites, various entities have always had to play it out against newer or former brethren although some form of symbiosis was always present (sic how Buddhism integrated older Bon nature spirits or Christianity the pagan deities and calendrical annual celebrations). The history of religions calls it syncretism and it is none other than (also) a symbiosis of the imagination. At the same time there has been always a modern more monopolistic and insidious way to incorporate and centralize older more heterogenous local animisms. A pluralism of spirits and demons gives way to prefab imperial personality cults. One such XX c transformation is the ominous Emperor cult of Japan - its construction specifically linked with the destruction of local shrines and their efficiency-trimmed reformatting, remolding the old chaosmos into a nationalistic weaponized matrix able to accomplish inhuman feats of violence and suffering.
Well, in the view of Simak and his fictional theory of an animated imaginary world - weird realism is here to stay. Even being exposed to such theories accomplishes the unspeakable (here he joins Lovecraft and the Yellow King). Once thinking and playing with the idea that there might be intrusions and that imaginary friends (Slender men creepypasta) you're done. The imaginal theories empower imaginary intrusions.
Far from the Stanford - Rand Corporation - Arpanet early stirrings of Internet and networking, this book does not make an appeal to any notion of virtual reality or a simulated universe. In fact, Simak's version of the imaginary - follows a sort of ruthless evolution, a sort of stripped Darwinism of the unreal. Imaginary creatures do cooperate and change genes at the moment but mostly in our disadvantage, making themselves memetically irreplaceable.
As an addition to "OUt of THeir Minds" I find excellent a recent book by Jimena Canales. Enlarging the scope of imaginary beings to including the scientific imaginary - she includes daimons that have been plaguing thought experiments since the Greeks, and that enliven the works of Descartes and Maxwell. Here we have something else indeed, demonic creatures that can teach us something about physics and cosmology. Beguiling guiding spirits that can even fool our sense of consensual reality, reshape philosophical questions and change statistical odds in ways unthought of before. They threaten the energetic and informational conservation laws of the universe and by so doing teach us something of great survival value. I have not read Bedeviled: A Shadow History of Demons in Science (2020) but it seems such an important addition to this ongoing discussion. Let us take a cue from such imaginary - but thoroughly- scientific beings, ready to retire their devilish predecessors.
Clifford D Simak's book has a much wider scope imho beside the most obvious one: the dangers of wishing or calling imaginary things (not excluding various very helpful abstractions) into reality and how the ill-effects of such releases into the world might actually affect the most vulnerable and the least protected. Although it is always important to emphasize this aspect, nowadays there are almost too many examples of it. There are many good takes on why so many of these self-fulfilling hypermediated prophecies are at work all around us. At the same time the most interesting point to take away is maybe that such intrusions have stopped being the obscure realm of specialists (philosophers, cognitivists, media gurus, technoshamans etc), with almost everyone being affected by fictions and other people's imagineering - so it becomes a common task to see why and how this ontological oscillation plays out and how normalized this has become.
Well, why is this book on top on my obligatory 'troubling imaginary ecosystems' reading list?
I will not do a regular review of the book or try to bring it into the orbit of Simak's larger oeuvre. The one other book I explored here on Goodreads is Way Station. Out of their Minds - his 1970 book maps out impossible border-crossings, btw the imaginary and the real, btw fictional and the hard facts, a border crossing that has become very casual, increasingly acquiring agential character, operativity and effectivity.
What is most endearing about it - is that this book does not make any grandiose theoretical claims. Also, it is not the first piece of fiction to incorporates a theory about fiction in its fictional mesh and intimate witnessing weave. Above all, such alarmist blurring of real/weird/strange is incredibly exciting and disturbing. Today we might have an instinctive urgh - when 'meme magic' is mentioned, with almost immediate trauma linked to toxic leadership or the rise of the most unsavory neoreactionary doctrines.
From troll factories on the payroll to 4chan dunk memes, everybody is thrilled to be playing a sorcerer's apprentice - while reality keeps unwinding, with banned and orphaned creations taking over their creators (with the caveat - almost all pop imaginary characters are now owned by a few humongous franchises).
For Simak's heroes, it is a dangerous and mortal time. Life in Lovecraft's or Simak's view keeps endangering non-fictional creatures. While clearly being a non-believer is not an option, then not being one of those creatives of franchised worlds, or crackpot speculators or a purveyors of insensed theories about the world becomes life-threatening. Trying to keep grounded, mechanistic-materialistic is risky as hell. To strive for a poor imagination might mean the difference btw getting burned by dragon fire or squashed by Godzilla let loose around the planet. Not being a superheroine, a Pokemon monster and/or a supervillain demotes one to inexistence. Being mere mortals means being killed all the time by impossible and obnoxious threats that do not figure on any insurance policy. Outside the tightly patrolled bubble of Norman Rockwell's 1950s whitewashed suburbia and (an increasingly less and less idealized) Western contemporary reality, impeding truths abound, very real 'imaginary'(imaginary just for the privileged few) lives and dystopian neverlands abound. Mind you - 'outer' for the minds of Western Euro-American gated mental worlds might mean that such scifi Nigeria reality as the one aptly described by Tade Thompson in Rosewater (Wormwood Trilogy) stay as unreal, safely tucked away ONLY if you can blindly patch up your cracking media bubble. Imaginary very real realities that one dares not think of, not only of fabulous beasts, insist on us with a life of their own and even with a politics of their own.
While action-packed - Out of Their Minds speaks powerfully and cogently about how all existing mind creations past, present or future are not our own any longer. The lack of control over our lives is mirrored by such releases into an unstable larger world. It is as if this ability to exchange or get immunity has been at the expense of living beings. Sima also opens up the question of how we might bear responsibility for animating such imaginary creations. Out of Their Minds - makes clear that there is no brain-barrier to keep things out or permanently in. Yes, minds are porous and might be just replicators of memes, and they do physically suffer the effects of these imaginary fevers good or bad. One should not just box it as mere 'ideology', superstition or for that matter artistic or poetic creation. What Out of Their Minds offers us is a universality of such imaginary proclivity, a tropism of what refuses to be confined to the mind or that never behaves as if minds=self-contained/impermeable.
This extends to various historical constructions, the invention of tradition, official accounts of the way IT played out in various periods of human history. Realities escape history book, take a life of their own - become extremist revival paradises (or hells depending). The abuse of historical middle ages is such a case in study. A reality stocked up by national feelings, money &grandious monuments of a fabulous past, ethno-fantasies enlivened by movies and historical novels - do burn and slash. Historical reenactments (what is normally not regarded as mere cosplay) recruit volunteers, search for extras and imagine various battles and people dressing up for various historical occasions playing their favored version, giving their own ethno-political spin to local medieval history. What was disregarded as poorly researched Christian Neo-Templar knighthood gameplay (as in Breivink's manifesto's) or puritanical Moslem Wahhabite return to Islam's origins has been feedbacking into thepresent. A new book (which i have no read) - "The Devil's Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past (2020) by Amy S. Kaufman and Paul B. Sturtevant practically takes the preferred versions of today's nationalistic Middle Ages at their face value.
Firstly Clifford D Simak does not separate older from newer imaginary (past and present fabulations) beings and this I find intensely attractive since, instead of disappearing one might say they have difficulty intermingling, coexisting. There is almost like a social life of imaginary beings (tulpas, egregore or thought-forms) busy vying for attention and energy input. Simak in fact takes good old Devils - in a sense key trickster players of Christian demonology (Satan, Baphomet) and searches for their feelings and thoughts about hegemonic positions, the take on the flux of new imaginary migrants/aliens.
Why does 'ancien regime' fabulation resent the new UFO or extraterrestrial beings, that steal the limelight? One has to speculate on that. If there are rules in the out-of-the-mind realms, and if somebody refuses to play along with the old rules then there is a revolution that keeps on spilling over.
In a sense the conspiracy out of the mind or mindful things that do not stay in the mind speaks about the all-out attack that feels partially motivated by the same politics of self-identity, of not changing in the face of the new. There is this desecrated imaginary realm that cannot keep up with itself. The artificial outrage of Devils that are fighting for order and respect holds such ironic justice. What cosmic joke!
The continuous production of new and more outlandish imaginary denizens has swamped the old. Clifford D Simak's has this imaginary ecosystemic hurricane and political struggle spill over from the 'outer' into our own. Instead of the Copyrighter's Inquisition, we have a place where Pluto, Disney or Ren and Stimpy might run amok and disturb the golden sleep of dragons.
We could also say that the worst of the current toxic imaginary stocked up by online hate, let's say the most horrific creations of racism and antisemitism can end up jumping minds (and epochs), possessing, literally taking over the most placid and seemingly naive Internet cartoon creatures such as Pepe, weaponizing the blandest and most dunk elements out there.
Low-brow vs elite culture wars are no more 'outer' than say the most ludicrous and sadistic Peppa the Pig entering your child's YT search, or the fixed theologically verified hierarchies of archangels, heruvims. That is why the gnostic proclivity of rearranging worlds rings true - since it is an early (almost since the beginning regarded as 'dangerous' by the proto-orthodoxy) expression of such knowhow reversals, unsettled counter-expertise that managed to temporarily unsettle hierarchies of the unreal. This is why in Simak's story, the Devil seeks some sort of truce, some sort of economical exchange of the imagination with their mindless humans as potential allies in damming and dampening the imaginary.
All the unruly material imaginary beings or events of the outer realm can and have been overflowing us, swamping and invading the waking world, shaping reality from the inside out.
'A crisis of imagination' in this restricted sense might mean exactly this - the fact that only certain visions and imaginative futures gain upper hand or have right of transit from one side to another. If reality became stranger than fiction, at least certain damaging fictions will find themselves pensioned or peacefully extinct. Clearly, since at least 1989, certain forms of utopian thinking have been slowly pettering out, while other forms of repressive imagineering have been gaining currency. Things are hopefully changing with a new generation of freshly unreal ideas, with a more sustainable and mutualistic world building.
Out of their Minds also makes clear that the rules of the imaginary world do not stick to just the flat-eartherish variants, or the anti-Newtonian or even anti-Einstein kinds. They mutate and release their consequences onto the creatures that inhabit such worlds. There is a chance for the endangered humans (and many other more-than humans) critters that enter in and out of the imaginary realm that they must obey its rules. Imaginary beings must make sure they survive their own aberrant creations. Always good to fill the G pulling even when leaving earthly gravitation. If in fairy tale world you can ONLY make three wishes, then 3 wishes it is. If Superman is vulnerable to Kryptonite, then so be it.
Fictionalization and hyperstition under capitalism (aren't financial abstractions a painful and very effective way to see terrible capitalist imagineering or meta-fictions at work?) have channeled libidinal forces, extracted value and secured an increasingly powerful role by actively devaluing all other value forms (call them virtualities, utopian flights of fancy, reveries etc as u want), basically pushing to extinction all other ways of imagining otherwise.
In a sense this is nothing new, one can say that in the past, imaginary beings, spirits, sprites, various entities have always had to play it out against newer or former brethren although some form of symbiosis was always present (sic how Buddhism integrated older Bon nature spirits or Christianity the pagan deities and calendrical annual celebrations). The history of religions calls it syncretism and it is none other than (also) a symbiosis of the imagination. At the same time there has been always a modern more monopolistic and insidious way to incorporate and centralize older more heterogenous local animisms. A pluralism of spirits and demons gives way to prefab imperial personality cults. One such XX c transformation is the ominous Emperor cult of Japan - its construction specifically linked with the destruction of local shrines and their efficiency-trimmed reformatting, remolding the old chaosmos into a nationalistic weaponized matrix able to accomplish inhuman feats of violence and suffering.
Well, in the view of Simak and his fictional theory of an animated imaginary world - weird realism is here to stay. Even being exposed to such theories accomplishes the unspeakable (here he joins Lovecraft and the Yellow King). Once thinking and playing with the idea that there might be intrusions and that imaginary friends (Slender men creepypasta) you're done. The imaginal theories empower imaginary intrusions.
Far from the Stanford - Rand Corporation - Arpanet early stirrings of Internet and networking, this book does not make an appeal to any notion of virtual reality or a simulated universe. In fact, Simak's version of the imaginary - follows a sort of ruthless evolution, a sort of stripped Darwinism of the unreal. Imaginary creatures do cooperate and change genes at the moment but mostly in our disadvantage, making themselves memetically irreplaceable.
As an addition to "OUt of THeir Minds" I find excellent a recent book by Jimena Canales. Enlarging the scope of imaginary beings to including the scientific imaginary - she includes daimons that have been plaguing thought experiments since the Greeks, and that enliven the works of Descartes and Maxwell. Here we have something else indeed, demonic creatures that can teach us something about physics and cosmology. Beguiling guiding spirits that can even fool our sense of consensual reality, reshape philosophical questions and change statistical odds in ways unthought of before. They threaten the energetic and informational conservation laws of the universe and by so doing teach us something of great survival value. I have not read Bedeviled: A Shadow History of Demons in Science (2020) but it seems such an important addition to this ongoing discussion. Let us take a cue from such imaginary - but thoroughly- scientific beings, ready to retire their devilish predecessors.
December 31, 2018
Every creature and thing that mankind has ever imagined exists in some way in the present. There are werewolves and cartoon characters, witches and Civil War soldiers, unicorns and the Devil himself. And they are no longer imaginary; if you are shot through the heart by an archer from fantasy, you are truly dead.
Horton Smith is a nationally known radio and television reporter who wants to take time to relax, fish, and write a book. He returns to the rural town in which he spent his childhood. Unusual things start happening as he approaches the town. He comes across a triceratops, spends the night with folks who he eventually realizes are the comic strip characters Snuffy and Loweezy (although Simak has the name as "Lowizey") Smith, and awakens in a pit of rattlesnakes. He begins to suspect that something odd is going on.
In the course of the book, Horton meets and falls in love with the small-town school teacher and they travel together toward Washington, DC, where Horton thinks there are people with whom he can discuss the situation. The trip is not smooth.
Horton encounters all manner of evil and deadly beings and a few good and kind ones. Simak regrettably misses his chance to have Horton meet his namesake, Dr. Seuss's Horton the beneficent elephant.
I think that the logic of the story is a little shaky. Werewolves, sea monsters, and folks from literature and comic strips may belong in this milieu; Simak sort of explains how the Civil War soldiers exist as well. But the triceratops and the rattlesnakes don't seem to fit, unless the point is that everything that ever existed or could exist can now appear.
The ending is just silly, but then, the concept itself is silly. It is also fun. This is not Simak at his best, but I like it.
Horton Smith is a nationally known radio and television reporter who wants to take time to relax, fish, and write a book. He returns to the rural town in which he spent his childhood. Unusual things start happening as he approaches the town. He comes across a triceratops, spends the night with folks who he eventually realizes are the comic strip characters Snuffy and Loweezy (although Simak has the name as "Lowizey") Smith, and awakens in a pit of rattlesnakes. He begins to suspect that something odd is going on.
In the course of the book, Horton meets and falls in love with the small-town school teacher and they travel together toward Washington, DC, where Horton thinks there are people with whom he can discuss the situation. The trip is not smooth.
Horton encounters all manner of evil and deadly beings and a few good and kind ones. Simak regrettably misses his chance to have Horton meet his namesake, Dr. Seuss's Horton the beneficent elephant.
I think that the logic of the story is a little shaky. Werewolves, sea monsters, and folks from literature and comic strips may belong in this milieu; Simak sort of explains how the Civil War soldiers exist as well. But the triceratops and the rattlesnakes don't seem to fit, unless the point is that everything that ever existed or could exist can now appear.
The ending is just silly, but then, the concept itself is silly. It is also fun. This is not Simak at his best, but I like it.
June 15, 2025
I agree with, Steve, who introduced me to Simak. Namely, Simac's Sci-Fi is so much better than his fantasy writing. Thus, the lower score then what I usually rate Simac.
March 18, 2010
I've read a lot of Simak's stuff, but this was the first fantasy of his that I've read. The plot toys with the idea that the characters of our imagination could be forced to exist by our belief, so the hero encounters the Devil, werewolves, Don Quixote and others. The idea is interesting but it wasn't pulled off well. The plot took too long to get going, spending the first quarter or so indulging in the love of old country life that is evident in a lot of Simak's work (although often used to much better effect) and the end was far too rushed and completely anti-climactic.
December 10, 2020
Out of Their Minds is not Clifford D. Simak at his best. The basic story involves the premise of the evolution of human thought creating an alternate reality of imaginative characters, that are real in that realm. It's a nonsensical premise and Simak plays his way through it. In other hands this would be a mish mash of nonsense, and in some ways it is, yet Simak does manage to tell an entertaining story around it. I only rate it at four stars because of Clifford D. Simak's stature as an author and my favorite writer. But I really can only recommend this to other Simak fans and completists.
July 25, 2011
Very fun book to read.
September 25, 2012
I'm not sure which story Mr. Simak won a nebula award for, but it wasn't this one. The plot was thin and the characters underdeveloped. Not at all happy with it.
August 5, 2026
Another book in my Simak reading project, finally getting to the books I bought and never got around to reading. This one is from 1970.
It is, more or less, pure fantasy. No spaceships or robots. It is first-person narrated by Horton Smith, a radio/TV newsman who's looking to return to his childhood home of Pilot Knob to write a book. He gets sort of lost on a lonely road in poor repair, and then, somewhat surprisingly, gets attacked by a triceratops. This is on page 10.
He evades the dinosaur, but his car gets hung up in a ditch, so he treks to a nearby farmhouse, where he meets its hospitable owner, who invites him to share his moonshine, and … eventually, Horton realizes that his host is Snuffy Smith. Yes, from the comic pages.
And it goes on in the same vein from there. Horton is the kind of guy that things happen to, and he stays remarkably calm for someone who is essentially trapped in a nightmare he cannot seem to wake from. He acquires a love interest, Kathy, the local schoolmarm. He gets accused of murder, and takes off downriver, and…
A lot of stuff happens. It eventually winds up, as Horton discovers the rules of the universe he's been transported to. Unfortunately, I didn't find Horton likeable or interesting, and his nightmarish odyssey did not grab me. It's as if Mr. Simak had blank pages to fill, and he just kept typing with whatever popped into his head. Maybe that was the inspiration for the book title.
October 24, 2022
Chissà se il pensiero, l'astrazione, ha una sua consistenza nel gran caos della materia? Chissà se le prime forme marine sognavano e immaginavano di stabilirsi sulla terraferma? Chissà se i dinosauri immaginavano e si narravano storie horror di piccoli esseri mostruosi dalle fattezze umane? Ecco queste sono le fantasie che mi ha suggestionato questo racconto. Una distopia dove l'immaginazione sale al potere e chissà, forse anche nella scala evolutiva? Con l'immaginazione nulla vieta che dopo l'estinzione della razza umana, il gran calderone materico dell'Universo sputi sulla Terra tutti i personaggi di fantasia creati da noi umani. E chissà, tutti noi potremo rivivere nei loro fumetti e romanzi che avranno la bontà di immaginare. Insomma, come direbbe il buon George: immagina, puoi.
July 3, 2020
It is probably known for certain (egocentric?) readers feeling - percievable not only a possibilty of writing (doing) theme better (wiser), but truly accessible is non-verbal knowledge ('insight') of someone who already wrote (did) it (or even writing (doing) it simultaneously with your reading).
That's the way with "Out of their minds". Maybe, i'll add more analysis or kind of (twaddle) 'sophistics' other day, but for now - if i have no questions for novel (its' characters, language or 'chain of events'), then there was no point of reading it - thus i haven't read it second time, and just had to forget the very first try.
That's the way with "Out of their minds". Maybe, i'll add more analysis or kind of (twaddle) 'sophistics' other day, but for now - if i have no questions for novel (its' characters, language or 'chain of events'), then there was no point of reading it - thus i haven't read it second time, and just had to forget the very first try.
February 12, 2024
3.25
Possibly as straight down the line as Simak can get. Not his best, not his worst. Fairly consistent and readable, but also undercooked. Nothing too outlandish, none of the usual hiccups with the final act. The whimsical concept is softly trodden and makes for some nice passages, but ultimately isn't explored to any amount of satisfaction. It's a shame, because it seems to hint at ideas such as collective unconscious, manifestation, mind influencing matter, but ultimately breezes past them in favour of tidy fluff.
Possibly as straight down the line as Simak can get. Not his best, not his worst. Fairly consistent and readable, but also undercooked. Nothing too outlandish, none of the usual hiccups with the final act. The whimsical concept is softly trodden and makes for some nice passages, but ultimately isn't explored to any amount of satisfaction. It's a shame, because it seems to hint at ideas such as collective unconscious, manifestation, mind influencing matter, but ultimately breezes past them in favour of tidy fluff.
September 8, 2021
Not as fond of this one as I am of many of Simak's other works, because it spends 85% of its time circling its subject in all these oblique, unsatisfying ways, and only 15% of its time actually making contact with it. That 15% could have been lifted off and transformed into a vastly superior book -- a story about the responsibilities we owe to our imaginations and vice versa. But was it worth reading for that 15%? Yeah, I guess, if you're a fast reader (as I am).
July 16, 2021
This is a bit different even for Clifford Simak. Our minds are the next evolutionary step and everything we create exists in an alternate world. One man is at odds with those creations. This was somewhere between a short story and a novella and I felt like a longer story would have fleshed out some of the plot elements better.
August 9, 2023
Campy, not Simak's best but yet a good read
Reminiscent of early Twilight Zone, drags in some places, whimsical. A study on morality but at the same time an arrogant view of small town America vs the urban elite. Good guy wins and gets the girl, etc. Not one of Simak's better works.
Reminiscent of early Twilight Zone, drags in some places, whimsical. A study on morality but at the same time an arrogant view of small town America vs the urban elite. Good guy wins and gets the girl, etc. Not one of Simak's better works.
September 13, 2025
I love a book told in the first person as you, the reader, get to discover what the character does.
This is an unusual book, a blend of science fiction and fantasy. It works quite well, although there are a few passages that become a little laborious.
The story is very original.
All in all, a fun read.
This is an unusual book, a blend of science fiction and fantasy. It works quite well, although there are a few passages that become a little laborious.
The story is very original.
All in all, a fun read.
October 6, 2020
I'm a big fan of Simak, but even for him this one is long on ideas and thin on execution. Still fun, not good best, but its a great collection of images and ideas which, now that I think about it, is on- brand for the plot.
March 24, 2021
A reporter on a leave of absence returns to his home town to write a book but instead gets caught in a world where fantasy and fiction are real. I can't say too much about it without spoiling it, but this is a hell of a fun read!
March 22, 2025
Woof
Decent set up...then what happened? Lets try everything! Lets cut out the female lead. Whats the goal? Whats the resolution?
If "City" or "Way Station" is peak Simack, then this isnt even approaching an incline to to the peak
Decent set up...then what happened? Lets try everything! Lets cut out the female lead. Whats the goal? Whats the resolution?
If "City" or "Way Station" is peak Simack, then this isnt even approaching an incline to to the peak
June 16, 2026
I’m really loving this author’s work
I love the way Mr. Simak can weave a story into such an interesting and captivating way. It’s like I’m watching a movie, but I’m actually reading and listening to the story. Truly wonderful !!
I love the way Mr. Simak can weave a story into such an interesting and captivating way. It’s like I’m watching a movie, but I’m actually reading and listening to the story. Truly wonderful !!
May 2, 2018
Neil Gaiman might have read 'Out of Their Minds' sometime before coming up with his American Gods...
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