The Big Front Yard and Other Stories

by Clifford D. Simak, David W. Wixon (Introduction)

Tales of the unknown in which a fix-it man crosses into another dimension—and more

Hiram Taine is a handyman who can fix anything. When he isn’t fiddling with his tools, he is roaming through the woods with his dog, Towser, as he has done for as long as he can remember. He likes things that he can understand. But when a new ceiling appears in his basement—a ceiling that appears to have the ability to repair television sets so they’re better than before—he knows he has come up against a mystery that no man can solve.
 
Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novelette, “The Big Front Yard” is a powerful story about what happens when an ordinary man finds reality coming apart around him. Along with the other stories in this collection, it is some of the most lyrical science fiction ever published.
 
Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Ebooks, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Anthologies, Collections

332 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 20, 2015

About the author

"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...

Reviews

[Metaphorosis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Metaphorosis Reviews
4 stars

The Big Front Yard is a strong but somewhat mixed bag - mostly strong stories, some that don't feel completely thought out, and one that just doesn't work. The one fairly experimental story is the one that doesn't work, but when Simak sticks closer to familiar ground, he does very well indeed - stories about ordinary people who deal with extraordinary things without breaking a sweat.

The best stories include:

The Big Front Yard - A small-town handyman receives unusual and generous visitors. Classic Simak - small-town doesn't mean foolish or naive.
Junkyard - A human ship breaks down on a strange planet, and finds signs it's not the first to do so. The focus wanders a bit, but the overall theme is strong.
Mr. Meek - Musketeer - A mild-mannered accountant finds an unexpected talent for adventure. The genius of Simak is that he doesn't transform to macho hero at the end.
Neighbor - An odd neighbor moves into a small-town. Nothing startling, but a nice encapsulation of what Simak did so well.
So Bright the Vision - A writer struggles to get by in a time when most creation is automated. The understanding, supportive woman could stand to be updated, but the concept is nice, and it's one of Simak's relatively few stories with pointed social commentary.

A strong collection with just a few weak points.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rounded-off at 4.5.

The short bio on the back of this second volume of his short fiction informs us that, in 1977, Cliff Simak became "the third Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America". Grand Master! Highfalutin title! ~ as perhaps Simak himself - with his dry, midwestern wit - might have thought.

If the spirit running through these collected stories is any indication, Simak appears a more humble sort. Nevertheless, it's easy to rightfully acknowledge him as one of the genuine granddaddies of contemporary sci-fi.

The tales here may, for various reasons, be thought of as 'old school'. Overall, they represent a gentler type of science fiction - esp. if you compare them to the more-current preference for what's called 'hard sci-fi'. It has now all become so incredibly complicated - with the multiverse and what-have-you - that the simpler (though nicely textured) visions that Simak puts forward may seem quaint; perhaps more like the work of Rod Serling.

Still, the stories are beautifully rendered, revealing a fertile imagination and a writing style that almost feels conversational, even when there's no conversation. There's a noticeable, easy flow in the way Simak puts words, thoughts and ideas together.

There are eight stories here - only one is like a short story; the others are on the long side. Six of them (which I enjoyed immensely) not only deserve the highest rating but they are so clever that I hesitate to describe them here in any way. Suffice it to say that it seems Simak knew how to make science fiction something very much his own.

If the volume falters, it does so only slightly. First, in the 3rd story: it seems Simak also wrote a somewhat small number of standard western stories. This one - competent but forgettable - reads like something the author may have written just for money.

The only other entry that's slightly disappointing is the final one ('So Bright the Vision'). With its angle of Earth as being "principally devoted to the production of a solid stream of fiction for the alien trade.", I can appreciate its inventiveness. However, while I like what the story is putting across (esp. about storytelling itself), I found its unraveling a bit forced.

My two reservations aside, the other 6 stories are knockouts. Favorites: the peripherally spiritual 'Neighbor', 'Mr. Meek - Musketeer' (for its welcome humor) and 'Junkyard' - esp. for its ingenious / hilarious use of alcohol. I look forward to reading more by this singular, perhaps reluctant Grand Master.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is about "The Big Front Yard" only, which I read on the recommendation of my friend Irwin after a brief discussion of Daniel Dennett's reference to a pasta meme introduced in China by Marco Polo.
I asked if anything substantial was contributed by the word "meme" after "pasta." Irwin replied that this reminded him of Simak's classic SF short story.

Irwin: The conceit of the story, if there is one, is that the idea of something can be more powerful than the thing itself. If Marco Polo just brought back some pasta it might not have been a big deal. But infecting people with the idea of pasta changed the world (in my opinion).

The story (which I immensely enjoyed) certainly strengthens the appropriateness of comparing ideas to gene-like memes.  Viewing a situation like the growing popularity of pasta does remind one of the networking action of genes.  But examining the actual details of that popularity (someone eating pasta, liking it, wanting more, recommending it to others, selling it, etc.) shows it to be made up of the individual, self-aware activities of conceptualization, recognition and communication.  Saying people have been "infected" with an idea, except as a humorous analogy, seems inappropriate.

I liked the fact that "The Big Front Yard" dramatized the opposition between the initiation of force by the powers that be (self-important friends (Henry Horton), the police, world governments, the U.N.) against the civilized activity of traders (Taine and the saddled aliens. along with Beasley and Chuck).  A great defense of laissez faire capitalism!

[Brian]

Old classic science fiction.

[A Cask of Troutwine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Big Front Yard: And Other Stories is the second collection of Clifford D. Simak's short fiction, and one that I feel is a bit rougher than the first one. Unlike the first collection, none of the stories in this one really stuck out to me all that much.

-

Spoilers below:

The Big Front Yard is an award-winning novelette, having won a Hugo in 1959, and is included in the The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two . It's about a small-town antiquities seller and tinkerer who ends up making first contact with alien life, bringing humanity into a galactic system of ideas trading.

There's a bit going on here, mainly between the working class, rural protagonist and how he interacts with the rapidly industrializing world around him. The protagonist is part of a family that's been in the area for generations, but he owns only the family home and makes very little. He laments that at some point the forests and wilderness around him will be cut down, and there's not much that can be done to stop it. Despite his skills as a salesman and tinkerer, he makes little as opposed to a neighbor of his, a businessman who runs a computer plant and who admits that he can't do much but can pay people who can and that's why he's so wealthy.

To avoid reiterating the whole plot here, the narrative provides the protagonist with sole ownership of access to an alien world, one where he can use his full skills as a trader and barterer to begin trading solely in ideas, rather than wealth or resources he lacks, with the aliens he finds there.

I like the concepts behind the story, especially the idea that a working-class person can become the most important person in this situation due to actual skills rather than wealth or connections and that interactions with aliens could be based on something greater than capital. However, the story itself didn't really grab me, unfortunately.

The Observer is a rather short narrative, following a being slowly becoming aware of itself and its own memories.

The experimental nature of this story's structure was interesting, having a gradual expansion of concept and vocabulary as the titular observer began to understand more and more of itself and its surroundings, and the plot reasons for that. It reminded me of Simak's later I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air from the previous collection and was written for Harlan Ellison's unfinished The Last Dangerous Visions anthology, which I feel took the idea and developed it a bit more.

Trail City's Hot-Lead Crusaders is one of Clifford D. Simaks surviving Western stories... and admittedly I skipped it. I had heard that it was a weak story and I just never got back to it.

Junkyard is a fun puzzle story. A group of surveyors wind up on an alien planet and discover the titular junkyard: an inexplicable pile of what they know to be starship parts, which would be proof of not only alien life but also that aliens had interstellar capabilities. However, despite all of their training and specialized knowledge, they have no idea how the alien engine works or even goes together. And then they realize that they have forgotten how their own engine works, and that something else is happening.

A pretty fun straightforward story, but nothing spectacular. Simak presents a pretty interesting mystery and has the protagonists begin to work out exactly what's going on through deductive reasoning and trial and error.

Mr. Meek - Musketeer is a comedy Space Western about the titular Mr. Meek, a middle-aged white-collar worker who's saved enough money to go out to the great frontier of space, looking for adventure and freedom after a relatively cozy and boring life. Mr. Meek proceeds to get himself in trouble through misunderstandings and a hidden well-spring of ability and a spine he didn't even know he had.

This story was pretty fun and felt like a bit of a light-hearted and loving jab at the kind of people who find wish fulfillment in the escapism of the Science Fiction magazines Simak was being published in. Mr. Meek felt like a Don Knotts type of character, and it was nice that rather than being a hindrance, Mr. Meek was genuinely capable, in unintended and surprising ways, rather than being solely the butt of the joke.

Neighbor is described pretty well by its introduction, a quintessential Simak story where aliens interact with a rural community.

I feel like this story works because of its first-person narrative, with the narrator being a small-town farmer talking about how his community learned to accept its newest tenants, a family of aliens (both literal and metaphorical) who move in. The narrator's gradual understanding of his new neighbors' nature, and acceptance of them as they improve the community gives the story a sense of psychological realism. The community only really accepts the aliens because, on top of being personable and quite helpful (providing rain and helping with ailments), they also protect the quietness of the community and refuse to let it be disrupted.

It wouldn't take much to change this story into a horror story. The aliens refuse to let a journalist leave town, literally bending space around the town to stop them from reaching the interstate, trapping him and his family until they decide to settle down in town, and later it's revealed that the alien family is stopping people like the government or journalists from finding the town at all to stop them from disrupting the peace.

At heart though this is an immigrant story, and to reiterate the above point, it does feel that the family is accepted mostly because of how they integrate into the culture of the town and don't disrupt the community. They aren't really given a culture of their own, adopting as much as possible the culture of the rural Midwest community. It's heartbreaking, in a way. But the fact that the community accepts them because they blend in so well feels psychologically real, and I feel that Simak may have been commenting on this as well, the inability of a rural community to accept otherness unless it conforms and/or proves helpful.

Shadow World is another puzzle story, similar to the above Junkyard. Planet surveyors are working on a planet that seems to be inhabited by strange beings they've taken to calling Shadows. These beings follow them around, possibly sabotage their machinery, and don't seem to eat or drink.

This story is also a pretty straightforward one. The protagonist is presented with a series of mysteries and spends most of the story breaking them down and solving them.

So Bright the Vision is a story that seems in some ways weirdly prescient despite really being a commentary of something completely unrelated. The story takes place in a far future where humanity has based all of its economic output on writing stories for sale to alien cultures, with all writing being done by computers. Every writer has one and provides it with tape reels of characters, plots, backstories, stylings, etc. until they get the end result. The higher quality machines produce higher quality stories, while most people have to make do with lower quality 'Yarners' as they're called.

Obviously, in 2023, this feels prescient of the kind of future that Silicon Valley AI peddlers are trying to sell to us. All creative endeavors can be done by computer for cheap, so why pay people for creativity? Of course, this story was written in 1956, and what Simak was commenting on was the publishing industry, the science fiction magazines in particular, and the all-pervasive need for writers to conform to strict narrative styles and types, based on what publishers thought was most likely to sell. An issue that, of course, has not gone away.

If anything, the story is really prescient of how we have turned stories and creative endeavors into 'content', with the amount of information we can gather from audiences and the all-pervasive algorithms allow companies to set up an even narrower set of hyper-focus-tested stories and art.

I feel that the beginning of this story works well. The protagonist is dirt broke with almost no opportunities to make any money, his yarner is almost derelict, and the publishers are offering him worse and worse pay and rejecting what he can turn in. The narrative seems to be building towards a story about the life of a working writer.

However, I feel that the story kind of falls apart about halfway through. It falls into the trap that I think a lot of writers do when they start to discuss the importance of stories and fiction. The ability for people to engage in storytelling and create. It's not that they're wrong, but it begins to feel a bit self-important. It's almost impossible to discuss the importance of fiction within fiction without it feeling a bit like the writer is patting themselves on the back. The story maintains the tightrope walk for the first chunk of the story, and there is a cynicism to its take on fiction with the idea that humans are the only people who write because we're the only species to lie, but overall I feel that the story loses me past a certain point.

-

Overall I don't feel that this collection really grabs me as much as the first one did. There's nothing that really reaches the quality of Ogre, I Am Crying All Inside, The Call from Beyond, or All the Traps of Earth from the previous collection.

However, that's not to say that this collection is bad. Simak is a quality writer, and his prose is direct, clean, and easy to read, and I found the whole book entertaining, the one Western story being an exception.

5 or 6 out of 10

[Norman Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Big Front Yard (Astounding Science Fiction, October 1958 - novella - Hugo Award winner)
5 Stars
A wonderful tale of exotic aliens juxtaposed with the commonplace environment of rural America, and how one man is able to avert an interstellar war.

The Observer (Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, May 1972 - short story)
4 Stars
This story of an entity (whose identity is only revealed at the end) who wakes up with no memory, but begins to piece together its history bit by bit. The modern style of this story shows that Simak was able to evolve his writing style over time.

Trail City's Hot-Lead Crusaders (New Western Magazine, September 1944 - novelette)
4 Stars
This is a pure Western that reminded me of Shane, in this case where a small-town newspaper publisher goes against a ruthless gang of conspirators. The gang is truly evil, murdering innocent people and destroying town property simply to intimidate the residents.

Junkyard (Galaxy Science Fiction, May 1953 - novelette)
4 Stars
This is a problem story that was popular in the 1950s. Humans encounter strange events on an alien planet and must figure out the truth before all is lost. The solution is interesting and different, perhaps even ingenious.

Mr. Meek – Musketeer (Planet Stories, Summer 1944 - novelette)
3 Stars
This is a Western set in space, with humorous elements. A milquetoast (Mr. Meek, get it?) accidentally fights off some crooks while just wanting to do some sightseeing on exotic worlds. As a result, he gets embroiled in conflict that he would rather not be a part of.

Neighbor (Astounding Science Fiction, June 1954 - novelette)
4 Stars
This is the type of story that The Twilight Zone loved. An alien family disguised as humans comes to backwater middle America and assimilates with the natives, who suspect something's amiss, but are too polite to say anything. When an East Coast reporter comes to investigate, the aliens make sure their secret stays safe, but in a gentle way apropos of the gentle folk around them.

Shadow World (Galaxy Science Fiction, September 1957 - novelette)
4 Stars
A human exploration team is surveying an alien planet, but are shadowed by mysterious beings who don't seem to be alive. The problems escalate when aliens arrive, but fortunately one of the crew has a prohibited piece of equipment that can be used against them, if used correctly.

So Bright the Vision (Fantastic Universe, August 1956 - novelette)
4 Stars
This is a fun vision of how writing could change with the advent of AI machines that can produce any kind of story. It's a tale that subtly criticizes the literary establishment and the publishing industry. In the end, an alien "life blanket" holds the key for writers to break out of their writing ruts.

[Joe Stack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of stories. They’re entertaining and fun and masterly written. Based on these stories, I regret I had not read anything by Simak before reading this collection. But now I look forward to him on my go to list of authors. If you’re like me and haven’t read Simak, do so for you’re in for a treat.

I was hoping to pick one or two stories that stand out, but I enjoyed them all. The last story in the collection, “So Bright the Vision,” about yarn writing machines that replace the imagination of writers is, as the editor comments, a criticism of sci-fi in the 1950s, but I think the story is relevant to our growing reliance on computerization and AI, especially AI. The story’s main character asks, “Was this the end and all of Man—the moving gear, the clever glass and metal, the adroit electronics?” This is a question pertinent to our current advances in technology and AI, and I imagine it will apply for a long time. Simak’s tale is fun, and a hopeful perspective.

[Karen A. Wyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm rounding up a bit, but not much.

I'm loving this collection of Clifford D. Simak's short fiction, being doled out one volume at a time. Volume II has some of Simak's best stories, not all of which I'd read. There was one whose ending didn't work well for me (and which had apparently been rewritten after a rejection), but all in all, this is a don't-miss-it collection for fans of classic science fiction.

[Hollis]

Whoever wrote the explanation of what “The Big Front Yard” is about, “what happens when an ordinary man finds reality coming apart around him,” is completely incorrect! I know this for a fact because I wrote him, in December 1985, what I thought this story is about. He wrote me back, in February 1986, and told me this:

“Your analysis of the thrust of The Big Front Yard is a welcome surprise to me. I knew, of course, what I was writing about, and I thought I’d spelled it out sufficiently for anyone to understand. But of all the comments that have been made of it, all the words that have been written of it by critics and science fiction historians, you are the first and only one who has put an unerring finger on what I tried so hard to say. Thank God for you. I think that in other stories I may have said or tried to say much the same thing, but less directly and with less emphasis.” — Clifford D. Simak, February 28, 1986.

“The Big Front Yard” is a story about the importance of ideas. What is the most important thing in the world? “What did the world need the most, to not only survive, but to improve? … Ideas,” I wrote. “… no culture can progress without ideas. Money can buy anything, but money cannot buy an original idea, a creative thought. … money came into being as a tool used by Man with which to trade. Barter, if you will. Money is an intermediary, not an end. Ideas are the beginning AND the end. If Men let themselves believe that money is the end, they trap themselves, they limit themselves. … And doom themselves … to a bleak, mechanistic and uninspiring future.” — Hollis Ramsey (née Weiner), December 8, 1985

Hiram Taine is a trader, an expert dickerer. Along with Beasley and Towser, Hiram uses his skill to barter ideas.

So the explanation written by anyone who doesn’t emphasize the importance of ideas in the works of Mr. Simak is missing the most important part of his intent. “The Big Front Yard” is about so much more than “reality coming apart.”

I can’t write about the other stories in this compilation because I don’t know what other stories are included in this Volume 2.

[BookBurner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. The universe remains tight in this tale as does everything from him that I have experienced. It makes it timeless. I always find the efficiency of the government to be the most unbelievable aspect. Always. But I probably overthink. This story was shorter than expected but still a classic. I stand by my initial comment. First tale was great and a good reason to open this book.

2nd tale might not have been so great. I was able to survive it but at what cost? That’s a question that the short itself asks. Its interesting that this was written by someone in the great depression.

3rd tale was Gunsmoke Goes to Press. Another unmemorable tale in my opinion. I guess you had to have been there to relate properly. Shorts are a gamble. You win some, you lose some. Hmm. What was this story even about? I will be pondering that post this tale.

4th tale. Now we get warmer. This tale was more curious. Junkyard was the name. I liked this one. So many classic cliches utilized here. Dumb scientists, malevolent aliens, and memory issues. I loved this one.

5th tale was about the prowler. Kind of a horror story when you get down to it. Interesting plot although the ending flow over my head. I guess I'll understand it more on the re-read.
I love the intros to the tales more than the tales themselves.

6th tale was about a valley that had a rather utopian relationship with it's residents. It was alright for it's age. Something about these tales make them hard to predict or follow. These guys are being stalked by shadows? Okay. I guess it’s the terms that confuse me. What is a peeper? There was a tension that was nurtured in this tale even though I just was puzzled figuring out what a peeper was. I guess it was just a shadow? Oh snap! Dickering is back in the game. And the need for 500 peepers.

7th tale sold me. It was just too good a deal to pass up. The tale however remains a ponder. I feel so out of time struggling to get what the hell these people were getting at.

This was a book out of time. I just gotta ponder it internally.

[CJ Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find that a lot with a lot of “classic” sci fi authors, I tend to really not care for the majority of their short fiction (Clarke and Asimov come to mind), but even though this was my first foray into Simak’s short fiction, I found myself really surprised at how good these stories are. One thing that I really like is that almost all the stories have like 1 or 2 more story elements most sci-fi short stories (instead of just focusing on one aspect, there are like 2 or 3 sci-fi aspects in each story).

Some highlights are “So Bright the Vision”: an ode to sci-fi writing which takes place in a world where works of fiction are humankind’s main cultural export (since they are the only civilization that can lie) but they have turned to using machines that essentially write stories for them (super relevant now with AI writing becoming more and more prevalent (ew). This story is really clever and comically written with a MC who almost gets the point but just quite doesn’t until the very end. The Observer was my other favorite, the shortest story in the bunch. It is about a disembodied intelligence who gradually realizes it’s purpose of observing life of a planet for some far of capitalist masters.

I really like how socialist leaning a lot of these stories are, where a lot of the end results are the characters blocking a huge capitalist take over of a resources (as with the big front yard and the portals to other worlds, and with “Neighbor” with the alien technology of slowing time). “Shadow world”, which I really liked doesn’t take this route, but the overall message seems to argue against the main characters actions again the original inhabitants of the planet.

I was even surprised how much I enjoyed the western stories, albeit not anywhere near as much as the straight sci-fi ones.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of eight classic short stories from Clifford D Simak, including a western. These mostly SF stories are good old-fashioned tales of possible futures, aliens, spaceships and far-off worlds. They reflect CDS's typical old-world charm and fondness for interesting and down-to-earth characters, and I for one enjoy them immensely. This compilation is the second of twelve volumes, and I shall be working my way hopefully through them all. The stories are as follows:
1) The Big Front Yard. Hiram Taine finds a group of aliens have moved into his basement and started fixing things up. But these favours are just a prelude to a much larger plan.
2) The Observer. A creature is sent out to explore the universe and report back its findings, but the comms link is lost.
3) Trail City's Hot Lead Crusaders. A western in which a newspaper man goes up against a corrupt but powerful man. A superb story.
4) Junkyard. A spaceship from Earth lands on a new planet and discovers why there is so much junk left behind by other species.
5) Mr Meek - Musketeer. A mild-mannered clerk finds a new calling in a western-type mining town far out in space.
6) Neighbour. A wonderful story about what happens when an alien family take up farming within a close-knit community that looks after its own.
7) Shadow World. On a strange new world, a spaceship crew try to understand the intentions of the mute aliens that literally shadow all their efforts to colonise the planet.
8) So Bright the Vision. A writer, hundreds of years in the future, struggles to make a living from his machine-made stories.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simak, Clifford D. The Big Front Yard: And Other Stories. Introduction by David W. Wixon. Open Road, 2015. Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak 2.
Clifford D. Simak is an outlier among Golden Age science fiction masters. He was a lifelong Midwesterner who kept his day job as a newspaper journalist. His stories often have what-if premises one expects from magazines in the 1940s and ‘60s—what if there were small aliens in the house, what if a spaceship with a human consciousness woke up and had to figure out who and where it was, and what if some nice aliens seemed human and lived on a farm next door. His characters are not usually swashbucklers or high-tech engineers. Even if they get into gunfights, they keep their day jobs. Morgan Carson of “Trail City’s Hot-Lead Crusaders” is a newspaper editor. Oliver Meek, who is surprisingly good with a blaster, is a bookkeeper on vacation. Hiram, the hero of “The Big Front Yard,” is a handyman and antique dealer who becomes an interstellar diplomat and trader. And the aliens next door in “Neighbor” are actual farmers. All the stories in The Big Front Yard collection are still worth reading. The title novella is the best of the lot because its local color writing is done so deftly. I was surprised that Simak wrote Westerns as well as science fiction, and that several of his science fiction stories borrow from Western models. Read some Simak. You won’t be sorry. 4 stars.

[Andrew Brooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite Simak having been one of the masters of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, I cannot say that's the case in this collection.
There's some moderate dating, but the stories are well enough written, in the technical sense.
A bigger issue is that these stories are just too simplistic. They are written with a lot of slang of the times in such a way as to say not much of anything at all. Just a bunch of hinting for a reader to attempt to furnish just about all details for themselves.
Then there is the main issue, which is most of these tales are exactly that: tall tales, rather than science fiction. At best, several are simply what's called "spaghetti western... In SPACE!!" As stated in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: if you take a Western story, and change details to place the action on another planet, even with alien creatures, you do NOT have Science Fiction, you have a Western in Space setting

[Chuck McKenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clifford D. Simak was one of the absolute masters of 20th Century science fiction, his work consistently exploring strange, quirky and dark frontiers of the genre, with engrossing and sometimes quietly unsettling plots, relatable characters, and a true 'sense of wonder' that recalls the best of the Golden Age of SF. This set of fourteen collections of his short fiction is a wonderful showcase of the authors popularity and skill, and I highly recommend them to fans of both Simak specifically and of science fiction in general.

[Lynn]

What's fun about Simak's science fiction stories is the way they portray ordinary people confronting alien reality. In the title story, a repairman and junk dealer with a knack for "dickering" finds himself as the go between between humans and aliens who have made their connection to earth through his house. Other stories are similar: a small town grows to welcome visitors from another world, a bookkeeper saves his money and heads off for the asteroids, etc.

[C.L. Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hadn't heard of Cliffard Simak until recently. He is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. In my opinion, Simak is right up there with Philips K. Dick. This collection was great. If you are a fan of classic sci-fi stories from the like of Philip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein, Cliffard D. Simak will fit nicely into your collection.

I won't bother with a synopsis or review of individual stories, but will say that they are varied and fantastic, just the way a good story collection should be.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice collection of C D Simak stories of which I only recognise So Bright The Vision. I cannot believe that I have, until now, never read The Big Front Yard before. Classic Simak. This collection includes a western story and a western style story set near Jupiter. A must for fans of this wonderful writer.

Ray Smillie

[Peter Browne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic primer

Old style, dates and still fabulous. Worth the price for the title story and 'Neighbour' alone. Simak wrote stories that felt like they were from the earth, the heartland, even when they were set far out in the universe. His ideas are still startling.

Open, and enjoy.

[Andres · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s incredible how entertaining these extremely old stories continue to be, as well as relatable. In fact, one of them, So Bright The Vision, written in 1956, accurately predicted current events, namely the ongoing fight about AIs such as ChatGPT writing fiction. Simak was not only a grandmaster, it looks like he was better than Nostradamus at predicting.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Clifford Simak was one of the science fiction greats. This small sampling of his short stories is a wonderful example of the range of his imagination. The stories are now well over half a century old, but they hold up well to the passage of time. An easy, quick, and enjoyable read.

[susan serventi Serventi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting reading. Had not read a book of short stories before for our book club. This was a good choice as it doubled the experience in illuminating the 1950's era of sci-fi in manageable bites. I loved it. Brought back so many memories of the times.

[Chris Peckover · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several very interesting stories (The Big Front Yard and The Junkyard) and a lot of average ones. Many stories suffer from the usual sci-fi writer issues of bland characterization, so it lives or dies by the idea.

[Jeff Greason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somehow, my previous introductions to Simak hadn't been that impressive. But there's many stories in this collection I really enjoyed, including the title story. I may give his longer novels a try.

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a big fan Clifford Simak! His work is exceptional!

The characters in all Simak’s stories are unique and intriguing individuals. The story is unique but never drags keeping the reader’s imagination and attention focused on what happens next!

[NC Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

A science fiction classic in every way. I read The Big Front Yard many years ago. It holds up well.
Simak injected the common man into much of his SciFi writing and rural settings as well.
Unusual in the genre.

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://gnomeship.blogspot.com/2017/09...

[Durandana · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 - The Big Front Yard
3/5 - The Observer
2/5 - Trail City's Hot-Lead Crusaders
5/5 - Junkyard
3/5 - Mr Meek - Musketeer
3/5 - Neighbor
4/5 - Shadow World
5/5 - So Bright the Vision

[Harry Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simak was a masterful SciFi Grandmaster whose stories hold up well, even today. Some great stories in this book, and a good way to get acquainted with this author if you haven't read him.

[Michael Buck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting stories from a sci-fi writer from the 50s and one of the stories is a western. Very nice.