The World That Couldn't Be

by Clifford D. Simak

Like every farmer on every planet, Duncan had to hunt down anything that damaged his crops—even though he was aware this was…
Duncan, a plantation owner on an alien world tracks the strange animal Cytha and gets a lesson in xeno-ecology.

Clifford Donald Simak (August 3, 1904 - April 25, 1988) was an American science fiction writer. He was honored by fans with three Hugo Awards and by colleagues with one Nebula Award. The Science Fiction Writers of America made him its third SFWA Grand Master and the Horror Writers Association made him one of three inaugural winners of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement. This is one of his stories.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Audiobook, American

47 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1958

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

[Chris Aldridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Librivox audiobook. I absolutely Loved it due to the brilliant understanding of biological opportunities. To my mind a fairly despicable, redneck colonial farmer hunts a crop eating alien varmint, reluctantly assisted by a native humanoid tracker, who he mistreats like a red Indian slave, often referring to him as "it". This is possibly technically pardonable due to the mystery of the apparently sexless reproductive method of the humanoids and other lifeforms prevalent on this planet. This alien world is imaginatively described and the exciting sometimes shocking story contains some highly unexpected twists including the reluctant personal growth of the antihero pioneer.
Well narrated by Greg Marguerite.
Review updated after 2nd listen to be more +ve.)

[Alex Sarll]

An early work by the underrated master of pastoral science fiction. Decades on, it's easy to see some of the twists coming - but also all the more impressive to see how deftly he deploys ideas about consciousness which still seemed innovative once Bruce Sterling and Peter Watts got to them years later.

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool short story with a fun ending. The author had an amazing imagination.

[Lacivard Mammadova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gözəl idi, maraqlı idi, bir nəfəsə idi, biraz qorxulu idi. Çox bomba müəllifdir, belə gec tanış olduğumuza görə heyfslənirəm.

[Derek S. Inman · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Moby Dick” with a twist

I couldn’t help but think of the Melville classic as I read this book. It was extremely imaginative, with a clever twist on a timeless hunter-and-hunted plot.

[Saya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pese a lo corto que es, me ha costado terminarlo. La historia es original pero el desenlace es bastante previsible y, dado el título, me esperaba un final más sorprendente. En cualquier caso es una buena lectura rápida entre otros libros más densos.

[Anna Nesterovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me some time to figure out what was the story I read many years ago, but it turned out to be The World that Couldn't Be. I must say I remembered it quite differently from what I read now, my child's brain added a lot to the narrative (and also subtracted quite a few things it had no context for), making the story unforgettable. So these 4 stars are mostly for my fond memories and not the actual story.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining fantasy listening 🎶🔰

Another will written fantasy Sci-Fi space adventure thriller short story by Clifford D. Simak about a man 🚹 on a planet somewhere in space where there are very smart animals. He is hunting one of them when an agreement is reached. I would recommend this novella to readers of fantasy space adventurers. Enjoy the adventure of reading 👓 or listening 🎶 to Alexa as I do because of health issues. 2022 😮

[Marcy Rae Henry · Rating 2 out of 5]

no idea how/why this ended up on my to-read list. prob when i was writing some spec. fic.
great cover, no?

i found an audiobook under a 'lost/forgotten sci fi' list. so gave it a listen while doing sunday tasks: walking the beautiful beagle, pulling weeds, watering the starting-to-dry flowers and the tree with the nest; cooking eggs and fakin bacon...

it never pulled me in. tho i truly appreciated the premise:
a plantation owner [US history?] on an alien [buzz word of the day tho different than the 50s lookin to space...] world tracks the strange animal Cytha [well, fill in the blank of the colonized and disposessed! ]and gets a lesson in xeno-ecology.

xeno-ecology is a fantastic word! grateful to the summary for giving me this word.
we have been invading. they are invaded. nosotros hemos sido invadidos. the gov't supports the invasion of... Ukraine, Palestina, Tibet and on and on and on...

so, yeah, from my brown eyes, i wanted to read this as anti-colonial. i wanted to relish the part where, according to Gutenburg project, 'they [protagonists] agree to coexist while maintaining a delicate balance between their respective roles within the ecosystem.'
i wasn't invested tho! and after i got the gist of the hunt, i've no clue about the details, and the symbolism probably got lost in the details, i've no desire to re-read/listen to the story.

prob v much of its time. ;)
as am i.
as are you.

[Phil Giunta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Living among one of the primitive tribes on the planet Layard, a human farmer and physician named Gavin Duncan finds his crops partially eaten overnight by a creature known as the Cytha. Duncan makes it clear that he intends to hunt down and kill the animal before it returns to finish off his entire field. However, no one has ever hunted the Cytha and Duncan’s desire to do so causes trepidation among the natives. Despite the tribal leader’s warning, Duncan sets out with a reluctant tracker named Sipar to hunt down the beast, only to find it a more intelligent and formidable adversary than he imagined.

[Alex Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

First encounter with this author, 3.5* rounded up.

Thinly veiled sci-fi short story using the pioneer-settler motif transferred to a non-earth planet.

Homey, homespun style.

Cute little environmental tale about a man’s colonisation efforts on a strange sort of world where he has to deal with local natives and a Gaial type of life-form, hunts it down and comes to terms with it.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boo. Throw the whole story away.

Trash even for dime novels. Pretty nastily anti Indigenous. It wants to be a space western, but just isn't quite there. It's got Lone Ranger and "frontier man" vibes in all the worst ways.

[Elza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another captivating story from Clifford D. Simak

This story is short but the beginning, middle and end were all well written to keep my attention as Simak described another kind of life - form on a distant planet and why hunting it was a bad idea.

[bookguy 505 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Librivox audio book,

I really enjoy this voice actor Gregg marriette or however you say it

Story was okay it wasn’t anything too profound and the main character was just kind of an ass the whole time whomp

[Dmitry Demidov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Неплохая повесть.

[Keith · Rating 1 out of 5]

Librivox

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.5*]

[Cornel Diaconu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good

[Diane Vickery · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn’t sleep, so began listening to a recording of this novella on YouTube. Then I had to stay awake to finish it. Clever and interesting.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sort of like Enemy Mine.

[Paul Triller · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quirky little tale told well.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hunting the Cytha

A charming story about the hunt for a creature that turns out to be something other than that the hunter first imagined.

[Gayle Tapp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Original idea but very dated since it was written in the 1950s

[Mark Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

More ridiculous space opera.

[Lyle Boylen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enjoyable novella. The first time i have read Simak.

[Forked Radish · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intermittently intelligent and highly fecund sofa cushion is hunted.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reading of a great story....loved it

[Pep1nu · Rating 3 out of 5]

The narration style was just weird but i liked it

[Mark Rabideau · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, albeit predictable, novella. Fun to listen to while on my walk.

[Harvey Dias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly imaginative