The Big Front Yard discussion

Ring starts slow and "rambly," homespun and a little too cute, with a precocious kid and a lonely small town writer, an eccentric neighbor and the slow introduction of Forever gadgets.

But! Then, things take a quick turn for the better after Vickers is courted by the Power Baron speaking on behalf of all Capitalists everywhere, including the Kremlin! The book is heating up quickly, becoming an interesting exploration of post-scarcity economics and what it might mean to live in a country house and not hear crickets. I'm hooked.

I'm getting there, but not quite yet. The forever gadgets show potential for interesting plot lines. Unfortunately, having just come off of Time & Again, my expectations for Mr. Simak are quite high. At least his folksy talk and characters are more at home in the 1970s than, we assume, they are in the, say, 5070s.