Clifford D. Simak A Heritage of Stars (1977)
It seems possibly ironic that the very last Simak novel I had still to read should be the one which most clearly expresses the themes over which I've been puzzling all of this time.
Simak left behind his rural roots in Millville, Wisconsin for work as a journalist in the big city, and it seems like he spent most of his literary career trying to write his way back home, to the rustic idyll of his childhood; yet having left, he never once went back, not even out of curiosity - so there's a puzzle there, considering how many millions of words he clocked up on the subject of brooks babbling through woodland disturbed only by old coots of the kind who customarily appear with a faithful hound in tow.
Here we have a variation on the quest narrative, one to which Cliff returned time and again, but a variation which really seems to capture everything he enjoyed about the form, and which - as I say - expresses itself with unusual clarity. Our questing band comprises - fairly typically for Simak - our sceptical author stand-in, a robot, a witch, a horse, a grizzled old man of the mountains, a mystic hippy chick, and an entourage of what appear to be ghosts. Civilisation has collapsed many centuries before, leaving Earth to return to wilderness across which our band treks in search of the Place of Going to the Stars, as described in myth and rumour. The Place of Going to the Stars is an ancient city of ambiguous construction on top of a bluff, which somewhat inspires questions about Spielberg and the timing of Close Encounters, but never mind. As ever, our intended destination is some lost state of harmony within the cosmic fellowship to which Simak occasionally referred - something like getting back into Eden, I guess. The interesting thing about A Heritage of Stars - at least to me in so much as that this is the novel in which it seems most clearly stated - is that for all that Simak's pastoralism may suggest certain new age sympathies, our author stand-in is very clearly identified as a cynic by contrast to the overwhelming and overwrought spirituality of at least two of his companions. The way through, Simak seems to suggest, is the middle ground, a mind kept open to possibilities whilst one's feet remain firmly planted on the good solid earth, doing away with the need of all the messy and unnecessary frills which come as part and parcel of religion.
It's not a big message, nothing flashy or demonstrative, just as the novel tends to amble quietly along, assuming very little; but few science-fiction writers have been able to say so much with such softly spoken words. It could be argued that, without any deliberation on my part, I may have saved his best for last.
It seems possibly ironic that the very last Simak novel I had still to read should be the one which most clearly expresses the themes over which I've been puzzling all of this time.
Simak left behind his rural roots in Millville, Wisconsin for work as a journalist in the big city, and it seems like he spent most of his literary career trying to write his way back home, to the rustic idyll of his childhood; yet having left, he never once went back, not even out of curiosity - so there's a puzzle there, considering how many millions of words he clocked up on the subject of brooks babbling through woodland disturbed only by old coots of the kind who customarily appear with a faithful hound in tow.
Here we have a variation on the quest narrative, one to which Cliff returned time and again, but a variation which really seems to capture everything he enjoyed about the form, and which - as I say - expresses itself with unusual clarity. Our questing band comprises - fairly typically for Simak - our sceptical author stand-in, a robot, a witch, a horse, a grizzled old man of the mountains, a mystic hippy chick, and an entourage of what appear to be ghosts. Civilisation has collapsed many centuries before, leaving Earth to return to wilderness across which our band treks in search of the Place of Going to the Stars, as described in myth and rumour. The Place of Going to the Stars is an ancient city of ambiguous construction on top of a bluff, which somewhat inspires questions about Spielberg and the timing of Close Encounters, but never mind. As ever, our intended destination is some lost state of harmony within the cosmic fellowship to which Simak occasionally referred - something like getting back into Eden, I guess. The interesting thing about A Heritage of Stars - at least to me in so much as that this is the novel in which it seems most clearly stated - is that for all that Simak's pastoralism may suggest certain new age sympathies, our author stand-in is very clearly identified as a cynic by contrast to the overwhelming and overwrought spirituality of at least two of his companions. The way through, Simak seems to suggest, is the middle ground, a mind kept open to possibilities whilst one's feet remain firmly planted on the good solid earth, doing away with the need of all the messy and unnecessary frills which come as part and parcel of religion.
It's not a big message, nothing flashy or demonstrative, just as the novel tends to amble quietly along, assuming very little; but few science-fiction writers have been able to say so much with such softly spoken words. It could be argued that, without any deliberation on my part, I may have saved his best for last.
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