Time is the Simplest Thing

by Clifford D. Simak

Book Overview

A telepath acquires a powerful alien consciousness--and must run to escape corporate assassins and angry mobs--in this novel by the author of Way Station. Space travel has been abandoned in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0020820755
• ISBN13: 9780020820758
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Collier Books
• Length: 263 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Best Classic Sci-Fi Ever

"Time is the Simplest Thing," by Clifford Simak, has been my favorite science fiction novel since I first read it in high school many, many, many years ago. Simak writes soft sci-fi, rather than hard, and does a darn good job of it. Reading about technology and how it works has always been a turn-off for me. I'd much rather read about how people interact with each other, and the philosophy of life, and the social structures of Earth and other planets. This book definitely fits the bill.

ONE OF MY FAVORITE OF SIMAK's WORK

Highly recommend this one. A very good bit of SiFi writing here. Read this one years ago and recently "Rediscovered" it in a long lost book shelf in my office. Actually, there is quite a lot of wit in this work, the story runs well and Simak has given us his uaual great character developement. Again, recommend his one highly, if you can find it.

Suspenseful Simak

I've read almost every book by Simak that I can get my hands on and this is one of the best.It is unusually focused for one of his novels (there's not that much divergent strangeness for the reader to accomodate compared to, say, the Goblin Reservation), but it has a tangible mood/feel that sucked me in and made me finish it in an afternoon.Plus, it is short. Short books are good things.Unusually enough, I think it has a similar feel to much of what has been written in X-men titles over the years, with the focus being on anti-paranormal hysteria among the public.

Simple things are sometimes the best

This was my first Simak novel that I have read, and I am very impressed. Originally copyrighted in 1961 it gives an interesting look into telekinetics, or as Simak refers to it in this novel paranormal kinetics. In the future man has given up on space travel in the physical sense, and a company by the name of Fishhook recruits people with paranormal kinetics to take over where science left off--space travel by using the mind. Sheppard Blaine is one of Fishhook's top people for exploring alien worlds, until he trades minds with an alien and becomes a threat to the monopoly that Fishhook has created. Sheppard Blaine is no longer an ordinary man who traveled the stars, he is now something greater, and he will use everything he can to help save the future of humanity from being destroyed by ignorance and hate.This story will keep you dialed in for hours; you will not want to put it down. Initially, the story is a little dry but the tempo picks up and some suprises are thrown in. You start to realize that this novel is comparable to "The Matrix" in the sense that it is one man, Blaine, who is learning to save humanity and in the end he no longer fears death but confronts it head on to save his own kind from death. Even though this is a scifi story, Simak doesn't go overboard with his creative genius. He keeps Blaine 'real' in the sense that he gives Blaine some really neat mental abilities but doesn't have him becoming omniscent or unstopable. Also, he doesn't dwell on descriptions of technology, in fact, in this story there is really not that much technology brough into play--it's all about what humans are capable of doing without the aide of machinery.I look forward to finding more stories from this writer, unfortunately there are not many in print these days. He is evidently one of the esoteric writers who has not been discovered, but hopefully, his works will catch the eye of someone high up who can bring him out into the open for the masses.

Not quite up to Alfred Bester level, but heading that way.

Fishhook, an organisation which 'searches' the galaxy for marketable product using the abilities of the parapsychologically talented (known as parries) [physical exploration of space having been proved utterly impractical] has a small problem. One of its operatives, Shepherd Blaine, may not have returned from his last 'trip' quite human. Shepherd Blaine has a similar small problem, he may no longer be quite human, and he knows that Fishhook have a policy on what do to do when that happens. The parry population of America outside Fishhook, also has a small problem, everyone else would much prefer that they didn't exist, and may be gearing up to ensure that they don't. 'Time Is The Simplest Thing' is what you get at the intersection of these three problems Sadly out of print, but if you ever see a copy going begging snaffle it up. This review refers to the dilapated paperback copy I grew up with in my parents house (-;