A Choice of Gods
1 journaler for this copy...
A choice of Gods by Clifford D. Simak
At just under 200 pages this book is still too long for what it does. The story itself is really an introduction to a universe. The earth has had all of the humans taken from it but for one large family and a local tribe of Indians. The human lifespan has been increased to thousands of years, robots outnumber the humans on earth by at least 10 to 1 if not more, and the reasons for this are all kept secret.
The why this all has happened is what is important to this story. I personally didn’t find their answer to be very satisfactory, but I’ll not go into it here.
The story is told in part through a journal kept by one human who was alive when everyone disappeared, and his recordings on how the family changed over the course of 5000 years. The other half the story is told through the descendants of that first family, the last two of them still in the old (very very old) family house, their family robots and two people from that Indian tribe. Everyone left on earth, after about 2000 years, develops psychic powers. The Indians learn to feel what animals feel, to know the ways of nature and become the rarefied example of perfect Indians. No tools beyond the bow and arrow, they don’t harm nature beyond what they need to survive. The family has learned to travel between the stars by teleporting. A stranger, who for some 5000 years as been running from a dark shadow that killed off the rest of his own tribe finally finds out that other humans exist. The robots are building a mysterious project in the ruins of a major city. All these elements are brought together way too quickly, but at the same time sooo slowly.
The author wasn’t afraid to have pages upon pages without paragraph breaks. The rambling, run on approach that was trying to show dictate information to the reader gets very tiresome. It keeps coming up, especially in the diary of the early man.
And then, once all these elements are brought together, the author sums up the story in about 20 pages and calls it a day. I don’t know if this was a longer work that was called for early because of deadlines, or if a longer work was planned, but it does leave me with a very bad taste in my mind.
At just under 200 pages this book is still too long for what it does. The story itself is really an introduction to a universe. The earth has had all of the humans taken from it but for one large family and a local tribe of Indians. The human lifespan has been increased to thousands of years, robots outnumber the humans on earth by at least 10 to 1 if not more, and the reasons for this are all kept secret.
The why this all has happened is what is important to this story. I personally didn’t find their answer to be very satisfactory, but I’ll not go into it here.
The story is told in part through a journal kept by one human who was alive when everyone disappeared, and his recordings on how the family changed over the course of 5000 years. The other half the story is told through the descendants of that first family, the last two of them still in the old (very very old) family house, their family robots and two people from that Indian tribe. Everyone left on earth, after about 2000 years, develops psychic powers. The Indians learn to feel what animals feel, to know the ways of nature and become the rarefied example of perfect Indians. No tools beyond the bow and arrow, they don’t harm nature beyond what they need to survive. The family has learned to travel between the stars by teleporting. A stranger, who for some 5000 years as been running from a dark shadow that killed off the rest of his own tribe finally finds out that other humans exist. The robots are building a mysterious project in the ruins of a major city. All these elements are brought together way too quickly, but at the same time sooo slowly.
The author wasn’t afraid to have pages upon pages without paragraph breaks. The rambling, run on approach that was trying to show dictate information to the reader gets very tiresome. It keeps coming up, especially in the diary of the early man.
And then, once all these elements are brought together, the author sums up the story in about 20 pages and calls it a day. I don’t know if this was a longer work that was called for early because of deadlines, or if a longer work was planned, but it does leave me with a very bad taste in my mind.
