This is a soft SF novel, read as a Buddy Read in Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group. The book was Hugo award nominee in 1962.The story starts with an interesting and quite rare premise: the space is deadly, there is no hope for interplanetary travel, even less for interstellar. Since this news, that shaken the world a century has passed and a new mode of travel emerges (here the soft part) – psychokinetic. No one believed in psy-powers but a company named Fishhook persisted and was finally

This was also excellent! It was tense & exciting and despite being published decades ago it seemed fresh and interesting. I also liked that it ended in a complex way, not a wrapped-up, kum-ba-yah, happily ever after.

This is my second Clifford Simak book, my first being the seminal “Way Station”. I enjoyed this book, not nearly as much as “Way Station”, but it was a pleasant experience. It doesn’t have the clarity of plot, but I find his writing to be charming, engaging, and calming. Simak first published “Time is the Simplest Thing” in May 1961. For context, Russia first launched Sputnik in 1957 and put the first man in space in April 1961. Mankind was just learning how difficult space travel was and had ye...

Not my favorite Simak. Hotbeds of activity are over the border in Mexico, and then Pierre, South Dakota, really? And what does the man have against contractions (like won't instead of will not)? Still, interesting ideas, terrific exploration of human nature in regards to things we don't understand and to which we develop a fear."For it was authority that made men suspicious and stern-faced. Authority and responsibility which made them not themselves, but a sort of corporate body rather than a pe...

Space exploration with the mind, good aliens, bad aliens, and a societal backlash against paranormal humans (and subsequent commentary on civil rights) - this once serialized book has all of this and more. It also felt a bit preachy, a bit scattered and lacked a solid conclusion.So how did I really feel? This book was originally serialized, and at times it felt like short stories in that world. Most had their own conclusion; the book as a whole didn't seem to, and the solution chosen by the main...

Classic '61 SF that's part mystery, part regular adventure, but both are done right.No spoilers, but Simak does the old style well and unproblematically. Death and dying, alien transmissions, a little human heaven reserve called Fishhook. It's all amusing and the intrigue is tight.It may not be everyone's thing and it certainly feels like it's 60 years old, but that's not precisely a BAD THING. :) Some things are more innocent.

Like most people, I always get nervous rereading books that meant a lot to me in childhood and adolescence, wondering if they're going to hold up. Time Is the Simplest Thing is one of those odd cases where some things have held up beautifully, some flaws are now glaring, and some beauty I was too young to recognize is finally apparent.In a way, this is Simak's science fiction take on Huckleberry Finn: two fugitives making their way across America and seeing slices of the country to get a sense o...

Written s(i)mack-dab in the middle of the American Civil Rights Movement, Clifford D. Simak's "Time Is the Simplest Thing" utilizes the tools of science fiction to make poignant comments on the issues of the day. The novel, the author's sixth out of an eventual 29, was initially serialized in the May – July 1961 issues of "Analog" magazine with the equally appropriate title "The Fisherman," and went on to be nominated for that year's Hugo Award. (It lost, to Robert A. Heinlein's "Stranger In a S...

Wish I'd liked this one more than I did. There are clear parallels here between the persecution of paranormals ("parries") and the persecution of Jews, black people, etc. However, I'm not keen at all on the paranormal (a.k.a. ESP, psionics, etc.) in SF and found I cared little about most of the characters here.

Fifth Simak novel that I've read. I feel of those, this is his most aggressive in tone. He crams a lot in the plot and yet, sometimes it is still surprising. At times a little too esoteric. The ending (last couple of chapters) for example, is a struggle to get through. This is less about mental powers than the fear that humans have of the Other and the control that corporations exert. Human development story with social commentary. Add a little fugitive escape and evasion. Stir. Good for Simak f...

I don't know what happened. Time matches on, I guess. One decade your science fiction is cutting edge, top notch, killer stuff, then one day it is stilted, over dramatic and no longer topical. This novel of a future where paranormal humans are hounded by normals and exploited by a corrupt corporation either wasn't all that good to begin with, or it didn't age well. Clifford Simak was one of Wisconsin's great products of its Progressive Creative Arts tradition, but please choose a different one o...

Although the title suggests a time-travel tale, this is actually a story about persecuted paranormals, standing in a tradition with Stapledon's Odd John (1935) at one end and X-Men, The 4400 and Heroes at the other. Simak's 1961 novel has more in common with the former, in that it shares Stapledon's pessimism about the possibility of reconciliation between exceptional and ordinary people.Our hero is the slyly-named telepath Shepherd Blaine. He works for Fishhook, a corporation that employs paran...

Storyline: 2/5Characters: 2/5Writing Style: 3/5World: 4/5 What happens when science fails to live up to society's expectations? How will the masses react when a sixth sense is verified? Simak's world shows us the answers to these stimulating questions. Through a fairly simple plot - basically an extended chase scene - the book showcases excellent science fiction writing.Simak, here, is weak with the micro-level: the characters are shallow, the individual action scenes are not particularly dramat...

by Read on 9/2 to page 154, on 9/10 to The End. It was ok, two stars. I recommend it to classic or "Golden Era" science fiction fans although it may have a wider appeal. We begin our novel with humanity's final understanding that the dream of space is fatally flawed and no advance in our science or efforts will ever allow these feeble human bodies to withstand the massive dangers of space.On a personal level I really connected with this. Since my youth I've always believed there wil

I loved this book. I had read Way Station by Clifford Simak and enjoyed it a lot but this book is far better. My next read will be The City.

I last read this Simak classic decades ago but it all came flooding back whilst reading it. He has written better novels than this, particularly Way Station, but this is ahead of its time. All about persecution, corporate greed and who to trust. It is all about a hope for mankind. It is typical Simak who always favours the small man/woman is his story telling.Ray Smillie

This book is possibly one of the defining stories of humanity using technology to allow itself to do things physically impossible.In this Simak shows an alchemist society colliding with a religious and how the intolerance and fear engendered becomes poisonous to both.

This book is well worth reading, but I got tired of the repetitive, lengthy preaching. And also, despite the title, it is not really about time travel. It's about men, and one man in particular, who travel to the stars by telepathy, (view spoiler)[ controlled by a single corporation that wants to keep all the goodies to itself. Also, there was a somewhat unbelievable premise that the "god" of science fell once telepathy became the most important component of commerce and life, causing a dark age...

I got this book from my local libary when i devoured the SCI-FI section not long after i found how much i loved reading.

I've read a couple of other books by Clifford D. Simak recently; The Werewolf Principle and City, and enjoyed both very much. Unfortunately, Time Is the Simplest Thing wasn't quite as successful. It was a short book so I stuck with it.Basically, Shep Blaine is a paranormal who is used by an organization called Fishhook to explore the stars. At some point in Earth's history, mankind decided that science and spaceships could not succeed in this exploration. Fishhook continued working with science