I would recommend, if considering a Simak novel for the first time, beginning with Way Station or City. This is an ok novel at best and not up to par with some of his other more poignant and poetically written books.

The book promises through its jacket art, and especially inside flap summary, a short, good dose of straight sci-fi in an unique setting, post-apocalyptic earth come cemetery. Unfortunately with this book I was expecting straight sci-fi instead this is definitely pulp adventure sci-fi but without any of the flair or weirdness found in that sub-genre. The first third of the work does indeed seem pointed in that direction.A few of the ideas introduced in the first third of the book were interestin...

After a few days, I am having to update my review. This book gave me a hangover and I couldn't really start another book for a couple of days so I updating my rating to a 5. What can I say, Simak can spin a yarn. Yes, I enjoyed it the story provided me with a book hangover definitely 4.75 but as we can't do that on Goodreads we will round up to 5. The story had a little of everything, some speculative science fiction, adventure, intelligent robots, aliens, and even time travel. Wonderful story q...

This is one of Simak's less inspired novels. A book that came from an obvious initial image which comes from the flaws that kind of novel builds. I've heard said that to create a science fiction novel you need 3 things; 2 interesting ideas intersecting and 1 interesting protagonist to carry the reader to the finish. This book has 1 interesting idea (what if earth became a Cemetery) and 3 characters, 1 of whom is interesting and who is present for a quarter of the book. Of course it is Simak, and...

Cemetery World by Clifford D. SimakHebrew review follows סקירה בעברית בהמשךMy records say I have a copy of a 1977 edition of this book in storage and that I have read it somewhere in the 90s. Having not even rated books back then, and recalling nothing about it, when I found a 1980-released Hebrew translation I decided to give it a read.The only reason why this wasn't a huge disappointment was because I had no expectations, but truth be told, this is a rather bad book. The ideas themselves aren'...

A graveyard on planet Earth, destroyed by war 10,000 years ago!Music is no longer called simply “music”. In a distant future, an artist imbues a radical, specially designed artificial intelligence with his own thoughts and creativity. The computer/robot (styled a “compositor”) then uses that uploaded information together with the sensory inputs that it receives from the environment around it to create a multi-media piece of art/music that is characterized as a “composition”. Fletcher Carson want...

This was not only one of the first Simak books I ever read, it was one of the first science fiction books I ever read. It was Clifford Simak who made me think I liked science fiction, and he remains my favorite ever writer. (Tied with a couple others, tbh. But he was my first favorite, so... tie goes to him.)So it's been about 45 years since I first read it, and I only vaguely recalled what it was all about. I had lost the plot entirely. The truth is, I don't love the plot as much as I did back

If you haven’t ready any of my Simak’s reviews in the past, I’m a fan of his work. I find it a rare breed of calm but wonderous science fiction. And I love the premise of this story. Earth is the victim of a devastating global war and mankind flees to the stars. Fast forward 10 thousand years into the future, and mankind has successfully spread across the galaxy, while the Earth has recovered and has been claimed as a planetary-wide cemetery. People across the galaxy pay extraordinary fees to se...

Rather disappointing - I was told Simak is one of the best at sci-fi, and all I saw in this book was adventures. Which is not bad to read, but nothing more. Not to speak about the idiotic discussions of the characters which were supposed to be a bit more intelligent than that.

Vividly imaginative 70s sci-fi. I really enjoy seeing another era's vision of the future; at the same time, this story isn't nearly as much just a product of its time as some other older sci-fi books I've read.Each chapter added a new idea, it really doesn't bother to ruminate on just the over-all concept that it starts with. I found this style both frustrating and fascinating.

I thought this would be a book about a visit back to old earth, where the characters would comb through the detritus of the past. Possibly they would meet an old robot or hologram... I expected it to be full of SF tropes. Instead it's a silly pulp action SF novel. Extremely boring and doesn't resemble Simak at all.

This is not a great novel, but it is likable. If you suppose that Simak's seminal work is his novel "City," then you probably measure all of his other works against it. For me, his best work was "The Goblin Reservation". I read it many years ago and have re-read it several times in the passing years. Simak has a talent for his gentle characters and beautiful landscapes. Simak clearly loves the people and places of the midwest in which he lived and this comes through in this novel, as it does in

Cemetery World is the 4th Science Fiction story by Clifford Simak that I've read in the past couple of years. I've enjoyed for the most part, especially enjoyed The Werewolf Principle and City. Cemetery World was an entertaining, enjoyable read.Fletcher Carson returns to Earth, now a Cemetery World for the descendants of Earthlings. After a world destroying war thousands of years before, the majority of the remaining humans escaped and inhabited planets throughout the Universe. A company, Cemete...

I can't remember where I first heard of this. I thought it was from a goodreads friend but no one seems to have reviewed it that I'm friends with. But this was just AMAZING! I can't believe I've spent so many decades reading science fiction and never come across this author before.I LOVED this. A woman historian, robots who'd lived 1000s of years, ghosts, and a post-apocalyptic Earth that had been reborn. The book reminded me most of Peter Beagle's work. There was a gentleness to the characters

What begins, well, after a bit of exposition, as a classic survivalist tale ends up as a puzzle concerning alien intervention (perhaps, a deus ex machina and time-travel. At times, Cemetery World seems to be a cautionary morality tale about corporate greed and the futility of warfare (indeed, a peace message reverberates through the entire plot) and thuggery. It is no surprise that Simak introduces time-travel and bucolic landscapes; he’s done that on several occasions(most notably Way Station a...

Wow! I’ll cut right to the chase: “Cemetery World” is one of the most horrifically written, sloppily conceived, and all around terrible excuses of a novel I have ever had the misfortune to read. After reading the stunning classic “A Canticle for Leibowitz” I couldn’t distance myself from a book set centuries (hell, millennia) into the future and at the quick glance, “Cemetery World” could almost be an unofficial and accidental sequel to “Canticle”; humans return to Earth from space 10,000 years

some great ideas and concepts, and lovely descriptions from time to time, but very disjointed, and ends up abruptly, like he was tired of writing it. plus a tacked-on romance. yargh.

2.5, rounded down to a 2.I didn't dislike this novel, but it was a weird one for Simak. The concept itself is the best part of the entire book (which is never a good thing!) and while his typical gentleness can be found here, much of it felt a bit too action-heavy for my taste. This is not your typical post-apocalyptic novel-- not people trying to survive, or rebuild society, or mourning earth... There is some mourning involved, but it is done by people who don't fully understand what they're mo...

my gosh this book was pretty terrible. I went into it with an open mind having read nothing else by this author. The whole story is a disaster, so very poorly put together that the badness at one point changes to pure laughs. Sadly it is not intended to be funny...To avoid giving anything interesting away to the unfortunate souls who stumble upon this in the near or distant future, I will conclude by saying if you have a child, ask them to write you a story called "Cemetery World", and they will...

Another unterstellar adventure through time and space by Simak. Featuring a smarter than average robot and a reluctant heroine. Interesting, but not quite up to the top tier of his output.