What an engaging and absorbing book! Written in 1965 - many years before Stephen King's Under the Dome - it posits a very unusual first contact scenario, not from outer space, but from another dimension. Not another animal species but from a plant. Fascinating!Clifford Simak's language and story building I was first exposed to in Way Station (1963) but it was so much more advanced by the time he wrote this one. Just incredible.

I recently re-read this, and discovered what I'd forgotten - what a consummate literary writer Simak could be. This story, while it's about an invisible barrier and the aliens that create it, is a classic exploration of small-town America. Extremely readable, with likeable characters that consider problems the way you and I might. The language and story aren't zippy action sequences, but flowing prose about real people. Definitely worth reading if you like intelligent writing.This story reminds

First sf book I ever read, stumbled upon it in the local library, got me totally hooked on the genre. Great sf starting point for any young reader (not actually YA). A little bit like Stephen King's Under The Dome but without the violence. Simak's compassion shines through in all his stories.

Here you have the ultimate example of how to ruin an perfectly good novel in the final two pages. Fuck you, Simak, you wholesome piece of shit. I'm never forgiving you for this.

In the 1966 3-D movie "The Bubble," later rereleased as "Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth," an impenetrable and transparent dome of unknown origin encases a small American town, trapping its residents inside. Forty-three years later, in Stephen King's doorstop best seller of 2009, "Under the Dome," another American town, Chester's Mill, is similarly and mysteriously ensnared. Beating both these projects to the punch, however, and a possible inspiration for both of them, was Clifford D. Simak's...

My mother had this exact copy of this book on her bookshelf when I was small. The cover with the flowers made a big impression and when I ordered my copy and had to make sure I got a copy with this cover. I also wonder if the purple flowers on the cover is what makes me plant purple violas every year...I mean they just make me so happy and I love them. If my violas could do what these flowers could do.....

All Flesh is Grass was nominated for Nebula in 1966, but did not win. In the late 70s and early 80s, I was reading through the backlog of Clifford Simak novels.

Opens with a fantastic what-if scenario, and then plunges into flashbacks for the rest of the first act, before meandering through the second, and pulling out a total whiff of an ending in the third. Simak's humane, relatively literary (by sf standards, especially of this vintage) prose elevates proceedings, but his characters are dull and the action perfunctory. Quite clearly a fix-up, if not technically then in spirit. 2.5/5.

Clifford D. Simak was an American science fiction author, writing from the 1930's-1980's. He won numerous honors including three Hugo Awards and one Nebula Award, plus he was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, as well as receiving recognition in the genre of horror. He was also a person who was very concerned about the fate of mankind in light of the rise of nuclear weapons during his time, and the turmoil of nations at war, as well as the violence within people's ow...

One of the Greatest Works of All=Time :: Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras. Und dazu :: text.

3.0 stars. I am a fan of Cliff Simak's work and really enjoyed Way Station, City and The Goblin Reservation. I liked this book too, but not quite as much as the three previously listed. In typical Simak fashion, we have aliens arriving at a small rural town (in this case an invisible barrier completely cuts off the town of Milville from the rest of the planet) and introduce humanity to the wider universe. Well written with decent characters and Simak's trademark "small town" feel, it was a good,...

A decent effort but with a flawed ending.Brad is a likeable enough character who behaves in a believable way, not too smart or dumb or heroic, a reasonable everyman.The other characters are the usual Simak mixture of small town life, some nice some not.The pace is good, lots of things happen in a short space of time so there is plenty going on, not action in the adventure sense but never dull.The plot is also good with a few twists and turns, it uses a recurring theme of Simak's with time treate...

It's 1965, so there's a general sense of small town glorification and everymen are everywhere. This novel happens to be one of Simak's most firmly grounded in modern ('60's modern) society, and that's the expectations I had when I began reading.And then we've got our WTH moment. How many impenetrable domes encapsulate small towns in SF, anyway? Stephen King did it twice, first in Tommyknockers and then in The Dome, but is there a direct line connection to this tale or how far back does the conce...

Tidbit of information on the title: "All flesh is grass" is a phrase from the Old Testament in Isaiah 40:6. The interpretation is that human life is transitory. Mr. Simak comes up with some of the most interesting and unique stories. To top it off, his writing style is warm and inviting. In this book, extraterrestrials attempt to impose social harmony on a small rural town which they have enclosed in an invisible bubble. Read this excerpt:I wasn`t driving fast and there was a lot of room for the...

"We had the wrong kind of motives and we couldn't change them. We had a built in short-sightedness and an inherent selfishness and a self-concern and it made it impossible to step out of the little human rut we'd traveled. " An invisible barrier suddenly appears, trapping in the residents of a small town. The town and the world learn that a species of sentient time-manipulating alien flowers with collective conscious are responsible.Simak has done his favorite thing here: built a small town, ful...

It starts with a crash: the protagonist's car into the invisible dome that has mysteriously surrounded his village, the car bouncing back, a truck doing the same then plowing into his vehicle. Exciting! And then the story becomes something sad and beautiful: Simak writes with an elegiac melancholy about a small town getting smaller and sadder, and a small life getting smaller and sadder. His literary sensibilities when writing on the evanescence of such towns, such lives, make many passages a jo...

This is a classic old Sci-Fi from one of the original, award winning authors of the genera. Simak starting publishing in the 1930's and Flesh was published in 1965 (I think) so let that stand as a warning to people who are used to modern Sci-Fi; it is low on the Sci, high on the Fi and might be classed as fantasy if it was written today. Also, the people and society are 60's not modern. Simak was known for having a few repeating themes and the ones that are most obvious in this one are a rural A...

[the interesting words are in the comments]This is a book.Filled with words.One of those words is spleen (which is an innately funny word).Another of those words is pandemonium (which is one of my favourite words - I'm going to name a puppy Pandemonium one day, and call him Pan for short).Mr Simak knows many good words and arranges them into a story, with a beginning, a middle and end.It is a good book.I highly recommend you spend your dollarpounds on this product at Amazon.com (or .co.uk, or wh...

I enjoy Simak's pastoral science fiction this novel was no exception. His novels often have a small-town or rural setting, often modeled after the area he grew up in just off the Wisconsin River in southwestern Wisconsin. This novel was set in "Millville, USA" (Simak was born and raised in Millville, WI) where a mysterious bubble forms over the city and humans can't get in or out but inanimate objects can get through the forcefield for some reason. The story centers around the escapades of main

Clifford Simak (1904-1988) was born in the small town of Millville, Wisconsin and that is the setting of this 1965 book. The good citizens of Millville discovered that their town is enclosed in a bubble, preventing them from leaving--and others from entering. The story centers on failed real estate agent Brad Carter who realizes that the purple flowers in his garden are from another world. The mysteries add up, as Carter and others try to figure out what's going on. Simak is at his best showin