Customer Reviews

Cosmic Engineers

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In the late 1930s, John W. Campbell, Jr. became the editor of _Astounding Science Fiction_. And as we all know, Campbell had Big Plans for _ASF_ in particular and science fiction in general. He was going to make it more mature. More modern. More up-to-date. But one of the first projects that he requested was this first novel by Clifford D. Simak-- an old-fashioned space opera in the tradition of E.E. Smith and Edmond Hamilton. Simak obliged. The novel was serialized in _Astounding_ in 1939 and was published in book form in 1950. (These were the days when sf serials were bought by book companies at a leisurely rate.)

I read that Simak expressed displeasure with this novel. Well, it is not in the same league as _City_ (1952), _Time and Again_ (1951), or _Ring Around the Sun_ (1953). But it is not a completely contemptable piece of writing, either. In fact, it remains great fun even today. _Cosmic Engineers_ is fundamentally a novel that _moves_. It zigs. It zags. It ducks. It weaves. It zooms ahead and then jumps backwards. It loops the loop. We meet in quick succession a couple of pipe smoking newsmen, a beautiful scientist in suspended animation, a bearlike scientist studying things that are _not_ cosmic rays, a daredevil spaceship pilot bedeviled by the authorities, the Cosmic Engineers at the edge of the universe, and the nasty alien Hellhounds from _beyond_ the universe. We are exposed to telepathic communicators, mysterious spaceships with no rocket tubes, geosectors, and time warps. Questions are posed to us: What happened to Caroline's old boy friend? Why did those Jovians retreat into Jupiter and never emerge again for a thousand years?
And it is all delivered with that Simak charm. For my money, it is much more entertaining than Smith's Lensman novels.

I will close with a bit of a personal note. Several years ago, I ran through _Cosmic Engineers_ with a fine toothed comb in the expectation that I would catch Simak in some scientific bloopers. I don't remember all of the things that I checked. But I believe that some of them involved the rotation and orbit of Pluto, some were about the Andromeda galaxy, some were about cosmic rays, and one was about the concept of absolute zero. I found, somewhat to my chagrin, that there were no bloopers.

Of course, there are some things that are a bit out of date. Pluto is described as "moonless," and we now know of at least three Plutonian moons. Ace reporters give the news over the radio or a device called a "spacewriter". And various machines are described as having glowing tubes. But Simak, writing in the late thirties, may be forgiven for failing to predict future astronomical discoveries, the advent of television news, or the invention of the transistor. Based on current-day scientific knowledge, Simak clearly did his homework. Many other writers of space opera would never have taken that care. Simak desrves a few points for this.

Quirky retro sci-fi. Time travel, robots, monsters, insane-brain-aliens, and moments that you gotta love, like in the first chapter where two reporters are flying around in a rocket ship, smoking pipes, and typing on their "spacewriter". Stephen King give it a nod in his "About Writing," and it was a fun easy read. I enjoyed imagining all the props and people as being snatched out of the 60's, like some meandering episode of the original Outer Limits series. Surprisingly, the science isn't too naive for being written in 1967(?). Worth picking up if you can find a copy.

I bought this Simak book after reading Stephen King's excellent book, On Writing. Stephen directly mentions this Simak book - which was written between the late 1930s and 1950 - as one that especially inspired him as a developing writer while growing up. While I did enjoy reading this book, I feel that it is best categorized as juvenile fiction - but still OK. Clifford Simak was never my cup of tea, but this was mostly worth the time spent. I do enjoy when a science fiction story builds upon itself again and again. [What is that called: layered plot development? I am not sure.] And this one does that quite well. Recently I very much enjoyed the movie District 19 for these same "build upon" reasons. I also find it interesting to try to guess which parts of this Simak book most directly affected Stephen King. It crosses my mind that this Simak story may well have partially inspired countless other science fiction stories that are more familiar to me. For example, the suspended animation themes in both the Alien movies and the first Planet of the Apes. Also, the theme of non-human, high-tech cultures with are hampered by limited imaginations such as Niven's Footfall (which I strongly recommend) and Eric Frank Russell's story with multiple titles: Plus X, The Space Willies or Next of Kin (also quite good). King's book On Writing book also strongly recommends Richard Matheson's Shrinking Man book. I recently purchased a copy of Shrinking Man from Amazon and look forward to reading that soon.

This is vintage space opera. Both the ideas and the canvas they are painted on are vast spanning multiple universes, dimensionality and time, but with incredible speed.

The story arc begins with two newshounds, Gary and Herb, their beat the outer solar system, enroute to cover Man's first extrasolar flight. On the way they come across an abandoned prison craft. Gary goes on board and rescues Carol Martin, a political prisoner of a thousand years ago, who managed to put herself in suspended animation in order to survive. Carol was a brilliant mathematical physicist who refused to develop a terribly destructive weapon that would have helped humanity against the Jovians. However Carol did not figure that while SA would keep her alive by slowing her body, her mind would be awake the whole time. Think plot device. In order to keep herself sane she spends 40 lifetimes working on the mathematics of physical theory - which comes in quite useful as the book progresses.

The three carry on to Pluto where they meet Professor Kingsley (no relation/;->) and Tommy Evans, pilot and designer of the interstellar craft. Kingsley has picked up a strange transmission from a group they soon name "The Cosmic Engineers". The Universere is in danger and only humans (for reasons later explained) can help! Instructions for a portal are sent and the FTL ship is used to transport the five to the planet of the Engineers.

An author today would not be able to get away with this - there's too much plot and too little development. The Carol Martin device is brilliant, however Gary's co-worker Herb is wasted - he's a photographer and he doesn't even take a picture. There's a reference to another brilliant mathematician on Earth - and that thread is quickly dropped. "Everyman" Gary logically should not be making suggestions relating to hyperdimensional physics - his background doesn't warrant it and Professor Kingsley is simply a foil who's there to reassure that Martin's theorizing is correct, even if he doesn't quite follow the reasoning. Yet the descriptive imagining and the high concept conjectures stay with you over time as does the flow of the plot. My fine toothed rating of this book would be 3.6.

If you come across this book, pick it up. At 159 pages its a short read and lots of fun. The fate of the universe will be in your hands. ;-)

Clifford D. Simak is a master sf writer. Cosmic Engineers, a "333" classic work, now shows its age, but remains a great adventure. You'll enjoy it, I am sure.