Shakespeare's Planet [Hardcover]

Clifford D. Simak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1976

Book Club Edition

Product Details

• Hardcover: 188 pages
• Publisher: Berkley/Putnam; 1st edition (May 1, 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399117296
• ISBN-13: 978-0399117299
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,412,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as Simak's other books, July 25, 2002

By 

R. Cusolito "bob_c_03865" (Plaistow, NH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shakespeare's Planet (Paperback)

This is very run-of-the-mill as far as a Simak book goes. A human and his robot are marooned on a planet with an alien called Carnivore. There's a kind of tunnel that allows people to be transported from planet to planet, and Carnivore has arrived on this planet by way of that tunnel. Unfortunately, this particular stop of the tunnel is only one way - the way off the planet is closed because the tunnel seems to be broken on this end.

Nothing much happens in this book besides the characters doing a little exploring, and trying to figure out how to get the tunnel working again. They also try to figure out the mystery of a pond that's not quite a pond, a creature frozen in time, a mysterious hill near the pond, and the reason why some sort of intelligence is 'freezing' all of their minds once a day in something they call the 'God-hour'. All of this becomes sort of a mish-mash of concepts that hints at coming together at the end of the book, to explain what's going on with this planet. However, the ending is wrapped up very quickly, and isn't that satisfying.

This book is probably worth the read if you're a die-hard Simak fan like me, but for anyone else, it's not all that interesting.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An introduction to fascinating species and characters, and no more..., November 2, 2009

By 

R Schmidt (Honolulu, HI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Shakespeare's Planet (Hardcover)

Shakespeare's Planet introduces the reader to a number of characters and species that could be the central part of future books by Clifford Simak. But as far as I know, they are not.

Ship: three human minds slowly evolving into a consciousness greater than the sum of the three.

Horton: a geologist by training, he knows he is 1000 years removed from the rest of humanity because of the cold-sleep while traveling.

Elayne: an explorer by nature, she is mapping the tunnels throughout the galaxy.

Carnivore: a species dedicated to being the supreme predator.

Nicodemus: a robotic AI with an apparent consciousness.

Pond: I'm still not sure what Pond is, but a single entity scattered throughout the galaxy.

Evil Thing: Not too powerful that Carnivore can't handle. With apologies to Ripley in Aliens, who laid the egg?

Dragon Thing: another strange species, encased in a cocoon of ... time?

Slugs: builders or maintainers of the galactic tunnels.

Shakespeare: with the influence of Pond, is Shakespeare really dead?

As a story, Shakespeare's Planet is uneven and feels unfinished. However, the focus of the story is on its strangeness. I can envision Iain M. Banks being inspired to write his Culture books after reading Shakespeare's Planet.

The issue of humans meeting again after a gap of 1000+ years is also explored in 3001 The Final Odyssey and Spin, among other books.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars already finished?, May 28, 2008

By 

Russo Paolo (CATANIA, CATANIA Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shakespeare's Planet (Hardcover)

I found interesting begin and midpart of the story but... suddenly ended trying to explain everything in a quick and easy way. Why? Better to read after you have finished all other simak's books.