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I found this collection of three Clifford D. Simak short stories at a flea market near Nihan's. I was quite excited to find it as Clifford D. Simak is quite a hard writer to find these days. I think he was fairly popular in the 60's and 70's but he's almost disappeared in the last twenty years or so which is sad since the sci-fi he tends to tackle is one that's pretty untouched. Clifford D. Simak works in rural landscapes and life into his science fiction stories and from the books I've read tends to delve into concepts of time and telepathy. So anyway, the stories in this collection are; Worlds Without End, The Spaceman's Van Gogh, and lastly Full Cycle.

The titular story, Worlds Without End, follows Norman Blaine who works for the Dreams department. Dreams department puts people in like a catatonic state for extended periods of time and chooses what they'll dream about. Naturally, some kind of conspiracy pops up and at the end I was kinda unclear as to what the hell happened. Another problem? It's missing all that rural life stuff that I like in Simak.

The next story is entitled The Spaceman's Van Gogh. This story is very quiet and subdued. It's about this guy who follows this recently deceased artist throughout the galaxy and ends up at his final subject planet. The artist in question was partially through a painting when he died and the explorer wanted to find out what he was painting and why. This is more inline with what I like about Simak. It's not a rural Earth setting but it still retains that feel since you're seemingly on a barren planet. This story was merely ok as it was again confusing and convoluted at the end. My problem with writers like Simak is I don't know when they're being literal or when they're being metaphoric especially with trippy 50's 60's sci-fi. Does he feel like a rainbow colored bird? or is he really a fucking bird?

The final wrap up story is Full Cycle, which in my opinion is the strongest story. It's about this history professor who is forced into retirement and therefore leave his small town to travel around the country in search of community. He meets interesting characters and even has a great inventive sci-fi thrown in. I honestly think it could make a good movie. Anyway, a strong finish to an otherwise weak anthology.

Full Cycle even sounds like it'd be a cool movie. If you find any Clifford D. Simak on your travels be sure to pick it up. It's rare and decent and definitely deserving of greater things. Sigh, if only someone would adapt one of his stories into a movie...

Robert A. Heinlein's classic book 1961 went on to inspire hippies. I'm sure you can imagine what I thought of it.

Fallen Caryatid by:Rodin

Look, let's not mince words. This book took me a whiiiiiilllleee to read. I'd say probably like a month and a half or two but other than maybe somwhere in the middle where it got somewhat confusing (due to characters assuming new identities and me not being informed/getting it) it was quite an attention grabbing book. In all honesty I'd have to say that it is now one of my favourite books and when I started this "project" of mine where I try to read more classic writers this was the exact goal. Finding writers from the past who I could genuinely enjoy. I've added a lot more of Dumas' books to my list after being about a quarter of the way through The Count and I look forward to reading them all... but I gotta pace myself.

The Count of Monte Cristo is a fairly complicated and intertwined tale of Edmond Dantes, a sailor wrongly accused and imprisoned who makes a breath-taking escape from Chateau d'If and assumes the identity of The Count of Monte Cristo. He soon makes a long-winded plan of revenge against his enemies and conspirators.

The version I read was 1082 pages which is huge for me since it's also the unabridged translation from 1846. So as you can imagine it's quite a formal writing style. Nevertheless, it's a beautiful book that I really can't recommend more. If you have the time to commit to it I'm positive anyone who enjoys adventure, mystery & history will adore it as well. One thing blows me away though is the amount of times it's been adapted for film and theatre. It's a huge and complex book. Who looks at a 1000+ page book and says this would make a great 2 hour movie? There's really not that much filler. I mean I can understand loving the book and wanting to adapt it but it's a huge undertaking and you know full well you're gonna have to chip-chop like two thirds of the book (ok so you could kinda knock out Rome). Not that I'm saying it wouldn't make a fantastic TV Series. Presented like "Lost" or something and not as a mini-series it could be quite good. Which reminds me that I found out that a large number of Latino soap operas are based on The Count of Monte Cristo.Ok, so I've gone way off track, just go read it.

Oh! One other random thing I found is that the Monte Cristo sandwich sounds amazing! Thanks Don.

Illustration: Mead Schaeffer