TITLE: Cemetery World
AUTHOR: Clifford D. Simak
YEAR: 1972
IS THIS SF?
YES—non-terrestrial colonization, time travel, robots etc.
PJE SYNOPSIS
In the far future Earth has been relegated to the role of galactic Cemetery, but do people still live there? Fletcher Carson comes to try and capture the non-cemetery aspects of Earth for everyone to see, yet he runs afoul of the local authorities, gets chased by the local yokels, meets a girl, gets catapulted back and forth in time with the help of radioactively-activated super-ghouls, ummm…
REALLY A MUSICIAN?
NO, I was hoping for more from one who says he is a ‘compositor’, that is, one who makes compositions. Briefly described towards the beginning of the book, such compositions can be multi-media and multi-sensory events, meant to give an all-encompassing sense of a partciluar environment. As such, all he really does is have a grandiose idea to make the composition, then retrofits a machine to do all of the compositing for him once he arrives! The narrative veers off from there, and as such the compositing is never re-visited.
WHY A MUSICIAN?
Hard to say, though perhaps Simak needed an idealistic dreamer with a vague reason for travelling and lots of free time as the protagonist. A businessman or scientist would not have put themslves into some of the binds the Carson finds himself in, nor would they have been open to most of the circumstances, or plot-driving decisions exhibited in the novel.
RECOMMENDED?
PERHAPS, not Simak’s strongest (cf. City) yet a good yarn, with some ineresting SF conceptualizations, though many would cringe at the corny lovestory. Reads quickly!