Better than most of Simak's novels. As always his writing style makes a comfortable read. Strange adventure on odd planet done in the Simak style. Works for me. ( )

3.5

A semi-biological ship with three personalities, a robot, and the only surviving human crew member all find a planet capable of sustaining life - but 1000 years too late, and there's now no going back to Earth. The planet's only seeming inhabitant is an alien named Carnivore who claims to have been friends with Shakespeare, who he recently killed and ate at the request of the latter as part of a ceremonial tradition. The creature claims that he is not a local, but arrived through a portal which is now broken, and desperately wants off the planet: for each night, sentient creatures are plagued by the "god-hour", when all minds are gripped by a force and laid naked before some mysterious, cosmic entity.

Shakespeare's Planet is an odd read and feels like a hodgepodge of numerous ideas Simak had previously explored (and would later explore) elsewhere. The ship with a 3-in-1 personality is very similar to the main concept explored in The Werewolf Principle. Nicodemus' use of transmogs is a technology thoroughly dealt with in the short story "Installment Plan". There is the whimsy of The Goblin Reservation; glacial pacing and a more philosophical focus that feels reminiscent of A Choice of Gods; a sporadic touch of religion also hearkens to that, alongside Project Pope and Why Call Them Back from Heaven; and the sampling of literature for exposition is reminiscent of A Heritage of Stars and Destiny Doll.

On the whole, it felt like a better version of Special Deliverance (written the following decade, and also involving a rag-tag group stuck on a distant planet, with the sense of some greater, god-like entity). It's easy to say that the problem with Shakespeare's Planet is that nothing happens, but I don't think that's it at all. The kind of story Simak is going for here, and tried a few times, is one that is more focused on world-building, characters and ideas, rather than narrative. The reason it doesn't succeed as well as it could is that there is, quite frankly, a lack of imagination. Visually, there is very little painted for the reader, beyond black trees, white buildings and a clay cone mountain. The single-location setting of our story is (seemingly) uninhabited, barren and only slightly deviating from the likeness of Earth. It is not a rich image, and the dialogue between the characters lacks substance or any sense of adding weight to the themes. Yes, there are some additional, quirky characters, but even these are not described in a lot of detail and can be hard to tell apart by mere dialogue exchanges.

Collectively it certainly doesn't add up to a dull read, but it does meander in the middle. Though, while it can kick its heels and the characters are generally thinner than what Simak has delivered elsewhere, I'd say that it both starts and ends well. The god-hour is also a great bit of cosmic horror that allows for some fun, trippy moments. ( )

Interesting. ( )

A little more metaphysical/ philosophical than some Simak. It reads as if the man was experimenting with controlled substances, or getting senile, or something. But it's still interesting, still thought-provoking, and still worth reading. Parts are awkward, parts are genius - and I doubt any two readers could agree on which are which. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2156451.html

One of Simak's typically low-key stories, with lots of interesting ideas - the central character has been in cold-sleep for a thousand years, and is the only living human survivor on a ship whose central computer merges three people's personalities; Shakespeare's Planet itself is the end point for a network of poorly understood interstellar transport tunnels, where the only intelligent creature mildly regrets eating the human known as Shakespeare a while back; periodic psychic shock hits everyone left alive every now and then; a woman turns up from Earth to investigate, but the situation s resolved by inhuman and incomprehensible forces. It's a bit like a combination of Red Dwarf with the end of A Handful of Dust. Not especially memorable but quite typical of Simak's style. ( )