This is a marvelous collection of Simak's very good stories from the period 1951 to 1961. There are nine selctions all of whom have found their way into later anthologies assembled by other, later hands. We get, "All the Traps of Earth", "Good Night Mr. James", Drop Dead (1956) novelette
No Life of Their Own (1959) novella
The Sitters (1958) novelette
Crying Jag (1960) novelette by
Installment Plan (1959) novelette
Condition of Employment (1960) story
Project Mastodon (1955) novelette

You will have a good time, as this is the harvest of Simak's best period. ( )

Published in 1962, these stories were written between 1951 and 1960 and represent, for me, the height of Science Fiction Renaissance: the exploration of the human condition. These are stories that tell us about ourselves by showing us other “people”—but without the need of excess pyrotechnics and violence. These are not super-exciting stories, but just plain nice stories.

1. All the Traps of Earth: a robot has served a particular family for 600 years, and now that the last family member has died, exerts himself to preserve his existence against the legal strictures that would wipe his memory to prevent him from remembering too much.

2. Good Night, Mr. James: he was cloned for a specific task, and now the task is completed.

3. Drop Dead: and entire planet has found a way to protect itself from invasion.

4. No Life of Their Own: I like the way Simak has avoided the hill-billy stereotypes to tell about the difficulties contingent upon all of the extra-terrestrials that have started to move into the local area…looking for peace and friendship.

5. The Sitters: interstellar baby-sitters, par excellence.

6. Crying Jag: What do we have, that none of us wants?

7. Installment Plan: The problem is interstellar trade war…but the competition isn’t so smart.

8. Condition of Employment: one solution to the employment problem; or what are you willing to endure to go back home?

9. Project Mastodon: This is the one story I found least satisfying—this is not the way to sell time travel to the government! ( )

Clever stories, each contained a dash of horror and a leavening of humor, but the main ingredient was that which makes classic SF - the big old 'What If..? I advise reading them and then pausing after each one to really think about it, rather than just working through at bedtime as I did. They'll be more memorable and make more of an impact on you if you do.

I am disturbed by how human the robots are. They gamble, make jokes, have ambitions... after growing up on androids that more resembled Data from Star Trek, I can't wrap my head around these.

ETA - my edition had only 6 stories, not Crying Jag or No Life of Their Own." ( )

All nine of these stories are quite readable and entgertaining, but several of them go places my mind would never go unless lead by such an imagination as Simak's. I especially liked "Drop Dead,' which features a cow-shaped animal with several kinds of meat, severa kinds of fruit and veggies, and even milk and eggs and bees' honey in its body. but that is only the beginning of this planet's stran gness. Simak is good at the light sci-fi, such as "Project Mastadon" (which he later expanded into a book called MASTADONIA), and "Crying Jag." I wish the latter was fact, not fiction, and we would be a lot less neurotic on this earth. All in all, one of Simak's best collections. ( )

This book contains six stories, written between 1951 and 1960. I liked four of them, and didn't care as much for the other two. The title story, "All the Traps of Earth," was actually my least favorite. The main character is a robot, and the part I didn't like about the story is that this robot is a very emotional character. His actions are driven by fear, guilt, happiness, whatever. I disapprove in general of robot stories where the robots have emotions, unless there is some compelling explanation for how and why the emotions are present; this is missing from this story (both the how and the why). The other story I didn't like as much has similar robot problems, although the robots are not as central to the story.

The other stories are very solid. In "Good night, Mr. James" we have a simple story of a man hunting a dangerous alien critter -- but the story is about much more than that. "Drop Dead" is an excellent story about exploring an alien planet. "The Sitters" examines aliens who are living in a quiet little town on Earth. The aliens in that story were brought there by a former resident of the town, who may have had ulterior motives for bringing them there. Now that the aliens have been in the town for many years, someone realizes that they may not be as benign as were thought. I haven't read much of Simak's short stories before, and perhaps he is more well-known for his novels. Most of these stories are solid stories, and aren't predictable (my descriptions don't give away much, actually). This book makes me curious to read other stories of his, but I suspect I would have the same problems with any other robot stories Simak has written.

...Good news, after writing this review I found that by accident I had at some other time purchased another copy of this book, but the new copy has three extra stories! This new copy was published by Avon Books in 1979. Two of the stories are similar to "The Sitters," in that they involve interactions between aliens and humans in rural/small town settings. (This sort of setting was also used in Simak's story "The Big Front Yard", anthologized in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, volume 2B.) The third new story is a solid time travel story. No emotional robots in these three stories, I thought they were all good.

Book Review #6, by Eric Weeks
June 14, 1998