Special Deliverance

2/5

The longer I sit after finishing Special Deliverance the more I dislike it, even hate parts of it. In a lot of way it bares resemblance to Simak's earlier work Destiny Doll: an assembled cast of characters meeting each other for the first time, exploring a strange, mostly empty world between meals over campfires, while the oddities they discover slowly pick them off one at a time. A detached professor from a version of Earth where slot machines are used ubiquitously to fund social safety nets is transported to another realm entirely, where he meets of with 4 other travels from other version of Earth. During their travels to find who or what brought them together and a way to escape, they find among other relics: a deserted city show more crumbling to dust, a needle-like tower that vibrates in song, a sea of dark chaotic power, and a mysterious blue cube with seemingly no purpose whatsoever.

Unfortunately, Destiny Doll is this books superior in most every way. Special Deliverance is by and large painfully dull. Sure, there are moment of intrigue, but they are interspersed across vast seas of tedium. It follows a formula that Simak is prone to without elevating any of the characters, the narrative, or the world itself beyond what Simak has done in his earlier works.

The biggest sin though is the ending, one that was both far too predictable and pat when the book was published in 1981, but also strangely rushed all into the final 10 pages. Simak, forced into tying up all the loose ends of the narrative within what I can only imagine was a page limit, decided to test the suspension of disbelief of the reader to a degree I have not seen in some time. The ending makes the central characters appear dumb beyond belief (which undermines the entire ending by itself), does not satisfactorily explain the events of the narrative, and worse still it makes those events seem pointless.

Some of these problems present themselves in Destiny Doll, but the higher level of strangeness of the environments distracted me enough to overlook more of the flaws. This ending is also much, much worse. A minor work from Simak at best. show less

Special Deliverance is an enjoyable but unremarkable read. It's the sort of story that requires good characters and atmosphere to make up for its loose ideas and ambiguity. Simak is certainly capable of conveying an atmosphere, but he doesn't do so well with that here. Certainly, it has its moments, but it often feels very by the numbers; the characters often behave and talk the same and can only be told apart when we are occasionally reminded of their on-the-nose stereotypes (a man of war, a poet, a parson, a robot etc.) and although it might be apt to call this a "philosophical adventure", it is very light on both. There's a lot of room here for pondering and a further exploration of ideas, but it never dips in the deep end. The show more Parson and The Brigadier have petty squabbles, but there's no meaningful debate on their worldviews. The Brigadier will propose or speculate and The Parson will dismiss most things as evil. The robot is as human as the humans (a common Simak trait, in fairness) and there is no exploration of identity. Simak can write beautifully when he wants to, but the writing here is mostly flat and uninspired. Most of the time the characters are sitting around a fire, asking what is going on and where they are and where they are going - somewhere, broadly speaking, I suppose there is a thematic there that parallels fear and uncertainty in life; but you draw that from the macro, not the micro. Zooming in, most of the dialogue is benign.

I enjoyed the second half significantly more than the first. I think Special Deliverance is at its best when our protagonist is in a place of despair and hopelessness. I've read that a lot of people find this novel unsatisfying due to its absence of a real conclusion, but I have to disagree. If it had stuck to its guns and remained pessimistic and more open-ended then I probably would have bumped the rating up, but in true Simak fashion, it tries to force a romantic element and give the reader an explanation for what's been going on. Certainly, it does not explain every detail, but it's enough to rob the world of what little wonder it possessed.

Nowhere near Simak's best work, but certainly not his worst. Readable and inoffensive, with some infrequent but decent world-building. It's hard not to like if you like Simak, but I imagine most newcomers would be unimpressed. show less

Special Deliverance is a sci-fi novel sporting a cute title and a reasonably good set-up: a nice, mild-mannered college prof is mysteriously transported to a familiar place that’s still clearly not the Earth he knows. He must throw in his lot with a group of similarly-displaced travelers as they journey through their new homeland seeking explanations of their situation.

After this reasonable (if not exactly unprecedented) beginning, it’s all downhill, as the remainder of this short novel becomes increasingly interminable. It’s downright bad by the three-quarters mark; appalling dialogue, sketchy character development, and a get-out-of-plot-jail card played without apology to finish things off.

Not recommended.

An English professor from our world finds himself part of a small group transported from different worlds and times. They include a woman who is an engineer from a world where this is not unusual; a robot, from a future world where most humans have left his planet and only the old and infirm are left; another woman who is a poet, from a world where poetry is really important; a brigadier; and a parson, who is very rigid in his way of thinking. They choose to travel together in what is hardly a quest, since they don't really have a goal in mind, beyond figuring out where they are and why.

An English professor is whisked off to a planet where he is matched up with 5 other random people from 5 different alternate Earths. They must follow a road on a quest to get back to their homes.
It's a bit like read a D&D campaign.

Well, I hate to say it, but it's pretty bad.  *I* enjoyed, but that's because I'm a fan of Simak, prejudiced in his favor.  Awkward, especially the dialogue.  Simak was getting old, and this reads like his final request to the universe.  'Oh please, powerful aliens, who we SF writers have revered, do this thing for humanity.'  Hero is an English professor, and it's his level-headedness that constantly saves the day against the vagaries of the other (also cardboard) members of the troupe.  Not funny, not exciting, a bit insightful a few times, but mainly just concept.

I guess I am not as sophisticated as the two other reviewers, as I did not find it going downhill through the book and I did not guess the ending, although I surmised Cliff was going to have his protagonist get his girl. This is not classical literature,folks. Cliff Simak writes to have fun and that is why I love to read his work. He is FUN. Maybe the great Doestevskii or Tolstoy or numerous other "classic" writers (I include Faulkner here) are not fun at all.