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I first read Huddling Place and Desertion many many years ago. I read quite a bit of Simak when much younger but was not aware that these stories had been collected into one volume. On reading these stories I was struck just how relevant some of the themes remain. This is quite a common reaction for me when reading good science fiction from previous eras. The technological and cultural changes in a story may be wrong in their specifics but retain a broader relevance. Everyday atomics? Not yet and maybe not ever. A hydroponic revolution replacing farms? No. But both of these were not bad guesses at the time, and give an opportunity to consider the effects of plentiful and cheap energy (including easy and cheap transport) in the one case and plentiful space on the other. Technologies that we have and are developing partially achieve and offer the promise of both. And of course the stories were written before our knowledge of DNA, so genetic engineering and its awesome potential escaped extensive consideration. However, it was nevertheless touched upon with the Dogs, where surgery and education improbably achieved what is beyond our technology even now. Perhaps Simak would be welcome in today's radical animal rights movements as he seems to take the view in these stores that animals generally are intelligent beings unable to communicate with us or express their intelligence.
Change is of course a major and a constant theme, and little could be more relevant today. And people deal with it overall very poorly. When there is no longer a need to huddle together those who can split into family "tribes" on large areas of land, and establish and cling to traditions. I wonder, though, what he would make of today's obsession with the internet and social media. Even in Simak's day I gather many young people growing up in the country fled to the cities. People are social creatures and seek each other out for many reasons.
I loved Desertion when I read it as a child and still loved it. I particularly enjoyed the idea of perspectives. To us Jupiter was the most inhospitable environment imaginable, a hellhole where our survival time if exposed unprotected was as close to zero as possible. But to the lopers the howling gale was a mild pleasant breeze and the planet a paradise. Also interesting is the idea of being limited by our bodies. The attraction of Jupiter and the lopers was not only the idea of more but the promise of meaning. The promise of thinking better. Of better senses and better understanding. The idea was even advanced that perhaps our bodies lacked senses necessary to greater understanding of our existence.
That's enough for the moment. What I have always loved and valued about good Science Fiction, and perhaps the major reason I continue to read it as an adult is that it is such a wonderful tool for examining ideas and making one think. Sometimes the ideas are sufficient to turn even average writing into something great.
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