The Civilisation Game and Other Stories – Clifford D. Simak Free Audiobook

Written by Clifford D. Simak
Read by Randy Wieck
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 32 Kbps
Unabridged

The Civilisation Game and Other Stories
by Clifford D. Simak
edited by by Francis Lyall
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?37188

Year: 1997-07
ISBN: 0-7278-5169-1 [978-0-7278-5169-7]
Publisher: Severn House
Price: £16.99 Pages: 250 Binding: hc

. June 2000
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

CONTENTS
Introduction • (1997) essay by Francis Lyall
Horrible Example • (1961)
The Civilisation Game • (1958)
Hermit of Mars • (1939)
Masquerade • (1941)
Buckets of Diamonds • (1969)
Hunch • (1943)
The Big Front Yard • (1958)

Part of a series of collections first published in England (thus the spelling of “civilisation”), where Simak (1904-88) was always appreciated, this volume offers seven stories dating from 1939-69 and uncollected or very hard to find since their first appearance.

In the title piece, Earth residents go through the motions of maintaining traditional culture while, out among the stars, new alien-tinged civilizations evolve. There’s a Martian odyssey; some hostile Mercurians (featuring an embarrassing Negro stereotype–but then the yarn was written in 1941); equally warlike invaders from the vanished fifth planet; and an amusing alien trade that doesn’t pan out. But the best of the bunch are “Horrible Example,” wherein a small town’s notoriously shiftless, drunken bum is secretly a robot providing a role model for the townsfolk to avoid, and “The Big Front Yard,” Simak’s 1958 Hugo Novelette Awardwinning tale of a Yankee trader’s first contact with acquisitive aliens. Dated in places, but Simak’s backwoods courtesy and charm are genuine and free of nostalgia.

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Note on this release: reworked from a cassette rip.
“End of tape 1” etc removed, stories combined one per file. Titles and tags corrected.
One section, (was “Side 3”) in “Masquerade” starting at 5:51 , was very muffled. I applied various filters to make it more intelligible.
G. 13/9/2015
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