The Goblin Reservation

I bought this book back in 1977, having already read it previously. But somehow I came to remember it later as a dud, so I haven't reread it for decades. Coming back to it eventually, I find it's not really a dud, it's quite readable and amiable, but it seems an oddly aimless story; the kind of story you might tell when you've been drinking multiple doses of strong liquor distilled by a Neanderthal, in company with a ghost and a friendly sabre-toothed tiger. In those circumstances, it would surely seem like a great story that needs to be told.Maybe Simak wrote it all down and sent it for publication before he sobered up.The typical Simak hero is lonely, alienated, more or less outcast from humanity. The hero of this story, Peter Maxwell, falls into this category in some ways, but only through temporary circumstance. For most of his life, he seems to have been friendly, sociable, and very much accepted by his fellows; and he still has friends, even in his temporary difficulties. This is a relatively mellow Simak story.It reminds me of Zelazny's [b:Doorways in the Sand 61998 Doorways in the Sand Roger Zelazny https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327915592l/61998.SY75.jpg 759315]: both books are pleasantly zany and involve a university, and aliens in quest of a mysterious artifact. I think Zelazny's book is better, but I wonder whether it might have been partly inspired by Simak's (published 8 years earlier).

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Peter Maxwell, professor at the College of Supernatural Phenomena, arrives home to find he has just been killed - or a copy of him has. It's all very confusing, but before sorting it out, he has to find a buyer for a planetful of information offered by the creatures that abducted him. But there's Shakespeare to deal with, and Sylvester the saber-toothed tiger, and the goblins...

Review
I'm fairly confident I've read this before, not because I recall the plot, but because Alley-Oop the sardonic Neanderthal stuck in my mind. The plot itself, involving aliens, time travel, Little People, and university administration, is convoluted, but it's held up admirably by strong, fun characters. And the ending of the book, while it's given shorter shrift than it might be, is sweet.

It's characters that are Simak's strength, and the heart of the book is undoubtedly the fun in following along with his odd mix of characters. The plot is interesting, and another writer might have done more with it, but for Simak, it's the characters that make it all work. There are some shortcuts – in mid-century fashion, the love story is more assumed than spelled out – and a couple of characters (Ghost and Shakespeare) fall by the wayside, their threads unresolved. Shakespeare probably isn't needed at all, and Ghost's arc is somewhat random. But overall, it's good, lighthearted fun.

The title, by the way, is something of a misnomer. There is a goblin reservation, and it is important to the story, but the story's not really about goblins, per se.

In my e-copy - and I don't recall where I got it - the OCR and proofreading were pretty haphazard. Very readable, but some wrong paragraph breaks, etc.