They Walked Like Men

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Parker Graves, science reporter, finds a trap laid for him at his front door one night. He avoids it, but there are plenty of other strange things going on in town - things that no one else is likely to believe.

Review
They Walked Like Men is in some ways the kind of story Simak did best – the adventure of an unassuming, matter of fact every man in strange circumstances. Here, he draws on his own newspaper background with a science reporter protagonist encountering aliens.

The aliens themselves are, broadly speaking, a prop. There are two varieties of alien, but the principal one is featureless and mysterious, and mostly useful for setting up a strange situation our reporter has to investigate. They fade away toward the end, and in fact the ending has little detail, treating the remaining practical cleanup as trivia that need not be discussed.

The story is very much of its time in gender roles – there's a supportive, loving woman, but that's all she's really there for. Our male protagonist is the one in charge, and deals mostly with other men.

Despite all that, the story is eminently readable, largely because that protagonist is so firmly engaging; he's just pleasant to spend time with. The story runs long, with a latter half that gets bogged down in broad philosophy with no particular goal. But Parker Graves just seems like a good guy, and there's enough intrigue to keep things moving.

This doesn't have the calm, contemplative feel of Simak's best short stories, but it does have a nice, down to earth humanity about it, and it's a nice read, if not an essential one.

Very interesting, clever and surprising

I like Simak, but this seems to me an odd and untypical Simak novel. It was published in 1962, between [b:Time Is the Simplest Thing 1269436 Time Is the Simplest Thing Clifford D. Simak https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1263950437l/1269436.SY75.jpg 1426997] and [b:Way Station 190999 Way Station Clifford D. Simak https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1326490682l/190999.SY75.jpg 348798], which may be his best novels; but it's unlike either of them. I rather suspect (without evidence) that he drafted it much earlier and left it in a drawer for years before deciding to publish it in 1962.The hero is a very 1950s newspaperman (like Simak himself), who discovers that Earth is being quietly and secretly invaded and taken over by aliens who can disguise themselves as humans. There seems to be nothing he can do about it, until he discovers that they have a bizarre vulnerability.It's a highly improbable story, and it's not one that I actively enjoyed, although it's readable enough that I got all the way through it. Some people read and enjoy it as a comedy, but I find that difficult: what I see is another Simak hero who is lonely and puzzled and faced with major (if unlikely) problems.This time it's only the aliens who can do weird things. The hero remains an ordinary guy throughout, apparently alcoholic, with a rather tolerant girlfriend but no special powers.