So Bright The Vision

by Clifford D. Simak

Contents:
- The Golden Bugs (1960).
- Leg. Forst. (1958)
- So Bright the Vision (1956)
- Galactic Chest (1956)

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Anthologies, Aliens, Fantasy

214 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

"He was honored by fans with three Hugo awards and by colleagues with one Nebula award and was named the third Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) in 1977." (Wikipedia)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford...

Reviews

[Metodi Markov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Четири новели на Саймък, леко овехтели и носталгично напомнящи за някакви по-добри или по-наивни времена.

"Златните буболечки" - 3*.

"Прип. ясновд" - 4*. Тази най ми хареса от четирите - филателията наистина е доживотна страст!

"Прозрение" - 4*.

"Галактическа хроника" - 3*.

[Иван Величков · Rating 5 out of 5]

В предговора към един друг сборник, Саймък споделя разговор с един колега. Там на обвинението, че главните му герои са все неудачници той искрено отговаря: Обичам неудачниците.
Точно това мисля, че е сбиращото звено между четирите новели в тази книга. Тук са събрани четирима от най-симпатичните неудачници в творчеството на автора и действието някак минава през тях, без да го засегнат особено.

Златните буболечки – Рандъл е съвсем нормален човечец, водещ порядъчен живот със семейството си. Когато един ден синът му докарва вкъщи странни буболечки нещата се променят коренно. В началото всичко е наред, гадинките даже помагат срещу другите напасти, но след известно време...
Прип. Ясновид. – Клайд Паркър е чудак. Той събира пощенски марки от цялата галактика и води обмен на стоки и кореспонденция с разумни същества на много светлинни години от нас. Един ден успява да разлее говежди бульон върху една от филателските си рядкости и ефектът ще промени човечеството завинаги.
Прозрение – Много любим разказ, поради ред причини. Като цяло е низ от случки засягащи професията на писателя, като екстраполацията на настоящите проблеми е много добре развита в едно далечно бъдеще. Освен това, тук Саймък директно прави връзка с друго свое произведение – „Човекоядци.” По принцип Клиф обича да прави паралели между творбите си, но никога толкова очевидно, по-скоро като намигане към верния читател.
Кемп Харт е посредствен писател в едно бъдеще където човечеството е разпространило литературата си сред всички разумни форми на живот. Самото писане доста се е изменило и Харт има редица проблеми, които доста се приближават до нормалните за гилдията и сега.
Галактическа хроника – Има тук наченки за „Те вървяха като хора”, но като цяло е доста по-положително настроението.
Марк е посредствен журналист, който води градската хроника – най-скучната част от локалния вестник. Той попада на връзка между няколко особени локални чудатости, но равиването на материала ще му коства работата.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book collects four novelettes written by Simak in the 1950's. The Golden Bugs is a clever alien invasion story set in a typical suburban Eisenhower-era neighborhood that originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Galactic Chest, from Original Science Fiction magazine, features a newspaper man investigating another kind of alien invasion, a benevolent one. My least favorite of the four is the titular story from Fantastic Universe Magazine; it's a very philosophic and recursive story about science fiction in the future that I thought was a little heavy-handed. It's the only one of the four in which cleaning-up isn't a major theme. Simak must have been a big fan of tidiness; Dusty Zebra, another one of his best stories, is all about it. The other story in this book, Leg. Forst., from Infinity Science Fiction Magazine, is one of my all-time favorite Simak stories, which features a philatelist in another story of benevolent alien intervention. It's a very sly and slick piece, and I loved all of the stamp-collecting references. None of the stories collected here are from Galaxy or Astounding, the top genre magazines of the time, and perhaps he felt more at ease at roaming into a whimsical bent as a result. The stories are all fun romps, light and wholesome, and I find them just the thing for these dark days.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the corner of the showroom, the salesman draped his arm across the machine affectionately.

"It is our newest model," he said. "We call it the Classic, because it has been designed and engineered with but one thought in mind--the production of the classic. It is, we think, a vast improvement over our Best Seller Model, which, after all, is intended to turn out no better than best sellers--even though on occasion it has turned out certain minor classics. To be quite honest with you, sir, I would suspect that in almost every one of those instances, it had been souped up a bit. I am told some people are very clever that way."

Hart shook his head. "Not me. I'm all thumbs when it comes to tinkering."

"In that case," said the salesman, "the thing for you to do is buy the best yarner that you can. Used intelligently, there's virtually no limit to its versatility. And this this particular model the quality factor is much higher than in any of the others."

from "So Bright the Vision"

Clifford D. Simak's anthology So Bright the Vision collects four novellas written during the 1950s: "The Golden Bugs" (alien invasion), "Leg. Forst" (a universal-stamp collector procures an exciting alien device which changes his world), "So Bright the Vision" (a struggling author wishes for a better writing machine so he can make a better living), and "Galactic Chest" (a journalist investigates the reality of "brownies," little beings which bring people luck). The writing, characters, and plots are old-fashioned, no doubt, but that's where Simak excels. He's a grandfather of science fiction spinning his science fiction yarns where protagonists--no matter where or when they exist--still sport suits and fedoras and likely refer to ladies as "dames."

It's worth an afternoon's read, really. Some of the concepts are dated, but a few (especially the "yarner" devices in the titular story presaging AI issues today) are still worth pondering.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been on something of a kick this past year as regards Clifford D. Simak and his shorter fiction of the 1950s. "All the Traps of Earth" (1962), "The Worlds of Clifford Simak" (1961) and "Other Worlds of Clifford Simak" (1962) had all proved to be truly wonderful--or perhaps I should say "wonder-filled"--collections, and I decided to go for just one more. As I've mentioned elsewhere, these short stories, novelettes and novellas that Simak so excelled at in the '50s are the reading equivalent of tasty, nutritive bonbons today; comfort food for the mind, as it were. My latest experience with the beloved, Wisconsin-born, sci-fi Grand Master was via a book that I'd read over 40 years ago but had little recollection of; namely, "So Bright the Vision," which gathers together four of Simak's novelettes from the period 1956 - 1960. And as it turns out, my inability to recall anything about this quartet of tales is much more of a reflection on my ginkgo biloba-deprived hippocampus than the four very-high-quality stories themselves!

"So Bright the Vision" was originally released in 1968 as one half of one of those cute little "Ace doubles" (H-95, for all you collectors out there), paired back-to-back with Jeff Sutton's novel "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow," and sold for 60 cents. Eight years later, Ace would release the Simak book as a stand-alone collection for $1.50 (inflation in a nutshell!). That same year, in 1976, the Portuguese publisher Livros do Brasil would come out with an edition retitled "O Homem Que Via O Futuro" ("The Man Who Saw the Future"). And in the U.K., editions would be forthcoming in 1978, 1985 and 1986 by the publishers Magnum, Methuen, and Severn House, respectively. It is the 1978 Magnum edition that this reader was fortunate enough to pick up somewhere 40+ years ago (featuring a cover by Chris Moore), and it has been patiently sitting on a bookcase shelf here at home for all those decades, waiting to be rediscovered by yours truly. And I am so glad that I have!

The first of the four novelettes presented to the reader in this Simak collection is "The Golden Bugs" (a nod to the Edgar Allan Poe short story "The Gold Bug," from 1843?), which originally appeared in the June 1960 issue of the 40-cent "Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction." Randall Marsden, a family man and insurance salesman, narrates the story, and tells us of all the strange happenings that had descended upon his home. The ants and wasps that had previously been a problem there were turning up dead. A gigantic agate boulder had suddenly plopped itself into his backyard. The family's refrigerator had been moved overnight into the living room! And before very long, the cause of all these incidents had become known: hundreds of the titular golden "bugs"; minute, crystalline entities that at first only seemed interested in dusting and tidying up the Marsden abode. But then matters had grown more serious, when the alien creatures had started to telekinetically disassemble everything in the house and surrounding area, in a search for the metallic bits. Simak's story grows increasingly wild and tense as it proceeds, and the "bugs'" shocking murder of a neighborhood dog serves as a red flag as to just how serious a menace they might be. The idea of an alien gadget or creature capable of performing rapid-fire housework apparently appealed greatly to the author; he'd already touched on the subject in his 1954 novelette "Dusty Zebra" and would do so twice more in this very volume! "The Golden Bugs" is a trifle pat and contrived in that Randall's next-door neighbor just happens to be an entomologist, his 11-year-old son's best friend is something of a whiz at mineralogy, and his other neighbor just happens to hold the key to the neighborhood's--and Earth's--salvation. Still, the story is capped with a right-on message concerning the necessity of patience and understanding when dealing with an alien race; a moral that goes far in making this a story well worth reading. It is one that will surely resonate with those who have ever had to handle an infestation problem in their own home, and make those folks feel grateful that they never had to deal with the kind of critters depicted here!

In the curiously titled "Leg. Forst.," which originally appeared in the April 1958 issue of the 25-cent "Infinity Science Fiction" magazine, the reader is introduced to an elderly, bearded widower named Clyde Packer, who leads a lonely but contented existence while engaged in his hobby of philately. Clyde, one of Simak's patented loner coots, has a collection of stamps from all over the galaxy, as well as alien contacts who send him items from the distant stars. His life is suddenly upended one day when one of his many contacts sends him some plain yellow stamps; stamps that Packer accidentally spills some broth on while eating. When he returns to his packrat apartment later on, he discovers a bubbling trashcan full of yellow goop. Apparently, the broth had chemically affected the spores with which the stamps were composed, and that goop is moreover telepathic, and more than willing to obey Clyde's every thought...starting with--you guessed it--tidying up his apartment! Clyde's go-getter nephew sees a fortune to be made in these "efficiency units" (again, shades of "Dusty Zebra"), but of course, the inevitable problems will crop up, won't they? Simak's story is a very charming one, and Clyde Packer himself makes for an irascible yet nevertheless strangely likeable character. Simak's boundless imagination is here demonstrated in the great variety of alien stamps on display; some employing scents, some with shifting colors, some made of human skin! The story features some gentle humor and even romance due to the interplay between Clyde and the nosy widow across the hall. As in his 1956 story "Jackpot," the terrible burden of human honesty is featured as a theme here; an honesty that is foisted on mankind whether he likes it or not. I'm not sure if Simak himself enjoyed stamp collecting as a hobby, but he displays a familiarity with the subject here that is most convincing, and his talk of covers, slips, blocks and so on is quite credible, indeed. Oh...as to that unusual title for this novelette, I think I'll let you discover what "leg. forst." means on your own, when you hopefully do get to experience this winning tale one day.

The longest story in this collection, the title piece "So Bright the Vision," originally appeared in the August 1956 issue of the 35-cent "Fantastic Universe" magazine; the same month that its author turned 52. This tale is set 600 years in the future; an age when the chief export of Earth is fiction, churned out by machines for a galaxy hungry for the stories that only the people of our fair planet can concoct. (As in "Leg. Forst.," we are here told that the peoples of Earth are the only ones in the galaxy capable of telling a lie and making up phony narratives.) Against this backdrop we are introduced to a wannabe hack writer named Kemp Hart, whose Auto-Author 96 machine is broken, and who cannot afford to buy a ritzy new Classic or Best Seller model...or even a decent camera and films to shoot the real-life people to supply to those devices' database of possible characters. Writing by hand, without a machine to fabricate characters and story lines, is strictly taboo, but still...what's a starving author to do? Simak's novelette turns out to be a deliciously written ode to the novelist's profession--"the loneliest business on Earth," as Angela, Hart's galpal and an aspiring writer herself, puts it--and to the men and women who suffer so much to produce their art. As Hart's acquaintance Jasper--who is secretly defying the taboo by writing his own stories unaided--says of the machines, "They are destroying the pride in us. Once writing was an art. But it is an art no longer. It's machine-produced, like a factory chair. A good chair, certainly. Good enough to sit on, but not a thing of beauty or of craftsmanship...." Simak's story also gives the reader two wonderful alien races: the Caphians, a full-blooded, lusty people who love the violent tales of swashbuckling adventure that Earth supplies in reams, and a rather pitiable alien who is described as looking like a blanket with a face! Aliens from both of these races do play large parts in the story line here. Simak's tale ends rather marvelously, with both Hart and Angela going off to...but no. Again, I'll let you discover that part of the story for yourself.

This particular collection is brought to a close by its fourth novelette, "Galactic Chest," which originally appeared in the September 1956 issue of the 35-cent "Original Science Fiction Stories" magazine. Simak's story introduces us to one Mark Lathrop, who narrates his unusual tale. Lathrop, a hard-drinking reporter for a small-town newspaper in the Midwest, had gradually been made aware of the many "good-news stories" lately transpiring in his area. An elderly woman had begun seeing the spirits of her dear departed friends. A local physicist had found his notes rearranged, thus giving him a valuable clue in his researches. A young boy undergoing a tricky heart operation had miraculously pulled through. The physicist had suggested to Mark, half jokingly, that the legendary elfin creatures known as "brownies" might be the cause, and when the reporter returned to his lakeside cottage one evening and noticed a gang of diminutive, pointy-headed men painting his house and repairing the roof, he knew that the legend was indeed true! Obviously, Simak's story would seem to be more of a fantasy piece as opposed to sci-fi, and only an Air Force colonel's admission that the brownies do indeed have an extraterrestrial origin reclaims it for the science fiction camp. It is a sweet, gentle story that brings down the curtain on this collection. Incidentally, this reader had never heard of the creatures called "brownies" before I read this tale. But right after I finished it, I turned on "Jeopardy" and was confronted with a clue that read something like "This elfin race does good deeds and only asks for a bowl of milk to be left in return." I knew the answer immediately: "What are brownies?" Talk about your co-inkydences! Anyway, do you see how educational reading can be? Simak's brownies, it will be allowed, do not require a milk payment in return for their services, but are every bit as good at being helpful--and, uh, at tidying up a house--as any brownie of popular lore.

So there you have it...four more wonderful tales from the typewriter of a master...and unassisted by an Auto-Author 96! Taken in conjunction with "All the Traps of Earth," "The Worlds of Clifford Simak" and "Other Worlds of Clifford Simak," the 25 stories, novelettes and novellas serve to demonstrate that Simak was surely one of the most charming, ingratiating and thought-provoking of all the many sci-fi writers working in the 1950s. And "So Bright the Vision" is a perfect exemplar of his manifold gifts. More than highly recommended!

(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Clifford D. Simak....)

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://gnomeship.blogspot.com/2016/12...

[The Scribbling Man · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming set of novelettes from the king of pastoral science fiction, though the majority here is on Simak's pulpier side. Unexpected acts of cleanliness are an element in three of the stories, which I can only assume was a factor in grouping them together.


The Gold Bugs - 3.25

"Impossible... by any earthly standard. It runs counter to everything we've ever known or thought. But the question rises: can our earthly standards, even remotely, be universal?"

An initially pleasant but tame Simakian outing develops into a chaotic domestic invasion of telepathic bugs. The narrator and co. jump to wildly unreasonable conclusions with virtually nothing to go on that turn out to be correct, including an 11 year old boy who may as well be an adult (as far as he's written). Some genuinely interesting ideas are ultimately executed in a very silly fashion, making it all impossible to take seriously. It seems to take itself seriously, especially when speculating on the arrogance of man, but if you embrace it in the same way you would a cheesy b-movie then it makes for quaint fun, littered with fragments of the compelling.


Leg. Forst - 4.25

Hazlitt hunched forward in his chair and his voice dropped almost to a whisper.
"Mr. Packer," he confided in stricken horror, "I am becoming honest!"

Takes the hobby of stamp collecting and places it in the overwhelming context of an interstellar postal service. The protag is a scrooge of a collector who has his activities turned upside down by a particularly curious arrival in his mail with a biological stamp. The story shares some parallels with 'The Gold Bugs', such as the uncanny and invasive cleanliness of an alien intruder, motive unknown. The twist toward the end is devilish in its portrayal of positive moral transformation - a contrary statement that makes more sense once you've read the story, and about as sinister as you can expect from Simak: the weaver of endearing evil and compelling benevolence.


So Bright the Vision - 3.9

"So," said Green Shirt. "You write all the stories?"
"Yes. All three of us."
"But you write them best."
"I wouldn't say that exactly. You see -"
"You write the wild and woolly stories? The bang-bangs?"
"Yeah. I guess I'm guilty."

Noir-like telling of a dated but compelling future, in which Earth's main value within the galactic scope is its ability to weave tales that appeal to a plethora of races; only it has evolved to a point where the writer is merely the mechanic for a machine. Independent creativity, 'manual' writing, is impractical and looked upon disfavourably, like belching or eating with your fingers; and the best way to make a living is to maintain good equipment and gather appropriate data to feed these creation machines. The issue our protagonist faces is that he's fresh out of dough and resources. Other factors come into play and the direction is not predictable, but while I found the story immensely enjoyable for the most part, some of the final beats are so convenient and rushed as to weaken its impact.


Galactic Chest - 3.5

The Brownies have come back again... have you put out that bowl of milk?

A sci-fi spin on a classic of fairy tale lore, written in a no-nonsense pulpy style and situated in the newsroom - an environment Simak was very familiar with. The prose is economic, with occasional splatterings of the flowery, and the characters are thin but likeable. It's not an eventful story but it has a vibe about it that clicked with me. Fairly unremarkable compared to some of Simak's other stories, and possibly the least interesting of the collection, but nevertheless a solid execution of what it shoots for.

[Artur Coelho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quatro histórias de um autor clássico, que não são contos extraordinários, embora tenham um curioso sentido de humor. Estranhas invasões alienígenas, colecionismos intergalácticos e dilemas de escritores pulp são os temas explorados nestes contos.

The Golden Bugs: Quando um pacato bairro suburbano começa a ser invadido por estranhos insetos dourados, está sem o saber no centro de um primeiro contacto com uma espécie alienígena. Mas os insetos, feitos de uma substância cristalina, começam a destruir todas as superfícies que tocam. A resposta possível está no hobby do vizinho mais detestado do bairro, um engenheiro que faz experiências sonoras demasiado audíveis com música eletrónica. Que, com o seu equipamento, consegue criar vibrações que irão destruir os mini-invasores alienígenas.

Leg. Forst: Uma história com uma premissa curiosa, sobre um colecionador de selos do futuro. A sua coleção é gigantesca, e inclui selos de todas as galáxias habitadas. O legado da Terra aos alienígenas é um fascínio pelos quadradinhos ilustrados que se colam nas cartas.
-
So Bright The Vision: Num futuro onde os escritores escrevem com auxílio de máquinas, e os seus leitores são alienígenas, um escritor sofre as agruras das suas histórias não agradarem aos editores. A sua salvação poderá estar numa estranha criatura alienígena, e parte à sua procura. Entretanto, percebe que numa viagem de descoberta, deixará de ter de usar máquinas para procurar inspiração literária.

Galactic Chest: Um jornalista frustrado, destacado para cobrir histórias lamechas com final feliz, começa a aperceber-se de um padrão. Percebe que poderão existir criaturas invisíveis que, de facto, ajudam ao sucesso. Eventualmente, percebe-se que estas criaturas são alienígenas benévolos.

[Marinela · Rating 1 out of 5]

It took me 2 whole days to read a book that's 180 pages...it's just depressing, but I kept pushing myself to read it because it was so short. My mom recommended this one to me, because she thought I may enjoy this more approachable sci-fi and well...I hated it.
To start off, this is separated in four short stories where the protagonist is a ordinary man who somehow has a life-changing experience with some aliens that change his world view. Now the thing I don't understand is why in the most cases the alien form was so concerned with cleaning up.
I felt like I was reading the same short story with a small variation and I was bored every single time. Okay, so there is the topic of how powerless we are to new alien species, but in the first story they just get blown up. Then there is the topic of making everyone honest while someone out there has given you an antidote and you can take advantage and become extremely wealthy - okay, so morally gray character and I still don't care. The third one focused on writers who use machines and how writing can be taken over by machines and how anyone can become one just by having enough cash and shocking, the main character rethinks this view and goes on a trip to rediscover his passion for writing. And the last one - a guy from a boring job, finds about friendly ghosts who do all kind of nice things for no reason and help him land his dream job.
Honestly, I just picked it up blindly and it still made it to my most disappointing books ever.

[Joe Santoro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clifford Simak is the master at adding science fiction elements into a normal story and making it seem like it fits right and and isn't really fiction at all. He doesn't get nearly enough credit for being one of the greatest of the genre. This 4 short stories (some might call the first 3 Novellas at about 50 pages each) all do just that. The first one (Golden Bugs) is a very unique first contact that has some great insights on any potential meeting with an alien intelligence... so often we are shown as on a somewhat equal footing.. but this is a story about what happens if we're not.. and what could happen. It's a cautionary tale, but in a very sneaky way.

The 2nd two stories both take the premise that humans are unique in their ability to lie in the universe.. one is a rather eccentric story about a inter-galactic stamp collector. The other is amazingly contemporaries for a 60+ year old story, and discussed what happens if fiction writers get replaced with machines. Simak pictures mechanical devices that take story elements and mix them up rather than the AI we have now, but the concept is the same and has some excellent insights.

The final story 'Galactic Chest' is a bit odd.. definitely the my least favorite, but by no means bad. It's a take on the story of the brownies and the tailor.

[Filka Atanasova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Състои се от 4 разказа, които са вълшебни по своята същност. Да ги изредим поред:
"Златните бубулечки" ни разказва за извънземен разум и начина да го победим
"Прип. ясновид."
Покори ме разказа за стария филателист и неговия сблъсък с извънземните марки. Извънземните променят човека и неговата среда за живот. Те подобряват здравето му и го карат да бъде искрен. Но има и противоотрова срещу искреността🙂.
"Прозрение" ни показва, че машината не може да замени човешкото преживяване и човешкото творчество.
"Галактическа хроника" - разказ за добрите духчета.
Всеки има нужда от магия, фантазия и да помисли философски за хората, живота и бъдещето. Интересен, класически и забавен Клифърд Саймък

[Ian Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stories here, one of which I had read previously in another compilation. These are what you would expect from Simak: simple, pastoral, humorous, “of the era.” Each of these easily could have been the basis for a Twilight Zone episode. If you have a pulse and an iota of creativity and appreciation, you’d give this collection three stars minimum; if you’re a Simak fan boy and appreciate analog hobbies like me, you’ll rate it a four!

[Ronald Spitzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had decided I wanted some good old space opera science fiction to read next. These stories are not that, but they are classic 1950s gems of science fiction in this collection. They are humorous stories showing ordinary 1950s people and what they do when out space aliens come visiting. Yes, I know one was published in 1960, but the 1950s culture and thinking is there. Fun stories.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clifford D. Simak has written some of my favorite SF short stories, but this collection is weak. The four pieces overlap in theme, and the aliens don't inspire much in the way of "otherness." Reminiscent of a whimsical, tension-less "Twilight Zone" episode.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I started the first story in this, a man whose house was over run by alien bugs and found it rather dull. It was the first Simak story that I hadn't love. It was about a dull man who had something extraordinary happen. But it was still about a dull man, and his dull son, and dull male friends. The next story was another dull man, this time a futuristic stamp collector, and he also had another extraordinary thing happen, though the twists in this one started to come sooner and got much more interesting. The third story was a far future tale where everyone on Earth had become an author, but not actually an author cause machines put the stories together. It was an odd little pulp scifi story that didn't have nearly such a satisfying end, but had some quite fun bits. The last story was about another pulp writer and odd aliens. I have to admit I didn't enjoy the short stories nearly as much as the novels. There was some quite interesting ideas but not much in the way of social commentary, few women characters, and the characters that were there were a little dull.

[Edward Amato · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book as I like Simak. He collected stamps, worked for the newspaper, wrote books and lived in the Midwest. All of this is reflected in his writing. In this collection of stories he includes stamps, the book industry and newspaper writing in his future vision. He did not live long enough to see personal computers, cell phones and kindles replace a lot of need for the aforementioned subjects, at least when he wrote these stories. Great upbeat reads.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of science fiction novellas, with a strong doses of irony and humor.

"The Golden Bugs" (1960). A somewhat wacky alien invasion of the suburbs (4 stars).
"Leg. Forst." (1958). Outer space philately goes in a weird directions (4 stars).
"So Bright the Vision" (1956). Oddly prophetic tale of the use of technology to enhance creativity and the inevitable problems that arise. (5 stars)
"Galactic Chest" (1956). Pleasant tongue and check mystery. (3 stars)

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ace Double Novel H95 or cat# 020-08095-060
So Bright The Vision, Clifford Simak, grade B
Man Who saw Tomorrow, Jeff Sutton, grade B-

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four longish and very light science fiction stories, all with elements of humor. Good examples of one kind of story that was being widely published in the pulp magazines in the 50s and early 60s.