All Flesh is Grass

by Clifford D. Simak

Paperback, 1979

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Genres

Science Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

English paperback sf

Publication

Magnum Books, Methuen Paperbacks. (1979), Paperback, 256 pages

Description

Long before Under the Dome, this novel of a town trapped within an invisible force field earned a Nebula Award nomination for the author of Way Station. Nothing much ever happens in Millville, a small, secluded Middle-American community--until the day Brad Carter discovers he is unable to leave. And the nearly bankrupt real estate agent is not the only one being held prisoner; every resident is confined within the town's boundaries by an invisible force field that cannot be breached. As local tensions rapidly reach breaking point, a set of bizarre circumstances leads Brad to the source of their captivity, making him humanity's reluctant ambassador to an alien race of sentient flora, and privy to these jailers' ultimate intentions. But some of Millville's most powerful citizens do not take kindly to Carter's "collaboration with the enemy," even under the sudden threat of global apocalypse. Decades before Stephen King trapped an entire town in Under the Dome, science fiction Grand Master Clifford D. Simak explored the shocking effects of communal captivity on an unsuspecting population. Nominated for the Nebula Award, All Flesh Is Grass is a riveting masterwork that brilliantly reinvents the alien invasion story.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member AtrixWolfe

If you like happy endings and things being better than they seem, you like Clifford Simak. This story is in many ways like a kindler, gentler "Day of the Triffids": Aliens come to absorb all plant life on Earth because it is their way, but really, deep in their hearts, they just want to be loved

for themselves.
As corny as that sounds, it is still touching. So far I still empathize with the plants in this book - and I probably always will.

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LibraryThing member RandyStafford

It was much more descriptive than the latter novel, and I loved its description -- both pleasures, annoyances, pains, and terrors -- of the small-town of Millville. Simak did a wonderful job of evoking emotion: bittersweet memories and nostalgia, annoyance, anger, hoplessness, despair, contentment

and bewilderment. The narrator was well done and not a glossy, saintly character. He makes mistakes, shows annoyance (this is particularly true in his relations with Tupper -- a lesser novelist would have had our character/hero always treat Tupper with patience, gentleness, and love). Once again aliens come down and threaten, amongst other things, to inadvertenly screw up our economy. The aliens are cleverly presented as flowers who pose as sinister possibility of ecological subversion. As is usual in Simak, the aliens bring ideas and images of alieness (leading to possible disgust and revulsion) which will require change but are ripe with possibility. Though a happy ending was totally expected, the idea of aliens loving to be held as beautiful was intriguing as well as sentimental. Simak’s vision of a community of communing sentient beings is a characteristic one. I like humanity having something unique to offer. (The novel also had Simak’s typical themes of alien contact and alternate world/time travel.) Simak well characterizes the ambivalence of alien contact (promise of destruction or salvation) and the imperfect comprehensions of alien as well as human.

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LibraryThing member reading_fox

Average Simak. Take a fairly ordinary US citizen from the 70s or so. Cast into an usual situation or dimension - in this case his US village is surrounded by a life-impermiable barrier, objects can get through. Add some form of alien somewhere, intelligent purple flowers, and run through the

consequences a bit. The characters are all a bit flat and all the p[rotagonists always seem fairly similar from book to book. But the imagination is always the driving force here.

The cover is particularly distracting in this case - SImak has never been a battles in space kind of writer. This book doesn't even mentio space very much - time is the dimension he's playing with. Certainly there are no space ships, let alone space battles. But the 70s seem to demand spaceships on the cover, so that is what we got. No spaceships in this story. The inital build up is quite goo d- the bubble appears first, and the small villagers lives seem well described as they work through the consequences- I can't get to work, what about my kids, etc. However our hero soon starts to relaise that there is a high coincidence factor of a lot f his old school friends having being trapped inside at the same time as him. When one of them vanishes in the middle of his garden, he follows and finds a 'thin point in time' and emerges into a world covered in purple flowers - strangely similar to the one's his father used to nuture.

The science is more than a little bit suspect, the poltical responses far too stereotyped, even for the 70s, but it is interesting in it's own way. There are a numnber of side plots and diversions which SImak raises but never fully explores. Readable and one of the more famous SImak stories, but far from his best.

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LibraryThing member apatt

First sf book I ever read, stumbled upon it in the local library, got me totally hooked on the genre. Great sf starting point for any young reader (not actually YA). A little bit like Stephen King's Under The Dome but without the violence. Simak's compassion shines through in all his stories.

LibraryThing member BMorrisAllen

I recently re-read this, and discovered what I'd forgotten - what a consummate literary writer Simak could be. This story, while it's about an invisible barrier and the aliens that create it, is a classic exploration of small-town America. Extremely readable, with likeable characters that consider

problems the way you and I might. The language and story aren't zippy action sequences, but flowing prose about real people. Definitely worth reading if you like intelligent writing.

This story reminds me of Jack Finney, a rough contemporary of Simak's.

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LibraryThing member dbsovereign

I have loved everything I've read by Simak. Here he manages to create a contact story set in an everyday middle America that reads like no other. Imaginative and thought provoking.

LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV

Really 3.5 stars. Like others by Simak, a good message about living in harmony with other intelligences, mixed with characters we can identify with because they're so much like us, and mysterious mild adventures. And a fair sprinkling of humor and social commentary. Still, a fairly light read,

can't give it more stars because it's not important or worth your time to hunt down if it's not handy for you.

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LibraryThing member bragan

This SF novel from 1965 centers on one Bradshaw Carter, a down-on-his-luck small-town guy who finds himself in the middle of a series of strange events, including an impassable barrier around the town, calls for him on telephones that should not actually function as telephones, and a wealthy

businessman giving him fifteen hundred dollars because mysterious voices told him to. All of which turns out to be courtesy of intelligent extra-dimensional alien flowers who either want to invade the Earth or to be humanity's friends. It's not at all clear which.

It's all pleasantly ridiculous, and although it's not played as humor, there's a sort of charmingly droll feeling to it all. And I was genuinely interested by the question of whether the alien flowers were friend or foe. It's a question that gets resolved at the end in an odd and rather abrupt fashion, admittedly, but I found enjoyable, anyway.

Simak was a very prolific writer, and his stuff ranged from the really good to the entirely forgettable. I feel like this is one that ought to be remembered more than it maybe is, because it's still fun.

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LibraryThing member ikeman100

Another good book by Simak. As usual his engaging and comfortable style make for good reading. This story is good but as always the aliens are unexpected.

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