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They Walked Like Men book. Read 42 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Money was worthless; it had no value! It couldn't buy housing.
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Feb 04, Jason Bradley Thompson rated it it was amazing. And one of these ideas is that anyone should even think of trying to buy up the Earth. Conquer it -- most certainly, for that is an old and fine and traditional idea Destroy it -- that also is understandable But buying it was unthinkable. And it has to be a good one or they won't even touch it.

Clifford D. Simak

Perhaps it didn't have to work anywhere except in the majority of the great industrial nations. Stylistically, the book reads like a hard-boiled detective novel, with sneaky investigations and mysterious dames. The aliens initially appear in the goofy form of black 'bowling balls' view spoiler [but turn out to be shapeshifters who can take any shape, including humans, blobs, or, importantly, piles of money hide spoiler ].

There's also a friendly alien, a talking dog, who assures the reader that there's nothing exactly as illogical as human capitalism anywhere in the universe. The ending tips the book towards comedy view spoiler [the aliens like interesting smells, so the hero uses skunks to defeat them hide spoiler ] , but the rest of the book is tense enough it's a welcome ending to this great novel. Oct 22, Jim Davis rated it it was amazing. I'm a big Simak fan and I'm surprised I missed this one.

I'm sure Simak had his tongue at least slightly in his cheek when he wrote this and the results are terrific. When is the last time you read an alien invasion story where the villains are realtors shaped like bowling balls with a talking dog for a competitor. I'm not sure there are many writers who could have written an acceptable story based on those plot elements instead of a great story the way Simak has.

I almost forgot the part about I'm a big Simak fan and I'm surprised I missed this one. I almost forgot the part about the skunks saving the world. It's part comedy, part serious SF alien invasion story with a few remarks about how bizarre the aliens find our capitalist business structure along with other human cultural activities. Aug 09, Mel rated it really liked it Shelves: library , 20th-century-fiction , scifi.

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After several mediocre Simak book it was nice to be able to read one that reminded me why I liked him in the first place. This was great because it was a story about an alien invasion, but not a story about aliens with a military invasion but an economic one. An economic one which targeted the idea of ownership of property. It was a fantastic idea and told in the style of a 40s or 50s pulp adventure. The main character was a hard drinking newspaper man, and lived in that world and then thrown After several mediocre Simak book it was nice to be able to read one that reminded me why I liked him in the first place.

The main character was a hard drinking newspaper man, and lived in that world and then thrown into a science fiction adventure instead of a film noir. There were also a couple women characters who did things. Mostly minor characters but still an improvement on the previous two books of his that I read. The aliens were bizarre and utterly alien.

Definitely one I'm glad I read. Jul 26, William Cardini rated it it was amazing Shelves: category-novels , faves , new-read This book is written in the first-person POV of Patrick Graves, a science journalist for a city newspaper.


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Simak was a journalist so I would guess that he was heavily mining from his experience for the milieu. One curious aspect to the setting is that Simak never specifies the name of city in which this story is set. It feels like a mid-sized midwestern city.

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A novelist should pick a place to tell their story and tells us where that place is. Graves is a bit of a drunk and a misogynist. Simak does a terrific job conveying the dread that Graves feel as the alien invasion upends his sense of comfort and normalcy. The room contracted to a cold place of gleaming light shattering on the shine of the laboratory bench and the sink and glassware, and I was a feebleness that stood there… As someone who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks, I can testify that this is an accurate description of what it feels like when panic begins.

Instead these aliens who are also perhaps one alien that can subdivide and shapeshift take over the earth legally, by exploiting a weakness of our capitalist system of private industry, private property, and voluntary exchange. The aliens buy up private industries and private property but refuse to exchange what they buy for more money.

And they do this in such a short amount of time and on such a grand scale that there is no where for anyone to go to find a place to live or a job to work. A truly terrifying scenario that Simak explores with aplomb! These aliens are a metaphor for business owners who only care about money and shareholder value.

Simak makes this explicit in the book on page 41 in this quote from an old man who refuses to sell his business to the aliens: We look on business as a trust and privilege. These others only see it as a way of making money… But so long as we live, we stay here, serving the public as honorably as we can. For I tell you, sir, that business is more than just a counting of the profits. It is a chance for service, a chance to make a contribution.

The world would be a better place if more businesspeople had this perspective. Sep 23, Paul Weiss rated it liked it Shelves: science-fiction. The buyers are coming! They Walked Like Men is standard s pulp fiction with an imaginative novel twist - a typical alien invasion scenario but the aliens are playing by earth's rules and the weapon is commerce! Parker Graves, a hard drinking journalist, seems to be one of only a handful of people on the planet who figure out the conspiracy. With an obvious focus on the soft sci-fi elements centred in small town America, They Walked Like Men is clearly vintage Simak output.

In fact, the science is so soft as to be virtually non-existent and Simak seems to have let this novel's theme drift away from sci-fi, through fantasy and clearly into the realm of lightweight horror.

And what would a Simak novel be without a sprinkling of his pithy, keen observations on life in general? On customer service: "There are no manners in the world today, young man. There isn't any kindness. And no consideration. There's no such thing as thinking the best of one's fellowmen. The business world has become a bookkeeping operation, performed by machines and by men who are very like machines in that they have no soul. There is no honor and no trust I ain't the kind of guy that goes around spouting about communing with nature, but I tell you, friend, if you spent some time with her, you're a better man.

Shaping the aliens into mobile bowling balls and converting them into tiny dolls when they weren't inhabiting a human form seemed merely juvenile to me and detracted from the development of a really snappy idea that could have been taken so much further in the hands of an acknowledged master such as Simak. Paul Weiss Oct 11, Onur rated it liked it.

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Parker Graves, a journalist for a mid-sized newspaper in just such a city, stumbles late one night almost in a bizarre case: Prior to his apartment door someone has dug a hole and hid a animal trapping therein. As Graves wants to verify the installation, the case folds into a ball, rolling out of the house and disappear. Graves does not doubt his sanity, but can not provide evidence of his experience.

He is silent, until he noticed other oddities: One equipped with endless funds dummy corporation Parker Graves, a journalist for a mid-sized newspaper in just such a city, stumbles late one night almost in a bizarre case: Prior to his apartment door someone has dug a hole and hid a animal trapping therein. He is silent, until he noticed other oddities: One equipped with endless funds dummy corporation buys in town all shops and houses in order to connect them to dismiss employees and to put tenants into the street. As Graves secretly procures intake in the office of this company, he came across a hole in the wall that leads to the stars, and finds deceptive similar dolls of people living large meet him in town.

That an invasion of particularly insidious kind is in progress, confirmed him a talking dog, who also outs himself as extraterrestrial: The other aliens not conquer the earth, buying them. What will happen to the people who is indifferent to them; the resale of the planet on the galactic highest bidder is already fixed. After you came on to them, try the invaders Graves by keeping quiet corruption.

Sham he goes on, as he searches for a way to warn mankind. Nobody listens to him, and the aliens are the "traitors" already hard and murderous on the heels, as Graves accidentally discovered their Achilles heel, which has just skunk shape. Who in the science-fiction literature knows a little about, will not be surprised that Clifford D. Simak his aliens Earth can not conquer with bristling spaceships and in the form of the infamous "bug eyed monster".

These aliens prefer a more refined, tailored to their victim-centered approach. You have carefully studied the people and act according to an old proverb: "Money rules the world! In this way they do not have to use force.


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    • The aliens procure the wherewithal and buy the ground, which falls to them in this way even completely undamaged into the hands or tentacles. With the mild irony his characteristic describes Simak how smoothly this particular invasion works. Not with the threat of blood and murder, but with a contractual term transform the aliens in their victims compliant accomplices: They pay well and require silence on the each completed financial. A smart move, they can count on the greed of their clients: No one wants to spoil a trade that brings a lot of money.

    Until those affected finally register that their fellow human beings act well, it's too late: The aliens have the final say, and they have acquired legally and legally watertight. Simak is limited to a small part, when he describes the conquest of the Earth. The small, remains nameless city he chooses as a model-scene of what everywhere in the world is going on, he knows from his own experience. Parker Graves is an action adapted alter ego of the author, who spent more than three decades as a journalist.