The cities of the world are deserted.

As automation invades every sphere of life, human beings are rendered redundant and superfluous: one by one, they abandon consciousness...

The Robots make spaceships and shoot for the stars.

The Ants construct huge buildings which sprawl over the remnants of the old townships.

And the Dogs take over the Earth!
 
 

First published in Great Britain in 1961 by The Science Fiction Book Club
© Clifford D Simak 1952
First Sphere Books edition 1971

Atwood leaned forward earnestly.
'Not the city,' he said quietly, tensely. 'You must not sell me short. Far more than a city, Mr Graves. Much more than a city. I think it's safe to say it, for now no one can stop me. I am buying up the earth!'

Parker Graves was talking to an alien - an alien that might at any moment dissolve into a plastic bowling ball. Such beings could assume any shape, any size, and the horrifying thing was that

THEY WALKED LIKE MEN...

First published in UK 1963 by Victor Gollancz Ltd.
This edition published 1965 by Pan Books Ltd., 8 Headfort Place, London, SW1

© Clifford D Simak 1962

(For another edition of this book go here)

And the creature spake
HI, PAL, it said, I TRADE YOU WITH MY MIND.

Blaine's mind screamed soundlessly in outraged surprise... for suddenly without warning he was a double thing - himself and this other creature. For one chaotic instant he saw as the creature saw, felt as the creature felt, knew what the creature knew. And at the same instant he was Shepherd Blaine, explorer, a mind from out of Earth and very far from home.

But this startling tale is not of Man on a distant planet. It is the story of a man on earth - who became a fugitive in a violent world of hate and fear. In his mind lurked an awesome ally, an alien creature who knew that

TIME IS THE SIMPLEST THING...

First published in UK 1962 by Victor Gollancz Ltd. This edition published 1964 by Pan Books.
© Clifford D Simak
© Street & Smith Inc 1961