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Title: Nothing Special
Review: Published after Simak's retirement as a journalist Special Deliverance is a pretty standard quest novel where several characters are thrown together in a strange environment and have to solve the riddle of why they are there. Compared to some of Simak's earlier work the ensemble character development is quite good but the piece lacks much of the exuberance and rapid layering of big concepts that Simak does so well.The gist of the story is that 5 humans and one robot from different alternate history earths are brought together on a different but empty earth that contains a series of way stations that act as clues. Ala Pilgrim's Progress each characters represents different archetypes but the analogies are rather blunt.The writing is OK, but taken as a whole it feels like the premise of an RPG. The other reviewers here seemed to like it but my recommendation - give it a pass. Simak has written better.
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