Amateur Amalgam

Feb 11, 2026

Written by Clifford D. Simak in 1977, this is a sci-fi imagining of the world after a disaster involving technology.

More than a thousand years have passed since humankind intentionally destroyed all our technology, choosing to revert back to a primitive tribal state. In this society, the rusting brain cases of long-inert robots are considered trophies, and the knowledge that has survived is maintained by few in monastery-like “universities.” Our main guy, Tom Cushing, is a resident of one such university and here he reads of the “Place of Going to the Stars,” rumoured to exist on a high butte somewhere in the west (we’re in whats left of the USA btw). He decides it’s worth the risk to set out to try and find it, true or not, and he has the skills to survive given he once roamed as a kid, before he decided to learn.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to finish this book. Not because it was bad or boring, I just put it down one day ant didn’t pick it up again for like 4 months. As such, my memory of events is kinda fuzzy, so you’ll have to excuse me. I forgot to take note’s as I was reading and I said to myself “I’ll remember I don’t need to write that down”. Obviously this was not the case.

Still! I quite liked this one. Despite the apocalyptic nature of the setting I would still say it has a hopeful overall vibe to it. And the various characters we meet along the way are very interesting. They do go on quite a bit when they talk – it felt a little like hearing soliloquies at a play – but not in a way that’s overly boring.

Spoilers Ahead!

We begin in the future, some great calamity involving technology has happened. It was not the tech itself that caused the problem, but the way it was used by the rich and powerful that did it – hint hint. Our main character is living in a university, and making use of the knowledge around him to learn what he can. He used to live in the mountains, and then when his family died he lived as a “runner” in the woods with others like him – namely other young men.

Recently there has been news of a horde coming from the west – a war lord/tribe leader is looking to expand his territory and power. At the same time, he discovers a story written by a historian about a “Place of Going to the Stars”.

It’s common knowledge that before the collapse people had been to both the Moon and Mars, but not if they ever left the Solar System. He decides that he’s learned all he can from this place, and that it’s worth it to make the trip out and try and find it All he’s got to go on, is a somewhat disputed article by a historian, writing of the place a few hundred years after the collapse. The older couple he is staying with – who have sort of adopted him in place of their own son (I can’t remember if he died or just left) – agree to let him go and let him know he is always welcome back.

As he goes, he runs into a Witch who is like ‘I see Destiny in you, I’m gonna follow you’ and they continue on together. While looking out for the horde – who are indeed on the way – he runs into what is probably the last (working) robot that exists. He was stuck under a tree for a few weeks and Tom lets him out. In thanks, the robot agrees to help them with their journey, as he recalls hearing a few stories about the place they are looking for.

It is at this point that I stopped reading for an extended period, and subsequently forgot a bunch of details. When I got back to it, we got a lot of explaining the law of the world and how we got to where we are. Our group runs into some Barbarians, but luckily we saw them first, so they hide and then, wait for them to move on. As they’re going along, they run into an old man and his granddaughter who are both touched by some sort of psychic ability. I assume our witch (Meg) has some of that too cause she acts kind of like they do. Each chapter or so, is inter-spaced with excerpts from the book that inspires our main characters to go out into the wilderness and search and in these excerpts, we find that psychic phenomenon more common nowadays and it’s been about 2000 years since the collapse of technology.

Anyways, collecting the clues that we find along the way, including a topographical map of several states that we picked up from the barbarians after they left and left a bunch of trash behind, our crew figure the place might be in South Dakota, and that is where our team is headed, a place called Thunder Butte.

As we make way to the butte, the Wardens – people who are off the belief that “Sleepers“ live atop the mountain and should not be disturbed – stop us. A bear interrupts this conversation running them off, giving Rollo (the Robot) his much-needed grease – he makes it from bear fat – and they continue on. The trees and the living rocks (which are characters that I completely forgot about, but are kind of like boulders that roll on their own and are warm to the touch) stop them and Ezra (the grandfather) “speaks” to them.

They gain entry after some sort of psychic test and then on their way up, they meet two aliens who are there conducting research on fallen civilizations. They tell them about the A&R – the ancient and revered – one of the last robots and the one in charge of this particular place. They get to the top, and they do make it inside to see him, but I guess they insult him? He banned them from the city and eventually they figure out a way to get un-banned from the city. Meg makes a psychic link with the robot head that they found earlier and promises to stay with it because the consciousness is still intact even after thousands of years of being buried in the sand, and I guess this act of kindness convinces the A & R to let them in so he does and he explains to them that they have reached their goal. This is the place of going to the stars.

From here, humanity sent out probes, a cheaper and more cost-effective way of exploring the universe than actually building ships and going themselves – unfortunately the probes arrived after the fall and there was no one to read the data and eventually the robots all failed except for the A & R and the probes which he had stopped sending out. Now that they are here and they’ve proven that sensitive humans can interact with robot minds and read the data or somewhat makes sense of it, they’re willing to try again.

In the time that they’ve been up here, the wandering tribes have been gathering and the Wardens have told them that they went and disturbed the sleepers so when Tom goes down to speak to them and say “hey, we’ve got a plan to bring humanity back from, you know, barbarism” they do not accept and attempt to kill him. Rude. They tie him to a pole and are deciding his fate when Rollo, the genius that he is, and Andy, the best character, hands-down, even though he’s a horse, come running with the followers (shadow creatures) shining snakes (light creatures) and with the two aliens who’s description kind of reminds me of the way thrones are described (like from the Bible). They spook everybody and then with the new “we’re all in it together” attitude they make their way back to the university that Tom came from with the plan to get more people and supplies and return back to the place of going to the stars in an attempt to restart humanity.

When they first see the butte, one of the characters articulates the feeling I was having while reading which is “regardless of what they find. It’s been a lovely trip”. That’s really the best way to describe this book, and the characters that we follow too actually. Each had their own goal to achieve and was able to do so once they joined up, despite the fact that some of the stuff they wanted was not the same at all. Each of them was curious and open and willing to help the others, so they succeeded. I don’t want to say cozy – given the apocalypse and all – but that really is what it felt like. If you pay attention to the details in the histories you can pick out how things went wrong, and what happened to people. Listening to Rollo you can tell what life was like from before, and despite the fact that none of us want to go back to that specific before (too much has changed for that), it still gives you a sense of nostalgia – is that still what it’s called if it’s the future for the reader?