"The Big Front Yard" is a short story of science fiction by American author Clifford D. Simak, who won the 1959 Hugo Award for Best Novelet. It was also included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two (1973) after being selected as one of the best novellas until 1965.
Video The Big Front Yard
Summary
The story is about converting an ordinary house into an interplanetary portal or stargate by a mysterious alien creature that seems to have taken on the task of exploring space for habitable planets and connecting them to each other, thus allowing civilizations to exchange ideas easily.
In the story, a masseuse and merchant, Hiram Taine, finds that his home contains strange creatures that refine and enhance things in an interesting way and turn parts of his house into a hazard resistant substance. After digging a spaceship buried in the backyard, he finds that the front of his house is no longer on Earth but on a strange desert planet that is now accessible only by passing the front door. A small exploration in the desert reveals the existence of another similar home that opens onto a rain planet and some identical spacecraft dug in the backyard sitting on a rolling cradle next to several other empty launch cribs, implying several other similar houses. The story ends with the arrival of some aliens either on the desert planet or one of those connected to it, who is eager to exchange ideas with the new universal "network-planet" members.
Maps The Big Front Yard
Publishing history
Since its original publication at Astonishing Science Fiction , "Great Home" has not been republished in other magazines. In particular, it was never published in the English version Astonishing .
The story has been anthologized at least ten times, including Italian and German translations. The story also appears in at least seven collections devoted to the works of Simak, including French and German translations (for the latter, the story is titled "Das Tor zur anderen Welt").
More details on the history of the publication of the story can be found in the list on the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (which sees the External Links section below).
External links
- The Big Front Yard list of titles on the Internet Speculative Fiction Internet
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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