Quite an interesting little book. And charming, in the way that a lot of 1960s/70s sci-fi is charming—I love the way that people thought the future might be (in this case, a world government, smart houses that take care of humans and that can fly), and also in this case, Simak’s imagination doesn’t really gel with science as we know it. But if you suspend your disbelief, you get a weird little book about a man found frozen in space who turns out to have two alien creatures living inside him. (Sort of—spoilers.)
It’s also funny to me that so much of this book is concerned with the ethics of bioengineering humans, when they have benevolent AI’s just running their lives willy-nilly and feeding them breakfast. There’s a hilarious scene where the main character’s bedroom (called Room) starts screaming because something has happened to him and it’s really, really worried about him. His Kitchen insists on overfeeding him and becomes insulted when he only ever requests the same few simple foods. If this book had been written today, I feel like we wouldn’t care as much about the idea of engineering humans to be able to live on other planets, but we would definitely not be so cool about the artificial intelligences that literally witness every aspect of our lives.
None of that really has much to do with the book, which is a quick read, and while not as emotionally impactful and cohesive as Way Station (still my favorite book of his), comes together at the end in a way that is very satisfying.