Tales of the unknown in which a fix-it man crosses into another dimension—and more

Hiram Taine is a handyman who can fix anything. When he isn’t fiddling with his tools, he is roaming through the woods with his dog, Towser, as he has done for as long as he can remember. He likes things that he can understand. But when a new ceiling appears in his basement—a ceiling that appears to have the ability to repair television sets so they’re better than before—he knows he has come up against a mystery that no man can solve.
 
Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novelette, “The Big Front Yard” is a powerful story about what happens when an ordinary man finds reality coming apart around him. Along with the other stories in this collection, it is some of the most lyrical science fiction ever published.
 
Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this book.

“To read science fiction is to read Simak. A reader who does not like Simak stories does not like science fiction at all.” —Robert A. Heinlein
 
“Like Olaf Stapledon and SF’s later mystics, Simak could dream on a grand scale. . . . Thoreau or Wordsworth would feel at home in his isolated houses rooted in natural landscapes.” —Locus
 
“Simak is the most underrated great science fiction writer alive, and has never written a bad book.” —Theodore Sturgeon
 
“I read [Simak’s] stories with particular attention, and I couldn’t help but notice the simplicity and directness of the writing—the utter clarity of it. I made up my mind to imitate it, and I labored over the years to make my writing simpler, clearer, more uncluttered, to present my scenes on a bare stage.” —Isaac Asimov
 
“Without Simak, science fiction would have been without its most humane element, its most humane spokesman for the wisdom of the ordinary person and the value of life lived close to the land.” —James Gunn