Shakespeare's Planet

Extract: Though not considered one of Simak's better works, I still loved "Shakespeare's Planet". Another short novel, it represents to me how many of the authors of the golden age of SF were able to flesh out a story around a simple concept without bloating up into huge epic novels. In this story, Simak sticks with his common devices of helpful but slightly annoying robots and aliens that are not simply anthropomorphisms of common earth creatures, putting them into a story that I couldn't help but think was a deconstruction of Shakespeare's "The Tempest". The result was thinner than the other works of his that I've read, but nonetheless still satisfying...