A literary text that has gone viral on the Internet, in which one can see a parallel with the events of recent years, is attributed by social network users to the American science fiction writer. We checked to see if this is actually a quote from his novel Goblin Sanctuary.
The text is a dialogue between a gnome, a half-elf and a princess with a certain burgomaster. The latter wants the characters to take a package to a goblin who lives nearby. He periodically fires at the city with a grenade launcher, but, according to the burgomaster, he cannot be answered by force, otherwise those who do this will be called aggressors, occupiers and provocateurs by others.
Internet users who published this fragment in recent months saw in the situation described similarities either with Israel’s war against Hamas or with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The authors of such posts admired the foresight of the author of the text, American science fiction writer Clifford Simak, because his novel “Goblin Sanctuary” was published back in 1968.
In January 2024, publications with this excerpt became popular on Facebook - for example, a post in the community “Odessa without noise and dust» at the time of writing this analysis, 5,300 users reposted, including a musician Andrey Makarevich (1100 reposts). A month earlier, political bloggers posted an excerpt on Telegram with a link to Simak Mikhail Khazin (128,000 views) and Alexander Semchenko (86,000).
Indeed, Simak has a novel “Goblin Sanctuary", published in 1968, and soon steel publish in Russian translation. However, there is no such fragment in this work. Among the characters in the novel there are goblins, gnomes are mentioned in passing, but the author does not write anything about any half-elves, princesses or burgomasters. In addition, at the beginning of the viral text, one of the characters uses the expression “take quest” is a clear anachronism, since role-playing video games, escape rooms and urban orienteering competitions have become widespread only in recent decades.
Signed “Clifford Simak. "Goblin Sanctuary" 1968" fragment began spread on social networks only in October 2023, after the Hamas attack on Israel. Before this, Internet users published it, as a rule, without mentioning the author. This text can be found for the first time in a publication dated July 17, 2014 in the user’s LiveJournal bormor.
Under this username hides the Israeli writer and blogger Pyotr Mordkovich (aka Pyotr Bormor), whose short stories in the fantasy genre have been repeatedly published not only on his page, but also in books And magazines. The princess, the half-elf, the dwarf and the burgomaster met in more early his works. Some readers have pointed out the similarity between Mordkovich’s texts and Simak’s works. indicated in the comments to posts on LiveJournal (the author agreed with this observation).
Nevertheless, the story about a goblin shelling a city has nothing to do with American science fiction. This text was written by an Israeli author in 2014, apparently under the impression of military-political events close to him. The work was associated with Simak only a few years later - this probably happened during its circulation on social networks.
Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons, Imagine AI Art Generator
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