"Goblin Sanctuary" by Clifford Simak, summary

In the distant future, Earth has become an intergalactic university center, where alien visitors, resurrected historical figures, and representatives of ancient folklore live alongside humans. The science fiction novel was published in 1968.

The work was created as a standalone novel outside of the book series. In 1969, the book was nominated for the prestigious Hugo Award.

An unexpected return

Security Inspector Drayton delivers strange news to Peter Maxwell, a professor of the Faculty of Supernatural Phenomena. Maxwell was presumed dead. A month ago, his double returned from the Raccoon Skin constellation and soon crashed on the highway. The real professor ended up on an unknown crystal planet due to a null-transportation malfunction.

A traveler is confused. He boards the autopilot of the sleazy businessman Monty Churchill. The craft suddenly stalls over the hills of a nature reserve due to the spell of forest trolls. The passengers are gliding to a fairy glade.

Goblin O’Toole is delighted to see an old friend. He immediately invites his guests to share a vat of fresh October ale. Suddenly, a servant runs in and announces that the entire brew has been spoiled by the evil eye of the wicked neighbors under the bridge. The enraged castle owner runs screaming and beats the offenders with a rolling pin.

Meetings in the town

Maxwell arrives at the university dorm. His previous room is already occupied. The door is opened by Carol Hampton, holding a huge biomechanical saber-toothed tiger named Sylvester on a leash. The animal pushes him onto the sofa and joyfully licks his cheeks. Carol agrees to share dinner with the professor.

The group heads to a noisy pub. At a corner table sit the Neanderthal Alle-Op and a translucent Spirit who has forgotten his earthly name. The friends are boisterously celebrating their friend’s resurrection.

Carol accidentally lets slip a secret about the Institute of Time. The directorate plans to sell a mysterious black artifact to an unknown buyer to save the scientific budget. This impenetrable boulder was found in the Jurassic strata twenty years ago. No laser can penetrate its surface.

The Secret of the Crystal World

One night in a Neanderthal log cabin, Maxwell reveals to Op the truth about his forced journey. The mysterious planet came from a previous universe, one that existed before the Big Bang. Its inhabitants became ethereal ghosts and amassed a colossal library over fifty billion years.

The sages are looking for a reliable intermediary. The ghosts have instructed the professor to hand over the archive to Earth in exchange for a certain price. The scientist intends to reach Rector Arnold.

In the morning, Longfellow, the official, asks the scientist to leave Earth. The professor is offered a position on the distant planet Gothica IV, as his Earthly position has already been given to someone else. Peter rejects the exile. An alien with the body of a white land crab hands him a formal suit and a note from socialite Nancy Clayton.

In the university library, a scholar studies reproductions of twenty-first-century paintings by Albert Lambert. His later canvases depict bizarre monsters and flickering lights, strikingly similar to the ghosts of the crystal world.

Reception at a wealthy patroness

Churchill secretly sets a trap. In a dark corridor of Nancy’s mansion, the professor is confronted by a wheelwright — a translucent, gelatinous bubble on two fur-covered wheels, swarming with poisonous insects. The creature calls itself Mr. Marmaduke.

The alien persistently offers to buy the galactic library through front men. He promises generous commissions. The professor categorically refuses to help the suspicious creature.

Sylvester senses an enemy. The tiger lunges at the wheelwright and knocks the stranger onto the marble steps of the ballroom. Maxwell examines the Lambert painting the owner bought and is astonished to notice the very same Artifact atop the painted Jurassic hill.

Ancient messenger

The scientist goes to the reserve. Trolls steal O’Toole’s planting stone, hoping to deprive the fat goblin of his horse. The conflict is resolved with the promise of a memorial service.

On the distant hilltop, a shapeless dark cloud melts into the dry thorn bushes. It’s the last local banshee, dying from gradual loss of energy.

Maxwell sits down next to him. The ethereal being admits that it served as a liaison between the crystal planet and the first colonies of Earth long before the advent of primates. The inhabitants of the ancient world voluntarily ceded the planet to the ancestors of humanity, recognizing the great value of the nascent intelligence. Banshee reveals that, out of an old grudge, he named the price of the archive to the wheelers. That price is the Artifact. The black cloud dissolves into the frosty air.

Turmoil at the institute

Time Institute Director Harlow Sharp refuses to cancel the deal. The deposit has already been received through Churchill. The wheelwrights will pick up the monolith tomorrow morning.

A spirit hides William Shakespeare, brought on a tour from the sixteenth century. During a secret supper in the cellar, the playwright sips ale with relish and complains of toothache. Suddenly, the spirit recalls its earthly past and cries out to the poet that it is his own disembodied shadow. In sheer terror, the writer kicks down the door and flees into the darkness.

Carol recalls a strange glint of sunlight on the monolith. She once imagined a living eye watching her through the impenetrable surface.

At night, the friends break into the locked museum. Maxwell puts on the translation glasses he brought from the crystal planet and focuses on the black beam.

Awakening the Dragon

The dark mass cracks. Before the eyes of the stunned witnesses, a fairytale dragon emerges from the stone, shimmering with gold, bronze, and azure. The monster joyfully lashes its tail, smashing museum display cases containing prehistoric pottery.

Carol and Op open the front doors. The graceful beast spreads its enormous membranous wings and soars into the night sky toward the moonlight.

Sharpe appears, clutching his head at the sight of the ruins. Inspector Drayton, Nancy Clayton, and the artist himself, Albert Lambert, gather in the director’s office. It turns out that the artist traveled through time using an experimental brain chip and personally observed the Wheelers as servants of an ancient race in the Mesozoic.

A buyer’s messenger rolls into the office and demands immediate delivery of the goods. The director announces the termination of the contract. The Wheelwright releases a choking, poisonous gas, but the fearless Sylvester rips the stranger’s belly open with his claws.

Battle of the Hills

A squadron of wheelers on flying machines surrounds the dragon above the preserve. The aliens drop trapping nets.

Maxwell and his friends rush to the stone bridge. The trolls flatly refuse to help without a benefit. Sylvester carefully grabs O’Toole by the collar with his powerful fangs and holds him above the ground until the terrified goblin agrees to brew three kegs of strong ale with beetles for the offenders.

The delighted trolls cast an ancient, forbidden spell. The invaders’ flying machines instantly malfunction, collide in midair, and crash into the thicket. The dragon is saved.

In a sunlit glade, forest fairies play tiny instruments. To the crystalline sounds of the music, Shakespeare and the Spirit, reconciled with him, dance gently.

The Legacy of Eternity

A glowing dragon basks on the castle wall. Below, goblins and trolls noisily celebrate their victory, banging mugs on the oak tables.

Another banshee from the distant colonies descends onto the branch of an old cedar. The messenger announces to Maxwell the decision of the crystal world’s masters. The stellar archive is being donated to Earth’s universities, and the planet’s coordinates have already been transmitted to the transport stations.

The dragon was their last pet. The aging race only wanted to leave the beloved creature in the safe and caring hands of earthlings before their own peaceful demise.

Maxwell and Carol gaze at the sparkling river valley. The professor smiles and invites his companion to a quiet dinner at the restaurant. A saber-toothed tiger growls softly against the castle wall, and a magnificent dragon playfully sticks out its long, forked tongue at the beast.