# Short Fiction — Character guide

> Key figures in Short Fiction by Clifford D. Simak.

- [Oliver Meek](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/oliver_meek.md): A mild-mannered nobody who never did anything to get talked about, until a gangster's ultimatum wakes a cold anger that turns him into Asteroid City's newest marshal.
- [Gavin Duncan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/gavin_duncan.md): A frontiersman on Layard who crosses a river into unclaimed forest and claims the discovery as his own, only to find the Cytha he's tracking grows more cunning with every mile.
- [Frederick West](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/frederick_west.md): A patient, soft-spoken man who takes a dying stranger's grotesque ward and a cryptic message about a painting, then finds himself untangling a mystery tied to Pluto's secret laboratories.
- [Grant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/grant.md): A jumpy spaceman called Stiffy who watches his ship's energy get drained by a rock-eating alien robot, then reluctantly climbs aboard the creature for a ride home.
- [Carl Jacobi](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/carl_jacobi.md): A solitary man of fixed habits whose nightly walk to buy a cigar goes wrong when an entire city block simply vanishes, and only he seems to notice.
- [Scott Nixon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/scott_nixon.md): A pilot who finds a bloodied stowaway aboard his Mars-bound rocket and must decide what to do with a man whose memory was erased by the same tragedy that started humanity's doomed parade into space.
- [Gus Hamilton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/gus_hamilton.md): Gus Hamilton belongs to the smoky, many-tongued world of the Silver Moon, where prospectors, gamblers, and Martian dancing girls trade rumors over Venusian leaf. He is the sort of weathered veteran a timid newcomer like 
- [Cheviot Sherwood](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/cheviot_sherwood.md): Sherwood is a man on the run, having left his last port without clearance and with a fortune in gems he knows he did not strictly need. Stranded on a hostile planet with a broken radio, he seizes rescue from an unmarked 
- [Andrew Young](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/andrew_young.md): Young moves through council chambers and flagstone patios as a man at odds with his own species, bitter at Chairman Riggs and the slow machinery of human problem-solving. He carries a private grief: the memory of a blueb
- [Mal Shaff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/mal_shaff.md): Shaff stands apart from the quarantine panic and the commission's secret hormone research, seeing the whole affair as the latest chapter in humanity's long habit of stoning lepers and smothering madmen. He knows he is be
- [Wesley Adams](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/wesley_adams.md): Adams arrives in Washington with a portfolio, a constitution, and the weight of a first presidency thrust upon him, facing a secretary of state and a chief of protocol who have never heard of his country. His awkwardness
- [Henry Woods](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/henry_woods.md): Woods moves through the same hard-edged frontier as Sherwood, sharing the unmarked-ship world where clearances are skipped and fortunes are made in a single reckless grab. He is the counterweight to Sherwood's greed, the
- [Hugh Nixon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/hugh_nixon.md): A character who appears in the narrative.
- [Blacky Hoffman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/blacky_hoffman.md): A character with a dark nickname.
- [the Cytha](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/the_cytha.md): A clever alien or creature entity.
- [Asteroid Prowler](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/asteroid_prowler.md): A ship or entity that prowls the asteroids.
- [Cartwright](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/cartwright.md): A character with a full name Burton.
- [IV Hudson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/hudson_iv.md): A character designated as the fourth.
- [Louis Nevin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/louis_nevin.md): A character named Louis Nevin.
- [Moe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/moe.md): A character with a simple name.
- [Jimmy Baldwin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/jimmy_baldwin.md): A character named Jimmy Baldwin.
- [Sipar](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/sipar.md): An entity or character named Sipar.
- [Ouglat](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/ouglat.md): An entity or character named Ouglat.
- [Dr. Silas White](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/dr_silas_white.md): A doctor named Silas White.
- [James Belden](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/james_belden.md): A character named James Belden.
- [Russ Jensen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/russ_jensen.md): A character named Russ Jensen.
- [Luke Blaine](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/luke_blaine.md): A character named Luke Blaine.
- [Andrew Smith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/andrew_smith.md): A character named Andrew Smith.
- [Henrietta Perkins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/henrietta_perkins.md): A female character named Henrietta Perkins.
- [Walter J. Darling](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/walter_j_darling.md): A character named Walter J. Darling.
- [Mr. Richard Belmont](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/mr_richard_belmont.md): A gentleman named Richard Belmont.
- [Shotwell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/shotwell.md): A character named Shotwell.
- [Mr. Craney](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/mr_craney.md): A character named Mr. Craney.
- [Mr. Hudson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/mr_hudson.md): A character named Mr. Hudson.
- [Billy Jones](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/billy_jones.md): A character named Billy Jones.
- [Bud Craney](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/bud_craney.md): A character named Bud Craney.
- [Buster](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/buster.md): An older character named Buster.
- [Harry Decker](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/harry_decker.md): A character named Harry Decker.
- [General Leslie Bowers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/general_leslie_bowers.md): A general named Leslie Bowers.
- [Steven Alexander](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/steven_alexander.md): A doctor named Steven Alexander.
- [Ex-ambassador Hudson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/ex_ambassador_hudson.md): A former ambassador named Hudson.
- [John Cooper](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/john_cooper.md): A character named John Cooper.
- [Screamers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters/screamers.md): Entities or characters that scream.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_10_se/characters