A Rediscovery of Clifford D. Simak - A Reading Challenge
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2DaveWixon
Shocked and Appalled!
Oh, and by the way: my Thanks to Ralf for passing my greetings along to this thread -- a very comradely thing to do.
To keep you all up to speed: you're aware, I know, that the first six volumes of the collection are now available from Open Road. I can tell you also that I have finished and turned in vols. 7, 8, and 9; and they should appear later this year (my guess is around September or October, but I haven't been given any specifics on that yet).
That leaves me with five more volumes to prepare -- and I'll tell you that they scare me a little: finding subjects on which I can write something interesting seems to be getting more and more difficult... Or maybe it's just that I did the easy ones first...
I know some of you have raised questions, here and there, that I might be able to help with -- and when I have time, I'll be trying to look back to find them. But if any still lurk in your minds, please raise them in reply to this note, and I'll try to answer you sooner.
All the best,
Dave Wixon
To keep you all up to speed: you're aware, I know, that the first six volumes of the collection are now available from Open Road. I can tell you also that I have finished and turned in vols. 7, 8, and 9; and they should appear later this year (my guess is around September or October, but I haven't been given any specifics on that yet).
That leaves me with five more volumes to prepare -- and I'll tell you that they scare me a little: finding subjects on which I can write something interesting seems to be getting more and more difficult... Or maybe it's just that I did the easy ones first...
I know some of you have raised questions, here and there, that I might be able to help with -- and when I have time, I'll be trying to look back to find them. But if any still lurk in your minds, please raise them in reply to this note, and I'll try to answer you sooner.
All the best,
Dave Wixon
2DaveWixon
Shocked and Appalled!
Dave , keep up the good work.
Most kind: I appreciate it.
Great to have you back, Dave. The current collections you are publishing are a wonderful project. What are the plans (if any) to release print versions of the volumes?
Ralf 58
Simak Bibliograph
Hi Dave,
I am pleased that you have managed to return to the forum. We appreciate your work. I hope that the "Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak" will some day be really completed, so that all stories of Clifford Simak will be available simultaneously for the first time in history. And I also hope that all the volumes will eventually appear in print.
I am pleased that you have managed to return to the forum. We appreciate your work. I hope that the "Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak" will some day be really completed, so that all stories of Clifford Simak will be available simultaneously for the first time in history. And I also hope that all the volumes will eventually appear in print.
LoZioOscuro
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I can't but second in full Bick and Ralf in thanking you and letting you have my most sincere congratulations for the excellent work done so far.
I too am interested in the printed releases, as I do prefer the print rather than the digital issue. So, I for one, hope that all issues will be released in print version - earlier (hopefully) or later. Thanks again.
2DaveWixon
Shocked and Appalled!
Hello, Bick! Great to speak with you once more...
My PERSONAL plans are to find a way to get the Collection (By that term I mean all 14 volumes) into print in some form -- but getting someone to agree to do so is proving difficult, and that likely because it costs a publisher more to print, and then store, hardcopy books...electrons are so much easier to arrange in the proper order, and to store, etc.
Open Road has not yet given me a definitive "no" on doing paper books, so I have a little hope. I guess my impression is that if there appears to be a reasonably-sized market for print, they'll do it -- question is, what is a "reasonably-sized market," in their eyes. I haven't gotten that information from them.
That's why I tell people to contact Open Road -- in fact, I sometimes mention that campaign that saved STAR TREK from cancellation after its first season on television (anyone besides me old enough to have taken part in that particular campaign?)... Go campaigning, people!
The other thing I'm doing is trying to find an alternate publisher (I'll have the ability to withdraw paper rights from Open Road after a certain period of time). To that end, I've been talking with a UK publisher, hoping that if I do a deal with them on UK/Commonwealth rights (and I'm willing to give them reasonable terms!), they'll agree to do some paper editions...no commitment from them, yet, though.
The final alternative is to let the current publishers continue to publish the books in electron form, while I find, and do a deal with, some sort of smaller press... (I already had one bad experience with a small press, but I'm willing to try again...if anyone can recommend a trustworthy small press with the financial resources to handle printing 14-volume sets, let me know...)("final alternative" -- unfortunate turn of phrase!)
Please understand: I knew, when I made the agreement with Open Road, that they might not want to exercise the rights I sold them to do paper books -- but I was willing to accept that just to get the Collection into publication; that was the MOST IMPORTANT THING: get the stories out there, even if only in the cloud!
Open Road has every right, according to our agreement, to decide not to put those books into paper; and I cannot fault them if they decide, for reasons of their business, not to do so...I will always remain grateful for what they've already done -- getting that was the hard part.
So after that, it's about me and the Simak fans being, well, greedy, right? I have hit the ball to left field and am now rounding first and digging for second... (that's a baseball reference, dear friends from beyond the waters...I'll explain if you indicate you'd like that.)
Dave
2DaveWixon
Shocked and Appalled!
I just cannot tell you how wonderful it is to have found a group of nice people who encourage me so much...Thanks, Ralf.
Dave
2DaveWixon
Shocked and Appalled!
Oh, I know -- I'm one of those people who prefers "real" books, too (which is why my house is full of books, much to my wife's chagrin...). I will not stop trying to get the Collection into print...
Thank you for your support!
Dave
LoZioOscuro
Well-Known Member
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Thanks for the detailed and clear explanation (but the reference to baseball, but it's okay as well). Now the picture is complete and clear. Let's hope that in some way the stories will be printed, and if they aren't... never mind, I will put the electrons on my shelves...
All the best.
Thanks for the background, Dave. I'll perhaps shoot a note off to Open Road when I get a moment. Did you ever meet Francis Lyall, by the way, who edited some of the older collections I read last year?
2DaveWixon
Shocked and Appalled!
Yes, Bick, I met Frank on one occasion when he came over to visit Cliff; and I've corresponded with him a bit. I have all of those collections he edited, of course.
It might interest you to learn that not only do Frank and I have the interest in Cliff Simak in common, but we're also both lawyers -- among other things, Frank has become an authority on space law...
He's a good guy.
J Riff
The Ants are my friends..
Hope it clears the bullpen wall and doesn't come down into someone's mitt on the warning track, Dave.*
JRiff, this brings to mind the Monty Python sketch "RAF banter", in which members of different squadrons in WWi didn't understand a word each other said. I feel I ought to counter with cricket banter... But I don't know enough about it! Perhaps a cricket fan could help me out.
2DaveWixon
Shocked and Appalled!
I really do know that feeling...
And I've been trying to figure it out, but cannot, so I'll ask: why the asterisk?
Is that your representation of one of your friends?
2DaveWixon
Shocked and Appalled!
A cricket fan I am not, but I can tell you that you should try to avoid sticky wickets...
(Now, please do not ask me why, as I do not know what might make a wicket sticky).
(Now that I think of it, I must say that as someone who went through much of his life with the nickname "Wickie," I ought to know about wickets, shouldn't I...?)
2DaveWixon
Shocked and Appalled!
Thank you for that review of WAY STATION that you presented some time ago, Bick (I'm planning to go back through past postings in this thread, as I get the occasional morsel of free time, to see what our members have to say; and thus I stumbled on your review...) -- I've read WAY STATION a number of times, and yet I think you've taught me something about it that I had not realized (or perhaps the word is "noticed") before. I have to think about this for a while -- I mean, your idea about Cliff's manipulation of the reading experience by slowing the novel down...
But I'll also note one thing that seems almost contrary to your thoughts, and that I think ought to be considered: In WAY STATION one of the main factors moving the story -- and moving Enoch -- seems to be his sense that nuclear war is nearing for Earth. That fear first seems to threaten the end of mankind, or at least the cutting off of the possibility of future contacts with the galaxy -- and, later, to threaten a perhaps worse outcome for mankind, one imposed by the aliens outside.
It has perhaps become easy, in this age, to overlook the fact that for much of the 1950's and early '60's there was a great fear that the world would fall into a nuclear world war; and a number of Cliff's stories reflect that he himself lived with that fear.
Myself, I can remember that era, although perhaps only foggily...but I was only a child for most of that time, and I suspect that for me the whole idea of that fear seemed unreal.
I'll bet it did not seem so for Cliff. I suspect that, having lived through World War II -- and having, some think, been significantly altered by those events -- it might have been with a certain despair that he found that the planet had passed through the great war -- only to find itself perhaps on the brink of something even worse....
I'll be chewing on some of these ideas for a while, I think.
Dave
But I'll also note one thing that seems almost contrary to your thoughts, and that I think ought to be considered: In WAY STATION one of the main factors moving the story -- and moving Enoch -- seems to be his sense that nuclear war is nearing for Earth. That fear first seems to threaten the end of mankind, or at least the cutting off of the possibility of future contacts with the galaxy -- and, later, to threaten a perhaps worse outcome for mankind, one imposed by the aliens outside.
It has perhaps become easy, in this age, to overlook the fact that for much of the 1950's and early '60's there was a great fear that the world would fall into a nuclear world war; and a number of Cliff's stories reflect that he himself lived with that fear.
Myself, I can remember that era, although perhaps only foggily...but I was only a child for most of that time, and I suspect that for me the whole idea of that fear seemed unreal.
I'll bet it did not seem so for Cliff. I suspect that, having lived through World War II -- and having, some think, been significantly altered by those events -- it might have been with a certain despair that he found that the planet had passed through the great war -- only to find itself perhaps on the brink of something even worse....
I'll be chewing on some of these ideas for a while, I think.
Dave
2DaveWixon
Shocked and Appalled!
I am most pleased (but not yet totally pleased, mind you...) to tell you that I've just been informed that Open Road intends to issue collections 2 and 3 in printed form (although they do not yet have a date on that).
They told me that they made this decision based both on the e-book sales of the collections that have come out thus far, and on the volume of requests for print editions they've received from readers.
So I want to take this opportunity to offer my GRATEFUL THANKS to all of you who have let Open Road know of your desire for the printed books. Keep up the good work, and we'll be pushing to put more of the Simak collection volumes into printed form.
Thank you, thank you all!
Dave
Ralf 58
Simak Bibliograph
That are great news. Thank you Dave, for this information. Let us hope that the other volumes will appear as print editions. I hold the space free in my bookshelf.
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