A Rediscovery of Clifford D. Simak - A Reading Challenge

[Extollager]

To those deeply read in Simak -- what are the novels that (I won't say may be skipped, but that) may be deferred till later, in favor of other Simak books?

Thanks.

 

[Hugh]

To those deeply read in Simak -- what are the novels that (I won't say may be skipped, but that) may be deferred till later, in favor of other Simak books?

Thanks.

I hesitate at the term "deeply read" as that may imply a depth of understanding that I have yet to access, but I have read his novels and short stories (well almost all the short stories) at least twice, so here is my nerd view:
Empire
They Walked Like Men
Why Call Them Back From Heaven
Our Children's Children
The Visitors
Where the Evil Dwells
are not quite as top notch as the others.

But reflecting on this, I have enjoyed them all really. As Dave says, one always notices more in re-reading, and I always find unique Simak quirks and links to his other writing, and just savour the characters and the way he tells a story.

For instance a few posts ago Tom Hering really liked "Our Children's Children", and I think there has been some talk that the recent film "Arrival" (I haven't seen it) is reminiscent of "The Visitors".

The only one that can really be relegated to the bottom of the pile is "Empire" which is a bit of an anomaly anyway.

 

[Extollager]

Thanks, Hugh.

I had the impression that The Fellowship of the Talisman wasn't successful -- an attempt at fantasy that just wasn't Simak's forte.

 

[Hugh]

Thanks, Hugh.

I had the impression that The Fellowship of the Talisman wasn't successful -- an attempt at fantasy that just wasn't Simak's forte.

I rather like it, and I have a soft spot for the characters in it. I always enjoy Simak's witches for instance. I'm also curious about the strong religious thread in it and where that comes from in Simak.

Even "Where the Evil Dwells" which I put on my "not so great" list has some good characters in it, it just seems a bit parallel to Talisman.

 

[Extollager]

Thanks, Hugh. With my sudden acquisition, thanks to a friend, of a sizeable Simak library, I'm happy to see that what I have is weakest on the weaker books; and that, conversely, I seem to have nearly all of the ones regarded as his better books. (I don't have a copy of The Werewolf Principle, but I also don't have the sense that that's regarded as one of his best.) Probably I've missed some good short stories, but I do have six collections thereof! Assuming sufficient longevity to read all of these, though, by the time I finish them, there should still be more around for a first reading if I desire it.

 

[Hugh]

Thanks, Hugh. With my sudden acquisition, thanks to a friend, of a sizeable Simak library, I'm happy to see that what I have is weakest on the weaker books; and that, conversely, I seem to have nearly all of the ones regarded as his better books. (I don't have a copy of The Werewolf Principle, but I also don't have the sense that that's regarded as one of his best.) Probably I've missed some good short stories, but I do have six collections thereof! Assuming sufficient longevity to read all of these, though, by the time I finish them, there should still be more around for a first reading if I desire it.

Sounds good. My own experience is the more Simak I read, the more I felt the need to search out more Simak to read.

 

[Bick]

I have to chip in here for Extollager's benefit to bring some balance to the force, as I fervently disagree with two books mentioned above:
I think The Werewolf Principle is certainly a weaker novel, while Why Call Them Back from Heaven?, is one of his best. I also rather liked They Walked Like Men. My opinion is only that, but be aware there are divergent views on those books Extol!

 

[Extollager]

Bick, I just read They Walked Like Men and liked it. One of the Simaks I had even before my buddy shipped that set to me was Why Call Them Back, something I'd bought possibly because of something you said a while back -- someone here at Chrons, anyway -- though I haven't read it yet.

 

[Extollager]

We've been discussing what might be the Simak novels the reading of which may be postponed in favor of others. Now, as to his best --

A Rediscovery of Clifford D. Simak - A Reading Challenge

That was posted a while ago. Anyone who's read a bunch want to revisit the topic of best and/or personal favorites?

 

[Ralf 58]

I also thought about which books of Simak I did not like so much. I initially thought that the choice would be difficult for me, but actually it was quite simple.
On the one hand it is for me the very early novels "Cosmic Engineers" and "Empire". These novels still lacks everything I value at the later Simak: the pastoral narrative, the humanity and the fine humor.
On the other hand, I do not like most fantasy novels so much. They are often very long-winded, the passages of action are interchangeable and the persons develop almost not at all.

My list of the 5 "worst" Simak books:

Enchanted Pilgrimage (1975)
Cosmic Engineers (1939)
The Fellowship of the Talisman (1978)
Where the Evil Dwells (1982)
Empire (published in 1951, but probably written around 1940 [see my post to the history of this novel])

Otherwise I feel like Bick: "They Walked Like Man" and "Why Call Them Back from Heaven" are for me better books. In my personal ranking they occupy positions 4 and 6.

 

[J-Sun]

We've been discussing what might be the Simak novels the reading of which may be postponed in favor of others. Now, as to his best --

To give my answers to both questions, I'll recap my (fairly minimal) readings:

Novels

• Cosmic Engineers (1939;1950) - this is an outlier among Simak's works and I don't doubt I'm weird but I loved it
• The Trouble with Tycho (1960;1976) - read this during this thread but forgot to post about it; it's not essential but it's pretty neat (also very short; possibly just a long novella)
  
• Way Station (1963) - this is great; still my favorite
• The Goblin Reservation (1968) - didn't care for this
• A Choice of Gods (1972) - didn't care for this
• Project Pope (1981) - read this years ago and it always stuck in my head but I didn't especially like it; got it again during this thread and re-read it and it's still striking but not quite satisfying
• Highway of Eternity (1986) - didn't care for this, as best I can remember

Collections

• City (1952) - this is a story series/connected collection/fixup mostly from the 40s and is almost universally well-regarded but I'm also not alone in being underwhelmed - I wouldn't say it was bad; it just doesn't quite resonate with me
  
• Strangers in the Universe (1956) - acquired and read during this thread; very good
• The Worlds of Clifford Simak (1960) - ditto
• All the Traps of Earth (1962) - previously had and read; also very good

So there seems to be at least a potential pattern. I like his collections so much that I even got:

• Worlds Without End (1964)
• So Bright the Vision (1968)

As all those collections contain material almost entirely from the 50s and I don't seem to care for novels after the mid-60s and do like the novels before then, I've also picked up:

• Empire (1951)
• Time and Again (1951)
• Ring Around the Sun (1953)

I know Empire is an outlier and won't hold it against him if it tanks but I have high hopes for the other two. I'd actually gotten Time and Again before this thread but still haven't read it.

In sum, I'd generally recommend Way Station and, if you like short fiction, then Strangers/Worlds/Traps. I'd avoid the later novels (late 60s and on) though I'm sure that's unfair and there must be a gem or two in there. (I know many of his post-60s stories are superb, so there's no reason why he might not have turned out a great novel in the same period.) But that's all just me. Everybody on this thread knows far more (often staggeringly more) about Simak than me so listening to them would probably be the wiser course of action.

 

[J-Sun]

My list of the 5 "worst" Simak books:

Cosmic Engineers (1939)

That's funny. (Now I'm kind of excited about Empire though that's much weirder than Cosmic Engineers (and probably is genuinely bad).) Would you say it's one of the worst books in general or are you evaluating it solely in terms of "a Simak book"?

I'd actually pigeon-holed Simak as an "I have a handful of his books and he can be great but I'm content" guy until this thread caused me to revisit him. It's definitely resulted in a higher impression of him but I'm still an Asimov/Heinlein guy and I still prefer folks like van Vogt, Kuttner/Moore, Leiber, Sturgeon, Hamilton/Brackett, etc. So CE just shows to me he could have hung with van Vogt and Hamilton in his own somewhat weird way and I love it. But, indeed, it's not like the rest of Simak.

 

[Extollager]

Thanks to my generous buddy (mostly), here are my Simak holdings, all of them mass market paperbacks:

Novels.

City
Way Station
Time Is the Simplest Thing
Time and Again
Ring Around the Sun
All Flesh Is Grass
They Walked Like Men

[Those are the seven I've read.]

The Goblin Reservation
Cemetery World
Mastodonia
Cosmic Engineers
A Choice of Gods
A Heritage of Stars
The Trouble with Tycho
Destiny Doll
Cemetery World
Highway of Eternity
Out of Their Minds

[Out of Their Minds, which I gather no one is nuts about, is one I'm prejudiced against, for one thing, because it seems to be the whimsical kind of thing that Unknown used to do and that doesn't appeal to me, and that, I gather, Pratchett used to do, ditto.]

Collections.

All the Traps of Earth (6 stories)
Strangers in the Universe (7 stories, selected from an 11-story collection0
Worlds without End (3 stories)
Other Worlds of Clifford Simak (6 stories from a larger collection)
The Marathon Photograph (with "The Birch Clump Cylinder," "The Whistling Well," and "The Grotto of the Dancing Deer")
Best Science Fiction Stories of Clifford D. Simak (7 stories)

I'm figuring that should take care of me for a good while!

 

[Tom Hering]

... there has been some talk that the recent film "Arrival" (I haven't seen it) is reminiscent of "The Visitors".

No. Not. Never. Arrival is just another "aliens arrive in giant ships that hover above us" movie. Even Amy Adams' exceptional performance doesn't save it from the "one cliché after another" category. The Visitors is far more original in concept.

 

[J-Sun]

All the Traps of Earth (6 stories)

That one's also cut. The three main collections are often cut but the complete ones (which I have) are 11, 12, and 9 stories.

 

[J-Sun]

No. Not. Never. Arrival is just another "aliens arrive in giant ships that hover above us" movie. Even Amy Adams' exceptional performance doesn't save it from the "one cliché after another" category. The Visitors is far more original in concept.

This is going off topic but I don't agree with that. It's based on Ted Chiang's story which is hardly one cliche after another and, while modifying some key elements (and adding a bunch of Hollywood, too) the linguistic, temporal, and philosophical (determinism, free will) elements (including the way they're handled) are not cliche. While Sapir-Whorf and the other theories and ideas are not new, so it's hard to call it "original" in a general sense, it's certainly unusual stuff for an SF film (and not particularly common for SF stories).

All that said, I still didn't entirely love the movie and haven't read The Visitors for comparison.

 

[clovis-man]

This is going off topic but I don't agree with that. It's based on Ted Chiang's story which is hardly one cliche after another and, while modifying some key elements (and adding a bunch of Hollywood, too) the linguistic, temporal, and philosophical (determinism, free will) elements (including the way they're handled) are not cliche. While Sapir-Whorf and the other theories and ideas are not new, so it's hard to call it "original" in a general sense, it's certainly unusual stuff for an SF film (and not particularly common for SF stories).

All that said, I still didn't entirely love the movie and haven't read The Visitors for comparison.

I thought The Visitors was one of Simak's weakest novels. Didn't really go anywhere. And I'm a big fan of his work. By comparison, Arrival had a definite point of view and was well told once you got used to the flashbacks and flashforwards.

 

[Hugh]

No. Not. Never. Arrival is just another "aliens arrive in giant ships that hover above us" movie. Even Amy Adams' exceptional performance doesn't save it from the "one cliché after another" category. The Visitors is far more original in concept.

Many thanks for correcting me.

 

[Ralf 58]

That's funny. (Now I'm kind of excited about Empire though that's much weirder than Cosmic Engineers (and probably is genuinely bad).) Would you say it's one of the worst books in general or are you evaluating it solely in terms of "a Simak book"?

Hello J-Sun,
my list was meant to mean that the book below is the worst, that is, "Empire".
Of the 27 novels I read 26 ("The Trouble with Tycho" I don't count as novel and "Highway of Eternity" I did not read because it was not published in German).

My complete list looks like this:

01. Way Station (1963)
02. All Flesh is Grass (1965)
03. City (1952)
04. They Walked Like Men (1962)
05. Ring Around the Sun (1952)
06. Why Call Them Back From Heaven? (1967)
07. Time is the Simplest Thing (1961)
08. The Werewolf Principle (1967)
09. The Visitors (1979)
10. Mastodonia (1978)
11. Time and Again (1950)
12. Cemetery World (1973)
13. The Goblin Reservation (1968)
14. Our Children's Children (1973)
15. Project Pope (1981)
16. Special Deliverance (1982)
17. Out of Their Minds (1970)
18. Shakespeare's Planet (1976)
19. Destiny Doll (1971)
20. A Choice of Gods (1971)
21. A Heritage of Stars (1977)
22. Enchanted Pilgrimage (1975)
23. Cosmic Engineers (1939)
24. The Fellowship of the Talisman (1978)
25. Where the Evil Dwells (1982)
26. Empire (1951)

I guess I've read about 800 SF books in my life. "Cosmic Engineers" is located in the rear half, between 600 and 700 . The absolutely worst book it isn't.

Other authors I estimate are among others Robert Sheckley and Cordwainer Smith. Of those I have read almost everything. In addition, I like Ray Bradbury, John Wyndham, Issac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, Lloyd Biggle Jr., Murray Leinster, J.T. McIntosh, Robert Silverberg and many East German, Russian and Polish authors. (See also my contribution of 23 September 2014).
The authors you named (Heinlein, Leiber, van Vogt, etc.), I know, but I have not read so much about them so far.

 

[Hugh]

Hello J-Sun,
my list was meant to mean that the book below is the worst, that is, "Empire".
Of the 27 novels I read 26 ("The Trouble with Tycho" I don't count as novel and "Highway of Eternity" I did not read because it was not published in German).

My complete list looks like this:

01. Way Station (1963)
02. All Flesh is Grass (1965)
03. City (1952)
04. They Walked Like Men (1962)
05. Ring Around the Sun (1952)
06. Why Call Them Back From Heaven? (1967)
07. Time is the Simplest Thing (1961)
08. The Werewolf Principle (1967)
09. The Visitors (1979)
10. Mastodonia (1978)
11. Time and Again (1950)
12. Cemetery World (1973)
13. The Goblin Reservation (1968)
14. Our Children's Children (1973)
15. Project Pope (1981)
16. Special Deliverance (1982)
17. Out of Their Minds (1970)
18. Shakespeare's Planet (1976)
19. Destiny Doll (1971)
20. A Choice of Gods (1971)
21. A Heritage of Stars (1977)
22. Enchanted Pilgrimage (1975)
23. Cosmic Engineers (1939)
24. The Fellowship of the Talisman (1978)
25. Where the Evil Dwells (1982)
26. Empire (1951)

I guess I've read about 800 SF books in my life. "Cosmic Engineers" is located in the rear half, between 600 and 700 . The absolutely worst book it isn't.

Other authors I estimate are among others Robert Sheckley and Cordwainer Smith. Of those I have read almost everything. In addition, I like Ray Bradbury, John Wyndham, Issac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, Lloyd Biggle Jr., Murray Leinster, J.T. McIntosh, Robert Silverberg and many East German, Russian and Polish authors. (See also my contribution of 23 September 2014).
The authors you named (Heinlein, Leiber, van Vogt, etc.), I know, but I have not read so much about them so far.

Impressive listing Ralf!

This really goes to show how each of us experiences the books differently, with of course a fairly general agreement re Empire (I wonder if this will prompt a posting from someone saying how much they like Empire: I hope so).

I know I'd find it difficult to make a list.

I rate "A Choice of Gods" highly.

I also enjoy very much the later works that edge into fantasy, whereas usually I struggle with fantasy.

While some have always rated Simak highly, I only appreciated him once I reached my fifties. I'm sure that this was part of my own ageing process. I note that most of his books were written once he was over fifty, and suspect that there may be an over-fifties pace to his writing that appeals to me.