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).
There's a reason so many dislike EMPIRE -- Cliff hated it, too -- I put the story into my intro to Collection 10; but just to avoid being accused of being a "tease," here's a short version: the story was originally written by John W. Campbell, Jr. when he was a teen.
Eventually, JWC because editor of ASTOUNDING, and Cliff quickly became one of his favorite writers -- and so one day he hauled his old ms. out and asked Cliff to rewrite it -- to make it publishable.
Cliff did not want to do it -- he said the story made him "gag;" but he felt obliged to help JWC.
When he'd worked it over, he said, it was better, but it was still pretty bad.
JWC agreed, refusing to put it into his magazine.
Cliff just set the story aside, rather thankful it would never see the light of day...
But then, one day about ten years later, Horace Gold called Cliff, saying he desperately needed a "novel" (they were shorter in those days) for the next of his series of Galaxy Novels (I'll assume you know what those were....).
Cliff agonized, but finally decided to let Horace see it.
Horace was indeed desperate -- he took it. Cliff offered to have it published under Campbell's name, but the latter refused. So it went out as a Simak novel.
Cliff never read it in the Galaxy Novel format -- nor in any other format. He refused, while he was alive, to authorize any reprints -- he even refused to renew its copyright.
