A Rediscovery of Clifford D. Simak - A Reading Challenge

[LoZioOscuro]

I wonder if it might not be the case that Cliff, as a lifelong professional newspaperman, might have been a little bit averse to showy headlines?
His was an understated writing style all around, and surely that goes for titles, too...

I know for a fact -- he told me -- that he did not put much thought into titles for his stories; and his surviving journals give some support to that: sometimes he mentions working on a story without referencing a title, only giving some sort of descriptor (e.g., the "stamp story," which -- after being called "Spore" for a while, eventually came to be "Leg.Forst.")(Note: that particular title was indeed created by Cliff, as shown by the fact that he explains it in the story.) But even "The Big Front Yard" had three or four "working titles" in his journal before he sent it along to a magazine, and it's not clear that the final title was created by Cliff himself, or by the editor...)
(I tried to show some of the alternate titles in the blurbs I wrote for the stories in the COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF CLIFFORD D. SIMAK -- which see.)(Clever ploy to get you to buy all the books...)
(Further note: "Bathe Your Bearings in Blood," surely the most flashy title of any Simak story, was definitely a label created in the editorial offices of AMAZING, and it is notable that Cliff changed it back (to "Mirage") in later appearances.)(It probably says something about me, however, that I rather liked "Bathe Your Bearings in Blood...")

Having drifted a little from the original plan for this posting, I will add that Cliff's indifference to titles extended even to his novels -- several of his novel publishing contracts were simply for "Novel to be named later.")

Dave, wasn't " Mirage " an alternative title for " Seven Came Back "?
Simak wrote that after a while the characters of his works took the command and acted " of their own "; perhaps it might be applicable to titles as well, i.e. once a story was finished the title came up by itself?
Roberto

 

[2DaveWixon]

Dave, wasn't " Mirage " an alternative title for " Seven Came Back "?
Simak wrote that after a while the characters of his works took the command and acted " of their own "; perhaps it might be applicable to titles as well, i.e. once a story was finished the title came up by itself?
Roberto

Yes, you're correct, Roberto -- you have exposed one of those things I do when my mind is moving faster than my fingers: I intended to say that the "Bathe Your Bearings in Blood" was returned to "Skirmish" when Cliff regained control of it, and that "Seven Came Back" was returned to "Mirage." Alas, I failed to notice that I had left out some of what I intended to say...
Not the first time I've done that kind of thing.

Thanks for noticing it, sir!

And as for your suggestion that a title might have come by itself -- I suspect it did indeed happen that way at times. But those of Cliff's journals that survive don't really make it clear when or if that kind of thing happened.
They do show a large number of cases in which Cliff mentioned stories by one title (and this is particularly true with the Westerns), and specifically mentioned sending them off under that title -- but that title (those titles) cannot be found to have been published...I have, just to give one of nine examples, spent a lot of time trying to calculate which Western, mentioned under one title in a Simak journal, might be which one that ended up being published under a title that never appears in a journal...

It does not help that Cliff was sporadic, at best, in the logs he created in his journals...

 

[Emphyricist]

Clifford Simak is one of my favorite sf writers. It certainly doesn't hurt that he was one of the first writers my father recommended to me (he has almost everything he's written), nor that a lot of his stuff is on Project Gutenberg. Something that I really like about his work is that even when he has a rural setting without electricity, his stories still feel current, though of course his best-known stories take place in the far future. I've read almost everything he's written, and though I've only re-read a few of his stories, it's only been less than a decade since I started reading him.

 

[Extollager]

Welcome to Chrons, Emphyricist! You've read a lot more Simak than I have. What would be a few of the ones you liked best?

 

[Emphyricist]

Waystation has been mentioned already and is probably the best of his novels. (City is also excellent but is really a collection of stories.) I also liked The Cosmic Engineers, Ring Around the Sun, Mastodonia, and Our Children's Children, roughly in that order, though only Waystation comes close to the level of his better short stories. "Huddling Place" and "Desertion" are anthologized a lot for good reason, the latter is probably my favorite Simak story. I also really liked "Hellhounds of the Cosmos" (a really atypical Simak story), "Neighbor," "Hunch," "The Marathon Photograph," "The Money Tree," and several stories which I can't remember the name of but will share if/when I "rediscover" them.

 

[Hugh]

Welcome @Emphyricist!

 

[John Thiel III]

When I started reading Simak, you were, I think, yet to come, and I was but a child glomming some sf books and anthologies. Yet you have probably read more Simak than I have. He wrote very earthly fantasies, but the far-out was present in his works. I think he liked where the science would take him.

 

[BAYLOR]

When I started reading Simak, you were, I think, yet to come, and I was but a child glomming some sf books and anthologies. Yet you have probably read more Simak than I have. He wrote very earthly fantasies, but the far-out was present in his works. I think he liked where the science would take him.

Ive never read anyone else quite like him. He is unique.

 

[Emphyricist]

I think what makes Simak distinctive is that he writes as someone who comes from a small town but has a wider worldview. There's very little SF written in small towns and or rural settings, and most examples I can think of either involve rural settings which are giant estates or small towns which are creepy and conformist. Simak's positive presentation of small-town life and rural idylls is rare and in the same vein, his stories are often focused on little people who neither seek nor achieve greatness. Even when a hero saves the world, it doesn't seem all that important. I can think of a few other authors who've written stories like that (particularly James Schmitz), but they're generally set on other worlds in the future, while Simak's stories are often set in the United States of his own time. That said, I enjoy the Simak stories which don't fit that pattern just as much as I enjoy the ones which adhere to an archetypal Simak pattern.

 

[Tom Hering]

... his stories are often focused on little people who neither seek nor achieve greatness. Even when a hero saves the world, it doesn't seem all that important ...

From Simak's foreword to his 1977 collection, Skirmish, The Great Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak.

"My concern has been with people, showing the impact made upon their lives by extraordinary situations or events. My physically courageous heroes have been few. Courage, if it is there, is more likely to be an intellectual courage. By and large, however, my people are quite ordinary folk, having in their makeups the same weaknesses and strengths as are found in most of us. I remember an editor [Campbell?] who, while he published the story, objected to one of my tales. 'Cliff, the people in that story were losers,' he said. 'I like losers,' I told him - and I do. I like them because they are much more interesting than winners. Like most people, I abhor the man who always wins; he makes the rest of us look so bad."

Simak's foreword to Skirmish is an exceptionally good self-evaluation and summation of his work, written late in his career.

 

[Ralf 58]

I just wanted to remind you that today, April 25, is the 29th anniversary of Clifford Simak's death.

The image shows the tomb of Cliff at the Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis.

This day is every year for me the occasion to remind me how many wonderful novels and stories Cliff left us.
And, of course, I also think that I put my bibliography on the web 4 years ago.

 

[Ralf 58]

You may be pleased to hear that at Open Road Media three other print releases have been announced. On July 4th 2017 will appear:

The Goblin Reservation
Time Is the Simplest Thing
A Heritage of Stars

Dave had reported some time ago that the publisher intended to print more books and that they had asked him what novels he would recommend. Then we discussed about this in the forum, see:
A Rediscovery of Clifford D. Simak - A Reading Challenge

Already two months ago, Dave had told him what novels would be, see:
A Rediscovery of Clifford D. Simak - A Reading Challenge

Now the books are officially announced at Amazon and other shops.

 

[Ralf 58]

And finally, the next three volumes of the series "The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak" are also announced on July 4th, 2017, but only as E-Books:

Vol. 10 - The Shipshape Miracle and Other Stories
Vol. 11 - Dusty Zebra and Other Stories
Vol. 12 - The Thing in the Stone and Other Stories

You can also find the books on Google Books:

Vol. 10 - The Shipshape Miracle and Other Stories
Vol. 11 - Dusty Zebra and Other Stories
Vol. 12 - The Thing in the Stone and Other Stories

There you can also see the table of contents. Here is the complete list:

Vol. 10 - The Shipshape Miracle and Other Stories
The Money Tree (1958)
Shotgun Cure (1961)
Paradise (1946)
The Gravestone Rebels Ride by Night (1944 [no SF])
How-2 (1954)
The Shipshape Miracle (1963)
Rim of the Deep (1940)
Eternity Lost (1949)
Immigrant (1954)

Vol. 11 - Dusty Zebra and Other Stories
Dusty Zebra (1954)
Hobbies (1946)
Guns on Guadalcanal (1943 [no SF])
Courtesy (1951)
The Voice in the Void (1932)
Retrograde Evolution (1953)
Way for the Hangtown Rebel! (1945 [no SF])
Final Gentleman (1960)
Project Mastodon (1955)

Vol. 12 - The Thing in the Stone and Other Stories
The Thing in the Stone (1970)
The World of The Red Sun (1931)
Skirmish (1950)
Aesop (1947)
The Hangnoose Army Rides to Town! (1945 [no SF])
Univac: 2200 (1973)
The Creator (1935)
The Spaceman's Van Gogh (1956)
Hunch (1943)
Construction Shack (1973)

On Google Books you will also get some reading samples, including the complete prefaces of Dave.
In the notes to the preface of Volume 11, he also tells us what the last two volumes are called:

Vol. 13 - Buckets of Diamonds and Other Stories
Vol. 14 - Smoke Killer and Other Stories

I am already looking forward to completing the series and I hope, of course, that all 14 volumes will also be printed (so far, there are only the first three volumes as printed editions).

 

[Matteo]

Over in this corner, one more hoping more of these collections see life in print.

What about it Dave; any news you can give us?

 

[2DaveWixon]

Hello, Matteo -- good to see you back in the thread!
No good news to report, I'm afraid: Open Road recently agreed to put three more of the novels in print, but no movement on the collections (you do know that they put #2 and #3 in paper a while back, don't you?).
In a way, I think of it as a sort of catch-22: they will be more receptive to putting more into paper if sales seem to justify it...but sales don't seem to be strong enough to justify it because they neglect the people who will only buy if the books are in paper...
Frustrating!
Overall, their Simak program is doing well, but the good level of sales is spread across 30 titles, so few of the individual titles have sales that can be described as very good...

I'm finishing up collections 13 and 14. I guess that's good news, and it will mean that all of Cliff's short fiction will have been made once more available. Even if Open Road does not put any more into paper, I have to remain grateful to them for what they've done.

But once I'm done with the collections, what will I do with my life?
I may have to get back to work on my novel...

 

[Hugh]

Hello, Matteo -- good to see you back in the thread!
No good news to report, I'm afraid: Open Road recently agreed to put three more of the novels in print, but no movement on the collections (you do know that they put #2 and #3 in paper a while back, don't you?).
In a way, I think of it as a sort of catch-22: they will be more receptive to putting more into paper if sales seem to justify it...but sales don't seem to be strong enough to justify it because they neglect the people who will only buy if the books are in paper...
Frustrating!
Overall, their Simak program is doing well, but the good level of sales is spread across 30 titles, so few of the individual titles have sales that can be described as very good...

I'm finishing up collections 13 and 14. I guess that's good news, and it will mean that all of Cliff's short fiction will have been made once more available. Even if Open Road does not put any more into paper, I have to remain grateful to them for what they've done.

But once I'm done with the collections, what will I do with my life?
I may have to get back to work on my novel...

When I think of the time and years it took me to track the short stories down (the sf ones that is), it's truly great to have them so readily available for all. Many many thanks to Open Road and to you, literary executor extraordinary.

Of course there's still one I haven't read yet ("Nine Lives"), but all in good time. As I've said before, I rather like having one still to read.

I find it surprising that the novels are being put out in printed form, when so many used copies must still be available very cheaply, whereas there are a number of the short stories that are difficult (and pricey) to track down. Still, Open Road must know what they're up to, and it's just great they're doing so much.

I'm sure you could start a thread for suggestions as to what to do with the rest of your life. Others such as myself could probably benefit from any ideas posted.

 

[Bick]

In a way, I think of it as a sort of catch-22: they will be more receptive to putting more into paper if sales seem to justify it...but sales don't seem to be strong enough to justify it because they neglect the people who will only buy if the books are in paper...

Yes, I'm afraid I'm one of those. I only buy proper books, so I can see the catch-22 and I do sympathise.

 

[2DaveWixon]

Yes, I'm afraid I'm one of those. I only buy proper books, so I can see the catch-22 and I do sympathise.

You're a hard sell, my friend!

 

[Matteo]

Thanks Dave. Yes, away from the thread a while (currently getting through a pile of Van Vogt's) but still around the Forums.

You're certainly to be commended for this incredible exercise, and the fact that all of Simak's shorts are now/soon to be available in a "collected" format is great. But, sadly, I'm in the same boat as Bick and therefore another hard sell; I don't like e-books. I have tried (after a very enthusiastic colleague persuaded me) but for me paper is still king.

 

[KC York]

Like many 'classic' authors of his era, I found that his work did nothing for me.

With one colossal exception:

City

It is, for me, one of the finest books I have ever read. It takes a lot to make a short story stick in my head for three decades, to the point that I had forgotten it's title and where it came from; until a wandering curiosity made me acquire a copy of City once again, and - to my delight - in addition to the broad tale I remembered, my 'haunting tale' was also in here, fitted perfectly in the obverse side of the broad tale that had entirely slipped my mind.

Okay I know this is from a few years ago but I was reading through this thread and this post hit me hard. Simak is someone I admire and have enjoyed but not had any fondness for particularly, but THIS is my experience, 100%. I read City as a teenager in the early 1980s -- the book got lost (probably given away) in one of my parents' moves and for years I was haunted by the "story about the dogs." It stuck in my head even when I did not remember the title or author. I even remember doing some fruitless searches for it in the early internet era until one day I stumbled over the book in a used bookstore.

I should go re-read it. Still with me all these years later...