A Rediscovery of Clifford D. Simak - A Reading Challenge

[2DaveWixon]

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...

Currently available in both paper and e-book form, from Open Road Media.
(And now and then Open Road collaborates with various organizations that give a big discount on it -- check Open Road website to see if there are any such coming up -- often they're only announced a day or two in advance, so keep an eye peeled...)

 

[Hugh]

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...

I had something similar. When I was about fourteen I read a science fiction book which featured a mutant who put a pane of glass over an ants nest, and left doorways into other worlds. For years I wondered what that book was. Over forty years later I read City.

 

[Ralf 58]

For your information:

A few days ago I finally updated my Simak bibliography. More than 40 new entries have been added. I would like to draw your attention to some highlights. (Click on the pictures for more details).


Most important to mention are the volumes 10, 11 and 12 of the series "The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak", which, however, exist only as e-books.




In Russia some very nice new editions have appeared again.




In Bulgaria "The Goblin Reservation" was reissued. It is already the fourth edition of this book in Bulgarian.




In Italy a new collection appeared as a print edition and as an e-book: "The Trouble with Tycho"




A further collection appeared in April from a Norwegian publisher in English: "Madness From Mars and Other Short Stories". The e-book (with the same content) is called "A Collection of Short Stories". Both issues are now - for whatever reason - already not available anymore.




I have also found some Persian translations of Simak-Stories. Here is the cover of an online magazine of 2010, which contains the story "Madness from Mars".



Persian is, by the way, the 35th language into which the works of Simak were translated!


In addition, I have found some pictures of editions, which have been included in the bibliography for a long time - but so far without picture.

We owe it to Scott Henderson that we now know the title of the British edition of "Short Stories - A Man's Magazine" from August 1958. The story "Nine Lives" is included.




And finally, I managed to find the title of the British edition of "Time and Again" from 1956. Has anyone of you seen this title before? Not me.



All new entries and the changes are listed here:
Clifford D. Simak - The International Bibliography - History

Best regards
Ralf

 

[Hugh]

Ralf, your attention to detail is truly remarkable!

It's great to see this variety of titles in these different languages, even Farsi.

 

[2DaveWixon]

For your information:

A few days ago I finally updated my Simak bibliography. More than 40 new entries have been added. I would like to draw your attention to some highlights. (Click on the pictures for more details).


Most important to mention are the volumes 10, 11 and 12 of the series "The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak", which, however, exist only as e-books.




In Russia some very nice new editions have appeared again.




In Bulgaria "The Goblin Reservation" was reissued. It is already the fourth edition of this book in Bulgarian.




In Italy a new collection appeared as a print edition and as an e-book: "The Trouble with Tycho"




A further collection appeared in April from a Norwegian publisher in English: "Madness From Mars and Other Short Stories". The e-book (with the same content) is called "A Collection of Short Stories". Both issues are now - for whatever reason - already not available anymore.




I have also found some Persian translations of Simak-Stories. Here is the cover of an online magazine of 2010, which contains the story "Madness from Mars".



Persian is, by the way, the 35th language into which the works of Simak were translated!


In addition, I have found some pictures of editions, which have been included in the bibliography for a long time - but so far without picture.

We owe it to Scott Henderson that we now know the title of the British edition of "Short Stories - A Man's Magazine" from August 1958. The story "Nine Lives" is included.




And finally, I managed to find the title of the British edition of "Time and Again" from 1956. Has anyone of you seen this title before? Not me.



All new entries and the changes are listed here:
Clifford D. Simak - The International Bibliography - History

Best regards
Ralf

Interresting, Ralf! Thank you for showing us! But I have to say that I have not seen most of those covers (other than the Open Road covers, which they gave me some input on, I've only seen that Urania cover): publishers are generally supposed to send author copies, but I suspect they do so through the agents, and somehow the copies seldom make it to me...
Oh, and as for the Farsi reprint? I don't recall that they ever asked permission... I'll have to check. (Of course, that would have been almost ten years ago...and my files are so messy!)

 

[Ralf 58]

Interresting, Ralf! Thank you for showing us! But I have to say that I have not seen most of those covers (other than the Open Road covers, which they gave me some input on, I've only seen that Urania cover): publishers are generally supposed to send author copies, but I suspect they do so through the agents, and somehow the copies seldom make it to me...
Oh, and as for the Farsi reprint? I don't recall that they ever asked permission... I'll have to check. (Of course, that would have been almost ten years ago...and my files are so messy!)

Hi Dave,
If you searched my bibliography thoroughly, you will probably still find a lot of issues, of which you have no copy copy. For some issues, it will be that it has been forgotten, in others, that the copies are lost somewhere along the long road. And again, others have never been sent because they are illegal.
My concern is to record as many issues as possible, regardless of whether the license fees have been paid. Everything which has appeared has existed and must, as far as I know about it, be recorded. This can also be useful for you to find out what all this has appeared and to have a source if you want to take action against piracy.

The Farsi translations have not been printed - they have only published on an online platform:
Grotto of the Dancing Deer
Good Night, Mr. James
Madness from Mars - also included in an online magazine as PDF.
Condition of Employment
If the owners of the site had no permission to publish, this is of course not correct. On the other hand, I find it also good that even in Iran there are people who love and spread American science fiction. Having such a hobby is not easy under the political conditions in this country. I can imagine that the creators of fantasy.ir have only limited or no financial resources. One should therefore be lenient with them. If they had not published it, nobody would have done it. And in Iran, fewer people would know our favorite author.

This is my view as a fan. It is clear to me that as the administrator of the Simak legacy, you have a different view.

 

[Tom Hering]

Has anyone else been watching The Refugees, a BBC-Spanish co-production (2015) currently being shown on public television stations in the U.S.? The SF premise of the show is the same as Simak's Our Children's Children (1974). Billions of people from the future flee to our time to escape a future disaster. The plot of The Terminator is also thrown in. One man is sent back to our time to stop killers from the future from murdering a child who will grow up to be someone important, presumably in some future resistance movement. After watching the first two episodes, I feel the show is mediocre at best. None of the characters are appealing or interesting. I'm surprised that the ABC network (U.S.) will soon be premiering its own version of The Refugees, called The Crossing. Maybe it will be a better show. And maybe Simak will be given a spot in the credits.

 

[2DaveWixon]

.... And maybe Simak will be given a spot in the credits.

Would you like to take a little wager on that?

 

[2DaveWixon]

....

The Farsi translations have not been printed - they have only published on an online platform:
Grotto of the Dancing Deer
Good Night, Mr. James
Madness from Mars - also included in an online magazine as PDF.
Condition of Employment
If the owners of the site had no permission to publish, this is of course not correct. On the other hand, I find it also good that even in Iran there are people who love and spread American science fiction. Having such a hobby is not easy under the political conditions in this country. I can imagine that the creators of fantasy.ir have only limited or no financial resources. One should therefore be lenient with them. If they had not published it, nobody would have done it. And in Iran, fewer people would know our favorite author.

This is my view as a fan. It is clear to me that as the administrator of the Simak legacy, you have a different view.

Oh, I'm very much of the same opinion: As is Cliff's daughter, I might add: she told me that it was more important to get her father's work back into availability (I almost said "print"...).
I will, as a professional, object when someone abuses the Simak copyrights. But I lose no sleep if something slips by me...

 

[2DaveWixon]

OK, time for some news...or a commercial, at least.
Open Road (the publishers of the new editions of the Simak books, including the collections I've been editing) is now taking orders for the three Simak titles that are now appearing in print versions: A HERITAGE OF STARS, TIME IS THE SIMPLEST THING and GOBLIN RESERVATION.

Open Road, however, not only sells their editions directly, and through such vendors as Amazon -- but they also sell through several online services that publish newsletters and give special deals on book they're advertising on particular days.

Lots of Open Road's Simak titles are sold through such services -- Book Bub is one, Early Bird Books another (see below for links). But often there seem to be restrictions -- not on you buying the books, but on me telling people about them ahead of the day of the sale.
But tomorrow -- 6/30 -- there seems to be some sort of Cosmic Convergence going on. Here's what Open Road sent me, to pass along to Simak fans:

CITY will be featured in BookBub, which reaches millions of subscribers every day... subscribe
here <https://www.bookbub.com/ebook-deals/recommended> so that you’ll get the direct link to the deal on the day that it appears in the newsletter.

SPECIAL DELIVERANCE will appear in the BookBub International newsletter that goes to readers in Canada. It will be priced at $1.99 in both of the BookBub newsletters.

And finally, THE GHOST OF A MODEL T will be featured in Early Bird Books, which has more than half a million subscribers. On the day of the promotion you can direct readers to our catalog page: https://openroadmedia.com/ebook/the-ghost-of-a-model-t/9781504012843

You can subscribe here <http://www.earlybirdbooks.com/> so that you’ll get the direct link to the deal on the day that it appears in the newsletter.


Thanks for your interest, my friends!

 

[Ralf 58]

OK, time for some news...or a commercial, at least.
Open Road (the publishers of the new editions of the Simak books, including the collections I've been editing) is now taking orders for the three Simak titles that are now appearing in print versions: A HERITAGE OF STARS, TIME IS THE SIMPLEST THING and GOBLIN RESERVATION.

Open Road, however, not only sells their editions directly, and through such vendors as Amazon -- but they also sell through several online services that publish newsletters and give special deals on book they're advertising on particular days.

Lots of Open Road's Simak titles are sold through such services -- Book Bub is one, Early Bird Books another (see below for links). But often there seem to be restrictions -- not on you buying the books, but on me telling people about them ahead of the day of the sale.
But tomorrow -- 6/30 -- there seems to be some sort of Cosmic Convergence going on. Here's what Open Road sent me, to pass along to Simak fans:

CITY will be featured in BookBub, which reaches millions of subscribers every day... subscribe
here <https://www.bookbub.com/ebook-deals/recommended> so that you’ll get the direct link to the deal on the day that it appears in the newsletter.

SPECIAL DELIVERANCE will appear in the BookBub International newsletter that goes to readers in Canada. It will be priced at $1.99 in both of the BookBub newsletters.

And finally, THE GHOST OF A MODEL T will be featured in Early Bird Books, which has more than half a million subscribers. On the day of the promotion you can direct readers to our catalog page: https://openroadmedia.com/ebook/the-ghost-of-a-model-t/9781504012843

You can subscribe here <http://www.earlybirdbooks.com/> so that you’ll get the direct link to the deal on the day that it appears in the newsletter.


Thanks for your interest, my friends!

Hi Dave,
Thank you for this information. On the title page of Early Bird Books you can see at the time the cover of Way Station.

Early Bird Books – eBook Deals Newsletter for Kindle or Other eReaders

 

[Galactic Journey]

Little of Simak’s output is still available in print form (which I much prefer over e-books), so I have been acquiring some old Simak books from used book stores to read. I’ve come up with a list of books, some of which that I intend to read. Extollager, J-Sun and hitmouse have already made suggestions in the Sept 2014 ‘what are you reading thread’ and these have been very helpful in determining what the best books might be to try. The following list is quite lengthy now, but it includes those books I already own, that I’ve ordered or that come recommended, so I will be seeking them out over time.

Cosmic Engineers [1950 novel; 1939 serial]
City [1952] (got it, needs a re-read)
Ring Around the Sun [1953] (need to source this, lost my copy 30 years ago)
Time is the Simplest Thing [1961]
All the Traps of Earth [1962 Coll.]
Way Station [1963] (ordered it)
All Flesh is Grass [1965] (ordered it)
The Werewolf Principle [1967]
Goblin Reservation [1968]
Destiny Doll [1971] (own it, not yet read)
Cemetery World [1973] (currently reading)
Shakespeare’s Planet [1976]
Catface [1978]
Special Deliverance [1982]

Late to the party -- I've read all of most of Simak up to 1958, and all of him from 59-62. The book I've read most recently is Time is the Simplest Thing, which I thought was good and unique, though a bit detached and occasionally slow-paced. Simak does pastoral extremely well. He's written some of the more sensitive fiction I've read at a time when much of the stuff being published was pulpy or nuts and boltsy.

It appears that he has not published anything (from my perspective -- I time shift 55 years) in the last year. I hope he comes back. I always look forward to his works.

 

[hitmouse]

Late to the party -- I've read all of most of Simak up to 1958, and all of him from 59-62. The book I've read most recently is Time is the Simplest Thing, which I thought was good and unique, though a bit detached and occasionally slow-paced. Simak does pastoral extremely well. He's written some of the more sensitive fiction I've read at a time when much of the stuff being published was pulpy or nuts and boltsy.

It appears that he has not published anything (from my perspective -- I time shift 55 years) in the last year. I hope he comes back. I always look forward to his works.

Mate, sorry to disappoint you, but Cliff racked his cue a few years ago.

 

[Galactic Journey]

Mate, sorry to disappoint you, but Cliff racked his cue a few years ago.

I live in 1962. If you search my name on the OMNIVAC you folks in the future use, you'll understand!

 

[Ralf 58]

There was nothing going on in this thread for a long time.

I would therefore like to remind you that today (April 25, 2018) is the 30th anniversary of the death of Clifford Simak. It is also the 5th anniversary of my website Clifford D. Simak - The International Bibliography - Home

I only started in 2013 with printed editions of his novels and stories. Even at the beginning, 5,500 publications of Clifford Simak's works in more than 2,700 editions in 31 languages were included.
In the meantime, comics, e-books, audio books, radio programmes, films, TV series and even plays have been added. The bibliography now comprises almost 7,000 publications in 3,500 editions and 35 languages.

On the occasion of today's anniversary there is again a major update with over 40 new entries, see: Clifford D. Simak - The International Bibliography - History

As a special feature of the anniversary I have included a poem by Clifford Simak in the bibliography. Some of you may not even know it: long before Clifford Simak was able to sell his first SF story in 1931, he already published something. In December 1922 (!) appeared in the magazine Fig-leaf from him the poem "Jazz". This is the earliest trace of his literary activity; at that time he was only 18 years old!

This poem here in full length:

Jazz

Dancing madly,
Whirling gladly,
‘Neath electric arks,
Stepping, stopping,
Prancing, hopping,
As the sax’phone barks,
Skipping, slipping,
Toeing, tripping,
Thru the rushing throng,
Dancing, sliding,
Smoothly gliding,
To the beat of bell and gong.
Jungle madness,
Orient sadness,
Hearts that wildly beat,
Shoulders flashing,
Passions clashing,
Whispers, indiscrete,
Pulses pounding,
Sane tho’ts drowning
As trombones loudly bla-a-s
Hot lips a quiver,
Reason a flivver,
In the land of jazz.

Clifford Simak (1922)

---

I thank all who have supported me and I hope that the bibliography will continue to exist for many years to come and that many interesting editions from all over the world will be added.

Ralf

 

[Hugh]

Ralf, your website is fantastic.

As ever, many thanks for all your hard work.

 

[2DaveWixon]

No one does it better than Ralf!

 

[dask]

As a special feature of the anniversary I have included a poem by Clifford Simak in the bibliography. Some of you may not even know it: long before Clifford Simak was able to sell his first SF story in 1931, he already published something. In December 1922 (!) appeared in the magazine Fig-leaf from him the poem "Jazz". This is the earliest trace of his literary activity; at that time he was only 18 years old!

This poem here in full length:

Jazz

Dancing madly,
Whirling gladly,
‘Neath electric arks,
Stepping, stopping,
Prancing, hopping,
As the sax’phone barks,
Skipping, slipping,
Toeing, tripping,
Thru the rushing throng,
Dancing, sliding,
Smoothly gliding,
To the beat of bell and gong.
Jungle madness,
Orient sadness,
Hearts that wildly beat,
Shoulders flashing,
Passions clashing,
Whispers, indiscrete,
Pulses pounding,
Sane tho’ts drowning
As trombones loudly bla-a-s
Hot lips a quiver,
Reason a flivver,
In the land of jazz.

Clifford Simak (1922)

---

I thank all who have supported me and I hope that the bibliography will continue to exist for many years to come and that many interesting editions from all over the world will be added.

Ralf

Appropriate that his first published work appears in what looks for all the world like a fanzine!

 

[Bick]

I'm very grateful for your post Ralf (58) - your bibliography remains a superb resource for discerning SF fans. Its probably about time I read another Simak. Maybe in honour of the great man's deceasement pearl jubilee I should read another and add my comments in this forum as I did when I started the thread. I just finished a novel as it happens and was wondering what to read next, so let's see - scans shelf with some unread Simak on it - I'll now read Ring Around the Sun. A novel I feel slightly awkward about not having read yet, given my interest in CDS...

Oh yes, I enjoyed the poem, thanks for posting it. Of more historical interest than literary (its a bit awful ), but super to see it nonetheless.

 

[2DaveWixon]

Appropriate that his first published work appears in what looks for all the world like a fanzine!

Even after he became a well-known professional writer (and even aside from his newspaper work), Cliff was closely associated with fans and fanzines. He hosted the very first meeting of the Minneapolis Fantasy Society, the very first fan group in the area; and for years he was a regular contributor to several fanzines.
He specialized in amusing essays, but he also did what we would now call "fan fiction," and several of those stories are still in existence. (I'll admit I decided not to include them in "The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak," though.) (I made one exception: his story "The Creator" was originally published in what its publisher intended to be a new pro magazine, but he could only pay Cliff with a lifetime subscription ("lifetime" ended up being about four issues.) Cliff would later say that he let Crawford have the story because he admired the man's guts in trying to break into the science fiction establishment (my word, not Cliff's); but it's likely that two factors in Cliff's decision were (1) that he was upset with the current sf magazines over the way they treated their writers (including poor and very late payments...); (2) he seemed to have been thinking about leaving the sf field -- for about five or six years in the middle thirties, he explored writing in other genres and did little if any sf...; and (3) "The Creator" was, he believed, so iconoclastic that Cliff thought no mainstream magazine would be willing to touch it -- and there was a good deal of controversy when it came out, but of course that attracted some people...)