A Rediscovery of Clifford D. Simak - A Reading Challenge

[LoZioOscuro]

Hello,

my name is Ralf and I live in Germany. I am the author of the International Clifford Simak Bibliography.

I am pleased that the bibliography was praised. And I am even more pleased that so many people are in this forum, who appreciate Clifford Simak.

Welcome here Ralf. He is long time member and excellent contributor of Yahoo Simak Group.
Roberto

 

[Bick]

Ralf! I saw your name on the fan forum and the bibliography. It's great to see you here - a warm welcome. The bibliography is excellent, by the way - a really useful resource. While I'm quickly becoming a fan, I've read criminally little of Simak previously, and this was why I thought to start this thread. Have you seen the thread about "forgotten authors"? That was also where the inspiration came from.

I'd be interested to hear what your personal opinions are regarding favourite books. I presume you've read a good deal of them, if not all?

EDIT: My post crossed over with yours in which you listed favourite books. Where would you place Shakespeare's Planet, which I just read and really enjoyed?

 

[Bick]

LoZioOscuro - your dog must be called "Nathaniel"?

Not just a "dog", but the first "Dog".

 

[Ralf 58]

A fair few of Simak's books have now arrived in the mail from Ebay and the like. My collection now looks like this (these are the actual editions):
...

I have all the German editions of Clifford Simak. You can see them here:

All novels and collections in German

Because I am a collector, I also have many English editions. From each work at least one edition. Here they are:

Novels (part 1)

To be continued ...

 

[Ralf 58]

Here is the continuation of my collection

Novels (part 2)

To be continued ...

 

[Ralf 58]

Here is the next continuation of my collection

Novels (part 3)

These were the novels. The following are the story collections.

 

[Ralf 58]

My Story Collections (part 1)

To be continued ...

 

[Ralf 58]

My Story Collections (part 2)

The latter book "Worlds Without End" are two different issues with two different serial numbers. ;-)

Next, I'll put together anthologies that include stories that have not been included in any Simak collection.

 

[Ralf 58]

These are anthologies with stories of Clifford Simak. I mention only those anthologies that I own and in which stories are included that are not included in any Simak collection.

The following stories are included in these books (from top left to bottom right):

• The World of the Red Sun
• The Asteroid of Gold (I have only a photocopy of it, but this is from this book.)
  
• The Loot of Time
• Earth for Inspiration
• The Street That Wasn't There
• Tools
• Lobby
• Mr. Meek Plays Polo
• Univac: 2200
• Epilog (This story is a part of the City-cycle, but I have no issue of City, where it is contained.)
  
• Unsilent Spring

Another story I have as a single issue ("Chapter Book"):

 

[dask]

Wow. I'm impressed how you keep them, especially the older editions, in what looks like mint condition, the one exception being the second WORLDS WITHOUT END. There're titles I didn't even know existed.

 

[Ralf 58]

Some stories have appeared in pulp magazines and were then never published again. If you want to have all the stories you have to you procure these Pulp Magazines. ;-)
I have the following:

The following stories are included in these magazines (from top left to bottom right):

• Hunger Death (Astounding Oct. 1938)
  
• The Space Beasts (Astonishing April 1940)
  
• Clerical Error (Astounding August 1940)
  
• Spaceship in a Flask (Astounding Juli 1941 [British edition])
  
• Shadow of Life (Astounding March 1943)
  
• Message from Mars (Planet Stories Fall 1943 - Of these, I do not own the original, but a reprint from the year of 2008.)
  
• Mr. Meek - Musketeer (Planet Stories Summer 1944)
  
• The Questing of Foster Adams (Fantastic Universe Aug/Sept 1953)
  
• Nine Lives (Short Stories - A Man's Magazine, Dec. 1957)
  
• The Shipshape Miracle (If, Jan 1963)

Of a few stories I have not the magazines, but digital copies of:

The following stories are included in these magazines:

• The Voice in the Void (Wonder Stories Quarterly, Spring 1932)
• Rim of the Deep (Astounding Science Fiction, Mai 1940 - This story has also been published in the anthology "Futures to Infinity" of 1970 - a mass-market paperback.)
• Second Childhood (Galaxy Science Fiction, Feb. 1951 - This story has also been published in two hardcover anthologies in the 50s, but these books are very rare)

 

[Ralf 58]

The following stories and novels I do not have in English:

• Limiting Factor
• Empire
• To Walk a City Street
• Senior Citizen

These works should be easy to obtain, they are eg contained in these books:

I am not yet found the time to get me these books. But I have these stories in German.

 

[Ralf 58]

As a last part for today I want to show you the books that I have in other languages. I do not collect these books, but if I happen to find (eg vacation), I can not just leave it ...

From left to right they are:

• The Goblin Reservation in Czech
• an Italian original collection
• Project Pope (Part 1) in Portuguese
• a Russian original collection, with all the stories from 1931 to 1944

 

[Ralf 58]

Wow. I'm impressed how you keep them, especially the older editions, in what looks like mint condition, the one exception being the second WORLDS WITHOUT END. There're titles I didn't even know existed.

Hi dask,

Not all images are from my copies. I have the images collected over the years, to use in my online bibliography.
But most of the pictures I've shown here are actually from my copies. Most books also look really good, but sometimes I have retouched the damage with my photo editor.

 

[Bick]

It's a pretty definitive collection, Ralf, very impressive. Do you seek out older originals at all? First Editions in HB?

 

[Bick]

In a similar vein, I have this 1958 Galaxy Magazine, which contains the story The Civilization Game. I liked this story a lot and first read it only a few years ago after I sourced the original magazine from Ebay. I think I may try to get more of his best short stories this way, as you get the advantage of all the other content of course. There are good stories in this issue by Silverberg and Harmon. The Simak is definitely the best story in it, funnily enough, and it's been collected in various volumes over the years (though nothing very well known).

 

[Ralf 58]

Ralf! I saw your name on the fan forum and the bibliography. It's great to see you here - a warm welcome. The bibliography is excellent, by the way - a really useful resource. While I'm quickly becoming a fan, I've read criminally little of Simak previously, and this was why I thought to start this thread. Have you seen the thread about "forgotten authors"? That was also where the inspiration came from.

I'd be interested to hear what your personal opinions are regarding favourite books. I presume you've read a good deal of them, if not all?

EDIT: My post crossed over with yours in which you listed favourite books. Where would you place Shakespeare's Planet, which I just read and really enjoyed?

Hi Bick,

thanks for the warm welcome. Counting "Trouble With Tycho" as a novel, then Simak wrote 28 novels. I have read 27 of them, so all except "Highway of Eternity". This latest novel by Simak has not appeared in German. I own the book, although in English, but I've never read it. Unfortunately my English is not so good that I can read fluently and so a thick book would be very tiring.

Of the 122 SF and fantasy stories are 53 published in German, which I have read them all. I have also read about 10 stories in English, but I'm not sure to have understood everything. So I've read so about half of all SF stories by Clifford Simak.

At best, I like the stories from the 50s and the novels from the 60s. Later Simak has often repeated the themes he has dealt with in previous years.
There is not really a bad book by Simak, but "Shakespeare's Planet" I would so classify as ranked 18-20. But perhaps even the German translation so bad.

The thread about forgotten authors I have not read yet. It I look at tomorrow.

 

[Ralf 58]

It's a pretty definitive collection, Ralf, very impressive. Do you seek out older originals at all? First Editions in HB?

No, I'm not so crazy. Only the German editions I collect complete.

It was important that I have all possible texts once each in English. It is not so important whether paperback or hardcover. Moreover, that would be very expensive.
Of the novels I have only "Mastodonia" in hardcover, which I got by chance.
The hardcover story books (eg, the two volumes of "The Collected Stories of Clifford D. Simak") I have worried because they do not exist in paperback.

 

[Alex The G and T]

Egads! I've read each and every novel posted by Ralf, and most of the collections. Not all of the titles spark much recognition. I read most of them decades ago.

Trying to catch up, here. I been busy; but I gave myself permission to rest today. Started perusing the book heaps for Simak titles. Came up with a couple of somethings which I had forgotten I'd owned:

I'm looking forward to re reading "The Big Front Yard" Gingerly. These mags are fragile.

The cover for the BFY is fabulous; just how my mind's eye perceived the alien on the saddle.

But, today I read "The Fisherman." It strikes no glimmer of recognition.

Simakmaniac, as I was in the '70's and '80's... I missed this one.

It opens with the utter failure of science to master space travel; due to the radiation exposure outside of the Van Allen Belts.

Our protagonist is employed by a consortium of "Mental Scientists" who explore space by teleportation.

He "Shares his Mind" with an alien being, realizes when he gets home, possessed; that anyone of his job-mates who had "Gone Alien," had been "disappeared." Our hero flees.

!961 Simak is exploring the scientification of John Cambell's "Psionics." Simak gets away with an enormous amount of "data-dumping" cloaked in the protagonists philosophizing over how the historic pursuit of science obscured the traditional, shamanic psychic investigations; but the pursuit of the scientific method enabled the development of the rational study of a systematic pursuit of the "Mental Arts." And it plays well.


(Yeah, I had to re-read, and rewrite my previous sentence and it still makes little sense; until you read the story. That's Simak for you)

The story is a rollicking great yarn of flight from evil consortiums. I experienced a hideous sense of coitus interruptus when I realized that I was reading the first installment of a series; with no indication of how many episodes were to follow, and a doubtful prognosis of fulfilling the climax.

I see no mention of The Fisherman in Ralf's Bibliography.

I've discovered an oddity. And I want to know how it ends, Dammit.

Which is my query to Ralf. Was this story ever reprinted? Was the title changed?

 

[Bick]

The storyline and dates for The Fisherman correspond exactly with the novel I'm currently reading, Alex - "Time is the Simplest Thing". I'm sure it's the same story.

EDIT: I started to edit this with more info I'd found out but then realised others had already filled in the information (next page on thread), so I'll leave off changing this.