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SPECIAL COLLECTORS EDITION of Way Station by Clifford D. Simak
https://astralcomputing.com/books/way-station-simak-easton-press
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SPECIAL COLLECTORS EDITION of City by Clifford D. Simak
https://astralcomputing.com/books/city-simak-easton-press
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Titelbild von John Schoenherr für
"Time And Again" von Clifford D. Simak
Ace Books 81000, (not dated)
(AmeS)
Titelbild von Robert E. Schulz für
"Ring Around the Sun" von Clifford D. Simak
Ace Books D-339, 1959
(AmeS)
#sciencefiction #CliffordDSimak Der Autor Clifford D. Simak wurde am heutigen Tag, dem 3. August, im Jahr 1904 geboren.
Umschlagbild von Eyke Volkmer für
"Als es noch Menschen gab" von Clifford D. Simak (City)
Übersetzt von Tony Westermaier
Goldmann Z 56, Juni 1964
(AmeS)
Titelbild von Ed Valigursky für
"City" von Clifford D. Simak (City)
Übersetzt von Krey
Utopia Großband 80, Pabel Verlag August 1958
(AmeS)
#sciencefiction #UtopiaGroßband #CliffordDSimak #EdValigursky
Exploration Log 15: Clifford D. Simak’s fanzine article “The Future of Science Fiction” (1941)
Clifford D. Simak’s “The Future of Science Fiction” appeared in the fanzine Fantasite, No. 2, ed. Phil Bronson (February 1941). You can read it online here. As the quality of the scan at the link is quite poor and close to unreadable in spots, I’ve transcribed the entire article below. In a few instances I have guessed based on vague letter shapes. If you spot an error, let me know!
The fanzine Fantasite, comprised of twelve issues between 1940 and 1944, was the official organ of the Minneapolis Fantasy Society. For more on the fanzine and its creator, consult the Fancyclopedia entries. The MFS was formed when when Simak arrived in Minneapolis and joined with the old Minneapolis Science Fiction League (Hugo Gernsback’s SF clubs). The second meeting happened at Simak’s house. As members went off to WWII, the became less formal and eventually dissipated. Simak helped briefly resurrect the club after WWII, joined by Poul Anderson and others. Other SF authors who were members included Theodore R. Cogswell, Noel Loomis, Oliver Saari, and Gordon R. Dickson.
This is a fascinating, if a bit vague and imprecise, look at Simak’s early views on the evolution and potentiality of science fiction. Unfortunately, as his professional life as a newspaper reporter ramped up he paired back his fan activities. These three points stood out: 1) Simak believes that the science fiction of the 1930s (in particular 1933 and 1934) transformed the genre by departing from “wooden men” who stalk through “wooden plots.” 2) he speculates that science fiction will diversify even further with “new ideas and new ways of presenting them” 3) he emphasizes the importance of “careful delineation in character” with “superb plotting.” Even from Simak’s earliest fannish writings, he shows an interest in a genre without clear boundaries — a genre that grows and expands and explores new things. For a more overt statement on his toleration for a diverse genre, check out his 1971 Worldcon Guest of Honor Speech given in the middle of the New Wave movement.
Of the handful of stories Simak lists, I’ve only read Stanley G. Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey” (1934). Nat Schachner’s wrote “Ancestral Voices” (1934) comes up frequently in SF scholarship as an original early SF story with a rather radical (for the era) implication. I should give it a go!1
Let me know your thoughts.
Clifford D. Simak’s “The Future of Science Fiction” (1941)
For a long time science fiction was formula. Then, suddenly, something happened. Stanley Weinbaum wrote “[A] Martian Odyssey.” Jack Williamson wrote “Born of the Sun.” Nat Schachner wrote “Ancestral Voices.” Murray Leinster wrote “Sidewise in Time.” 2 Don Wandrei strolled onto the scene.3
Other things happened, too. But those few examples give you an idea.
Science fiction shook off the old beliefs that the saga of a man going to another planet and making the acquaintance of the three-legged, seven-eyed, 18-fingered resident of that planet constituted a story. Science fiction started to go places. It’s been going places since.
Just where it is going is hard, perhaps impossible, to say.
I know that after reading the first paragraph of this article a bunch of you fellows are going to rear up on your hind legs and let ouf a few bellows: “What about the early Skylark stories? What about Wade and Morey? What about some of Lovecraft’s first work? What, above all, about Hawk Carso?”
I’ll admit you have something there. I would be the first to deny that all of the pre-Weinbaum stories were lousy. I wasn’t even trying to say that. What was meant is that they all followed pretty much the same pattern… and that doesn’t mean they weren’t good. But they were pretty much the same.
But in trying to trace the trends of any type of literature, one must generalize. Comparisons and deductions must be made of a broad basis, ignoring the occasional exceptions which arise in almost every phase under consideration.
From necessarily crude beginnings, when the pioneers of science fiction were laying what has proven to be a firm and solid basis for a new type of literature. We have advanced up to the present day of science fiction story which is well rounded in almost every respect. We have achieved realism, an elusive sort of modern-day fantasy, humor, characterization, in some cases satire, and when satire arrived one may be fairly certain that type of literature is out of its swaddling clothes. We have even come to regard psychology as a legitimate field upon which a science fictioneer may base a thrilling, thought-provocative story.
No more do wooden men stalk through wooden plots. Your typical science fictioneer character of today seems to be alive. Plot is given equal consideration with the scientific basis of the story. Some stories are frankly (and actually) humorous. In many of the tales the science does not arise unshriven and smack you in the face… you have to sit and think about it. Seldom do heroes gallop around the red sands of Mars without oxygen helmets or protective armor… seldom do they rescue Martian princesses. Because science fiction writers now know that Mars is mighty cold and has little atmosphere and that a Martian princess probably would look like something that skittered out from under a rock only more so.
Just what science fiction is going to do next is harder to say today than it would have been so a few months ago. The advent of new magazines, all of which show heartening promise of making real contributions to science fiction, and a radiant flurry of story types, serve to confuse any analysis of the situation.
A few months ago I would have guesses the trend would be toward ever increasing realism. Now is appears there may be a decided swing back to the modern-day fantasy. The best solution to the whole problem is to say one doesn’t know.
The editors themselves probably don’t worry a great deal about trends. They are in the market for good stories. A sudden outpouring of certain types of stories perhaps is the unconscious imitation of one or more highly successful stories, the writers following, for the moments, the dictates of the fans. As the fans tire of one kind of story, the writers gradually forsake it, turn to something else. One or two of them hit a jackpot and bingo! a new trend has started.
With more magazines in the field, the trend is going to be increasingly harder to follow. One of the magazines at the moment is publishing stories which are almost impossible to define as to type, all of them realistic, many of them based on concepts which a few years ago would not have been regarded as scientific. Another magazine has returned to the simpler type of story, calling for substantial science, swift action, good characterization. Still another relies upon the old popular romantics (not a love story) with science added to provide motive, throwing in some real humor as a pace breaker. And yet another seems to be re-setting the stage for the “big idea” yarn of a few short years ago.
We may be sure of this, however all literature follows certain broad trends and science fiction will be no exception. The direction in which science fiction is moving may be obscured by the number of magazines and the correspondingly large number of writers in the field, but the direction will be there, although it probably will spread over wider ground. Henceforward we probably will get more of every kind of story and the development of any particular type will be slower as a result.
Most of us can remember the time when the hero invariably carried a ray [gun]. More of us can remember when an author who didn’t bust a solar system or two wide open was a panty-waist, too. There was the time when the future was the future and not a future. And Venus was always a jungle and the only thing the asteroids were good for were to hunt gems on or harbor outlaws. The hero usually was a scientists.
Today few ray guns are packet, mighty few solar systems are busted up. Characters are now rampant through many futures instead of a single future. Venus needn’t be a jungle (probably isn’t) and asteroids can be used for lots of things. As well as scientists, heroes can be handy men, newspapermen, farmers, football players, old soldiers, deep-sea divers, historians, librarians… almost anything.
But we’ll come back to them because we liked them and don’t want to get along without them. the ray gun probably won’t come back because, as a weapon, it was a sort of silly think to lug around.
And in the meantime we’ll go ahead to new ideas and new ways of presenting them. We’ll eventually have so many different types of stories that we can afford to wee out the ones we don’t like, keep the ones we do. The fans will take care of that.
Unquestionably science fiction has developed. Throughout this article I have referred to it as a literature, which probably isn’t correct, but seemed a handy term to use. Excellence in writing, careful delineation in character, superb plotting and definite story value, however, have put some of the science fiction yarns of the last few years very close to literature. Probably no accredited critic would recognize them as such… but what do we care for critics.
I think that we can expect it to continue its development. it seems to have won a secure place with the American reader. It is no longer on the totary [tertiary?] basis which almost enabled the Depression of the early 30’s to virtually knock it out. each year that goes will see itself winning itself even a more secure place.
Many great stories have been written, but I believe the greatest still are to be written. The horizon grows broader as time goes on. Each new idea is a springboard for a dozen other ideas, all derivatives of the first, but each a separate theme in its own right. If this be true, how can we help but have the greatest stories yet to come?
Notes
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1930s #1940s #bookReview #books #CliffordDSimak #fiction #sciFi #scienceFiction #writing
Short Fiction Review: Clifford D. Simak’s “Madness from Mars” (1939) and “Hermit of Mars” (1939)
The following review is the 37th installment of my series searching for “SF short stories that are critical in some capacity of space agencies, astronauts, and the culture which produced them.” Some stories I’ll review in this series might not fit or are poor quality. And that is okay. I relish the act of literary archaeology. I’ve added an extra Simak story to round out the post.
I’m on another Clifford D. Simak binge!
Previously: John Wyndham’s “The Man From Beyond” (variant title: “The Man from Earth”) (1934)
Up Next: TBD
3/5 (Average)
Clifford D. Simak’s “Madness from Mars” first appeared in Thrilling Wonder Stories, ed. Mort Weisinger (April 1939). You can read it online here.
In the 1941 article “The Future of Science Fiction,” Clifford D. Simak described the transformative effect of Stanley G. Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey” (1934) (and a handful of other stories) on the development of science fiction.1 He uses the story to explain how SF has achieved “realism” by moving beyond “wooden plots” plot by incorporating a “scientific basis of the story.” I’d suggest “Madness from Mars” is Simak’s attempt to craft a scientifically-grounded and truly alien alien in the Weinbaum mold. I will feature Simak’s early commentary on the genre in a future Exploration Log post. 2
The rocket ship Hello Mars IV, “a tiny gnat of steel pushing itself along with twinkling blasts of flaming rocket-fuel,” approaches Earth after the first successful voyage to the Red Planet. The press christens the ship as a “shining symbol of man’s conquest of the planets” (77). The three previous ships met with disaster. Humanity assumed Hello Mars IV also met a destructive end as years transpired without contact: “man as yet had found no means of communicating over fifty million miles of space”(77).3 However, something seems to be amiss. The ship does not return hails as it approaches Earth’s atmosphere. And something screams wrong with the way the ship lands. And when the hatch opens “A man stepped out — a man who staggered jerkily forward and then stumbled and fell in a heap” (78). He dies later that night. Bloody carnage greets those who inspect the ship. The crew seems to have gone insane and either committed suicide or killed each other. And then there’s an alien, a furry looking alien, an alien that can only “see” and communicate through “ultrasonics” (83). After zoo animals suddenly turn violent, a doctor and a newsman start to connect the dots.
Even in this early story, multiple common Simak themes are on display. There’s a sense that humanity, in a new formulation of Manifest Destiny, cannot but “blindly” grope “always outward” (77). This is the fourth mission to Mars. Massive capital went into its development and launch. Even when scientists discern the nature of potential alien threats, true knowledge of what could happen must be hidden at all costs or else “there’d be no more trips to Mars for years to come” (84).
In addition, Simak criticizes the immediate capitalist urge. After they discover the furry alien on the spaceship, the first thought isn’t whether it is sentient or to pause and marvel at its profound difference but rather to speculate on its commercial value: “Maybe we’ll have fur-trappers and fur-trading posts up on Mars […] Big fur shipments to Earth and Martian wraps selling at fabulous prices” (79). Like the French fur trappers in North America exploring America’s waterways, exploration directly connects to capitalist exploitation. In parallel, the more caring and careful of Simak’s characters worry about the militaristic applications of their discovery: “You know and I know that ultrasonics of the thirty million order can turn men into insane beasts […] Think of what the warmakers of the world could do with that weapon!” (85). And here we return to the deep sense of despair at the inevitability of conquest: others in the blind quest outward will encounter the same alien and make the same discovery and they might use it for war.
As with other stories like “Masquerade” (1941) and “Tools” (1942) from this period, “Madness from Mars” contains brief hints of Simak’s critique of modern capitalism, imagines newspapermen as heroes, and deploys unusual aliens that serve to illustrate humanity’s foibles and destructive tendencies. He actively resists the pulp impulse to depict the alien as evil. While I didn’t discuss it at length in the review, Simak draws his alien with love and care. He attempts to ground the biology of the alien in the reality of Martian conditions.4 It’s a deeply sad story.
Somewhat recommended for Simak fans interested in his early literary development. I still recommend “Tools” (1942) as the most visceral and strident of his earliest works.
2/5 (Bad)
Clifford D. Simak’s “Hermit of Mars” first appeared in Astounding Science-Fiction, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. (June 1939). You can read it online here.
Kent Clark and Charley Wallace, futuristic versions of 17th-century French fur-trappers in North America’s river systems, hunt for the “Martian beaver” in Mars’ water-less desert canals (10). The pelts fetch astronomical prices back on Earth: “the most valuable fur in the entire Solar System” (10). It’s not clear if this is the same animal furry, and accidentally destructive, animal encountered in “Madness from Mars” (1939) published earlier in the year. Charley’s an old-timer, he’s explored the canals for twenty Martian years. He’s used to Mars’ strange and wondrous sights. Kent, a trapper for five Martian years, still finds fascination in Mars’ unusual differences: “Twilight was an impossible thing in the atmosphere of Mars” (9). The arrival of a spunky women with a dangerous quest interrupts their rituals of hunt and survival. She wants them to chase a myth into the depths of Mad-Man’s Canal, the deepest on Mars.
Unfortunately, “Hermit of Mars” clocks in as the least adept Simak short story I’ve read in the history of the site — it takes pole position over “Lulu” (1957). Perhaps due to the editorial oversight of Campbell, Jr., Simak resorts to a series of unfurling pulp plots, and an entire zoo of unusual fauna, that grow increasingly outlandish and slapdash. In addition, all his scene work setting up the desert canals and technologies of survival come crashing down as all challenges seem to be conquered with incredible, and narratologically lazy, ease. Problems that appear neigh insurmountable are solved in the blink of an eye. Dangers aren’t really dangers. Distances are covered in mere moments. The story unfolds at breakneck speed in a vast variety of different directions in an unsatisfying manner. Simak contributes the type of story that he critiqued in “The Future of Science Fiction” (1941).
Where does Simak succeed? “Hermit of Mars” contains a rare (at least for Simak) strong female character. Ann Smith convinces both Kent and Charley to go with her on a voyage to Mars’ most dangerous place — the depths of Mad-Man’s Canal. The story entirely revolves around her actions and desires. As mentioned above, the way the plot unfolds weakens the effect of her characterization. In addition, the extrapolation of Western myth and historical tropes on Mars provides an anchor the alien and suggest an inevitable return to historical forms of exploitation.
Regardless of the individual flaws of this vision, I did not expect to enjoy my exploration of Simak’s pre-WWII stories as much as I have! Stay tuned for more.
Notes
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1930s #bookReviews #CliffordDSimak #sciFi #scienceFiction
Book Review: Clifford D. Simak’s The Worlds of Clifford Simak (1960)
3.25/5 (collated rating: Above Average)
At this point in my reading adventure, I approach Clifford D. Simak’s science fiction with a clear intention to expand my understanding of his economic, political, and technological critiques of American society. This culminated in 2024 with my article “’We Must Start Over Again and Find Some Other Way of Life’: The Role of Organized Labor in the 1940s and ’50s Science Fiction of Clifford D. Simak.” Since then, albeit at a slower pace, I’ve continued to cover his science fiction, speeches, and additional interviews I’ve been able to track down. I find him a deeply fascinating author who’s often pigeonholed as “bucolic” or “pastoral” with no real attempt to read beyond his tendency to set a few of his narratives in a rural simulacrum of his childhood corner of America.
If you’re new to his work, this is a solid but unspectacular collection despite the inclusion of his best-known short story “The Big Front Yard” (1958) (winner of the 1959 Hugo Award for Best Novelette). However, with the exception of “Jackpot” (1956), I found The Worlds of Clifford Simak (1960) missing the type of ruminative and grimy moments I find most appealing about his work. It’s swings towards Simak’s more goofy and sentimental side.
And before we get to the story-by-story discussion, here’s a brief note about the publication history. This review covers the 1961 paperback edition of The Worlds of Clifford Simak (1960). It contains six less short stories than the hardback. Those six cut stories appeared in The Other Worlds of Clifford Simak (1962). I own both volumes.
Brief Plot Summary/Analysis
“Honorable Opponent” (1956), 3/5 (Average): First appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (August 1956). You can read it online here.
In the far future, the vast Galactic Confederacy centered on Earth finds itself in conflict with the alien Fivers. A meeting is scheduled on a barren planet to exchange prisoners. Why this particular planet was picked isn’t entirely clear, but the same could be said about the society/culture/and objectives of Fivers themselves. The Galactic Confederacy appears to be licked: “Earth was across the barrel. For there was nothing he could do but negotiate” (15). Earth’s war ships disappear with their crews left and right. In order to counter the Fiver threat, “thousands of researchers were working day and night in a crash-priority program to find an answer to the weapon” (8). Of course, there’s no equivalent program to understand Fiver society!
While I won’t spoil the rather silly ending, it fits into Simak’s common tendency to imagine humanity’s unwillingness to depart from traditional patterns of interaction and conflict. When the Fiver secret is revealed, Earth’s generals immediately speculate on how the new technology can be harnessed to extract new planets of their resources more effectively (18) rather than to improve lives.
I found this one a bit forgettable despite its re-emphasis of Simak’s central themes.
“The Big Front Yard” (1958), 3.75/5 (Good): First appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. (October 1958): You can read it online here. Won the 1959 Hugo Award for Best Novelette.
Hiram Taine, an antique dealer and electronic repair handyman, comes home after acquiring antique furniture to resell to a mysterious substance on his basement wall. Its occupants transformed Taine’s basement. Soon a black-and-white TV set to be repaired suddenly is in color (27). Towser, his dog, comes across a spaceship buried in the woods. With Beasly at his side, a local man who seems to have an intellectual disability, Taine returns home to find his home’s exterior transformed. The porch now opens up on an entirely new, and alien, vista. As they explore the alien landscape, they come across another home that serves as a portal to another world, and more spaceships, and more aliens craftsman setting off to establish new networks. The secret gets out and soon the government and its agents come running to lay claim to new territories. Taine and Beasly will have to use their wits to understand the new world before conflict breaks out.
As with “Operation Stinky” later in the collection, Simak’s renders the rural countryside in the near future (1965) as in a state of transformation. Taine’s neighbor Henry runs a new computer factory on the outskirts of town (23). Taine fears prime pieces of land, including on where he played as a child, will be purchased to develop suburbs (22). There’s also the unavoidable sense of humanity’s relentless quest for profit. While Taine speculates on antiques and the odd job for survival, the FBI and Pentagon have something more draconian up their sleeves: “the government, of course, could exercise the right of eminent domain and start condemnation action” (52). The Russians also learn of the portal and want to lay their claim (57). Simak’s “bucolic” edges of the American countryside, often sites of contact and interaction with the alien and new, become contested spaces of Cold War conflict.
I found Taine an appealing character–he cares for Beasly, barely tolerated by the rest of the town, and his dog Towser. He wants to do good. He wants to make an honest living. He doesn’t give in to blind patriotism. He stands up for himself and others. This is a better version of the classic Simak contact story.
“Operation Stinky” (1957), 3/5 (Average): First appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (April 1957): You can read it online here.
The funniest (and silliest) story in the collection, “Operation Stinky” follows a classic Simak narrator–a “day-laborer” (75), gun-waving, drunk, shack-dwelling, good-hearted man–and his encounter with a strange type of skunk. The narrator rescues Stinky from a pack of dogs. The skunk becomes his friend and purrs like a cat. He takes it to the local bar as he doubts his friends will believe his story unless he brings evidence. And then something mysterious happens on his way home. He’s plastered. And the animal attempts to drive Old Betsy, his car… The authorities at the nearby air base catch wind of the animal and speculate that the unusual changes to Old Betsy might be the product of its handiwork.
Where “Operation Stinky” rises above its outlandish premise is Simak’s commentary on American Cold War culture. As with other stories in this collection, the alien becomes a source of exploitation for immediate gain. In this instance, rather than attempt to understand Stinky or figure out a mode of community, the military sees his skills solely as contributing to the American military-industrial complex: “We’ve got enough we actually understand to give us unquestioned air superiority. We’re a good ten years, if not a hundred, depending on how much we can use, ahead of the rest of them. They’ll never catch us now” (90). The air base interrupts the rhythms the rural experience. Simak’s countryside perches at that juncture where old ways of life are rapidly changing.
“Jackpot” (1956), 4.25/5. (Good): First appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (October 1956). You can read it online here.
A ragtag crew of intergalactic scavengers “scour the Galaxy for anything that’s loose” (97). They land on a planet. Loot ruins and resources. The dream of a jackpot that will raise them all from poverty propels them forth. Doc, the voice of conscience, spends his days blotting out their sad existence with the bottle. The captain, our narrator, justifies his actions with the lens of the past: “Back on Earth, in the early days […] it was folks like us who went into new lands and blazed the trails and found rivers and climbed the mountains and bought back word to those who stayed home. […] They didn’t worry much about the law or the ethics of it and no one blamed them for it” (100). And, most egregiously, he posits a defense of colonial violence: “If they killed a native or two or burned a village or some other minor thing like that, why, it was just too bad” (101). Clashing ideologies will come to fore with the discovery of a new alien technology.
On a desert planet, the crew encounters an immense silo–“quiet and solemn inside” (99)–with what look like endless rows of filing cabinets and strange chair-like contraptions. The crew, sans experts like the better equipped explorers, putter around with the alien tech in a sad scene of trial an error. Are the sticks in the cabinets dynamite? Is it an alien library? One will have to draw the short straw and find out. But there’s profit for sure whatever the discovery might be, right? The occupants of the building soon discover the interlopers.
This is absolutely the best story in the collection! We got some grime and intriguing rumination! “Jackpot” posits a series of historical parallels between the crew of scavengers and the famous expeditions to explore Earth. This serves two primary rhetorical purposes: 1) the ways people use the past to justify exploitation 2) to further Simak’s contention that humanity, despite its vast intergalactic empire, cannot escape its innate tendency towards brutal capitalistic exploitation. Profit remains the goal. Understanding the alien is only important if it leads to profit. There’s a bleak desperation to all that transpires.
Recommended.
“Lulu” (1957), 2.5/5 (Bad): First appeared in Galaxy Magazine, H. L. Gold (June 1957). You can read it online here. I previously reviewed this short story here.
My least-favorite story in the collection is a humorous trifle about a sentient “female” robotic spaceship falling in love with her three human male crewmen and setting off on her own grand romance. Riffing off of the tradition of naming airplanes and ships after women, Simak imagines that a Planet Exploration Robot–“a combination spaceship/base of operations/synthesizer/analyzer/communicator” (132)–would be programmed with a female persona in order to keep the crewmen company on a long voyage (as Simak is rarely more than G rated other implications are not discussed). In retrospect, the narrator suggests that Jimmy Robins’ bad romantic poetry caused Lulu to connect with them far more than intended. The three crew attempt–never picking up after themselves, refusing to move for days at a time, etc.–to make her fall out of love. Eventually she lands on a planet and finds a long lost alien robot. But there’s a hitch. Lulu’s new “man” means that she abandons the three crewmen outside on an alien planet. They need to get her to fall back in love if they’re ever to return to Earth.
It’s Simak at his least ruminative and moody–a strange inclusion for a best of collection. The concept of the robot programmed with a particular character to keep the crew sane on a long voyage is only touched upon. The rest is straight, often sexist in a 50s manner, sap. Forgettable.
“Neighbor” (1960), 3/5 (Average): First appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. (June 1954). You can read it online here. I previously reviewed this short story here.
The inhabitants of Coon Valley, a ubiquitous rural farming community of the “kind of people you meet all over these United States” (170), barely survives on farming the bottomlands and pasturing the hillsides.1 The story follows an “old-timer” who would feel strange living anywhere else and the arrival of an unusual neighbor. Unlike many who buy up an old farm and leave as the work gets hard, Reginald Heath transforms an abandoned farm into a veritable rural utopia–highly productive crops, repaired fences, a gorgeous garden filled with unusual vegetables, etc. The narrator slowly realizes that not is all that it seems.
While I’m not convinced of the merits of the actual story, “Neighbor” posits a utopian possibility that I’d suggest helps us formulate the world the Simak yearned for after the devastation of WWII and the emergence of a strong capitalist state. Here a small number of families, with the assistance of a humanoid alien that represents what humans could be if technology was not controlled by “our commercial-industrial society,” radically improve their own lives. As in many of Simak’s stories of corporate nightmare, farmers are not forced from their lands.2 Decentralization of technology prevents profit from becoming the sole objective. As Simak retrospectively spells out in various interviews, the problem is with technology’s implementation and control: “[it] should be used for the betterment of mankind and to make life more meaningful.”
There’s a mournful sadness in Simak’s stories as humanity rarely seems to change, without outside assistance, its own destructive urges.3
Somewhat recommended.
Notes
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1950s #bookReview #bookReviews #books #CliffordDSimak #movies #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction
TIME AND AGAIN (1975)
Acrylic on Illustration Board - 22” x 18”
A great story, too complex to represent faithfully in a single narrative illustration. 1/3
Since there was a book circle at the recent #Åcon14 I re-read "Way station" by Clifford D. Simak and found that like many of his other books, it still holds up.
Go read it, if you haven't.
THE TROUBLE WITH TYCHO (1976)
Acrylic on Illustration Board
While excavating on the Moon, an astronaut bites the dust (I couldn’t resist) and another fights vainly against a malevolent alien energy. 1/3
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adattamento a cura di Silvana Natoli
voci registrate e attori: Simone Càstano, Lorenzo Frediani, Tania Garribba, Silvio Impegnoso, Fortunato Leccese, Anna Mallamaci, Alice Palazzi, Diego Sepe, Roberta Zanardo
realizzazione per strumenti a tastiera del canone enigmatico a 4 voci ‘1074’ di J. S. Bach: Gianluca Ruggeri
esecuzione dal vivo: Ivano Guagnelli
allestimento: Camilla Carè e Maddalena Parise
regia del suono: Alessandro Ferroni
Umani, mutanti, robot e cani. Il mondo immaginato da Simak racconta il lento e misterioso declino della civiltà umana e sono i Cani, intorno a fuochi notturni, a raccontarne la storia.
https://archive.org/details/city.1.6 (1h 26′)
#AlessandroFerroni #AlicePalazzi #AnnaMallamaci #AnniSenzaFine #Bach #CamillaCarè #cani #City #CliffordDSimak #CliffordSimak #DiegoSepe #fantascienza #FortunatoLeccese #GianlucaRuggeri #IvanoGuagnelli #JSBach #lacasadargilla #LisaFerlazzoNatoli #LorenzoFrediani #MaddalenaParise #mutanti #racconti #radio #RadioOndaRossa #riduzione #RobertaZanardo #robot #ROR #RORRadioOndaRossa #SilvanaNatoli #SilvioImpegnoso #SimoneCàstano #TaniaGarribba #TuttaScenaTeatro #umani
Magazine Review: Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (November 1950) (Brown, Asimov, Boucher, Leiber, Knight, Simak)
Preliminary Note: I plan on reading all 116 issues of the influential, and iconic, SF magazine Galaxy under H. L. Gold’s editorship (October 1950-October 1961) in chronological order. How long this project will take or how seriously/systematically I will take it remain complete unknowns.
See my inaugural post in this series for my reasoning behind selecting Galaxy under H. L. Gold.
Previously: the October 1950 issue.
Up Next: the December 1950 issue.
Let’s get to the stories. We have the first Galaxy masterpiece!
You can read the entire issue here.
Fredric Brown’s “Honeymoon in Hell” (1950), 3/5 (Average): The year is 1962. The Cold War heats up. The race for a permanent presence on the Moon takes center stage. Each side “had landed a few men” and claimed it as their own (4). Each side races to construct a space station in orbit to facilitate the construction of a permanent base on the moon. But there’s another worrying world-wide trend–a massive gender imbalance in new births! Not enough boys! Riots. Cults. What’s the plan?
Capt. Raymond F. Carmody, retired from the space service (at age 27) after a successful flight to the Moon, steps into the ring. Resisting an administrative role in the service, he’d chosen a new career: cybernetics, “the science of electronic calculating machines” (9). In his new position, he had access to a powerful computer called Junior, built in 1958, tasked with issues of national security. Alone with the machine, he feeds Junior the data. Junior doesn’t have an answer. But Junior does offer a rare extrapolation that Carmody will be married on the morrow.
And a meeting with the President reveals the nature of the plan to birth a male child on the moon to avoid whatever on Earth is causing the problem! He’ll be legally married before they head to the moon and divorced if the pairing doesn’t work out. The catch? His wife will be Russian and their honeymoon will be Hell Crater.1 The “lucky” woman? Anna Borisovna is also a pilot of “experimental rockets on short-range flights” (16). Alcohol included as “icebreaker” for a “happy honeymoon” (19). The twelve day stay will be “plenty of time to get off before the Lunar night” (18) (Brown certainly intends the pun). And then the story morphs, abruptly, into a first contact story. Or does it?
This is an odd story. At its core it’s about a man and a woman (and mortal enemies) who go to the moon to have sex. But it’s the 50s. They need to be married! And all the references to the act are double entendres. As the ridiculousness fades, Brown settles on a rather enlightened position considering the Cold War terror of the moment–détente with the Soviets, politics and all, remains possible (under some circumstances). The story implies that Carmody falls head-over-heels for Anna due to the similarities of their careers and status as intellectual equals despite their divergent politics. Don Sibley’s issue cover shows her abilities under stressful circumstances. Carmody’s even willing to head to the Soviet Union to be with her! Love trumps all message aside, I am not convinced by the reading experience. Brown relays the strange events that transpire on Mars, and almost all of Carmody and Anna’s interactions, after they occur. It weakens the effect.
Somewhat recommended.
Isaac Asimov’s “Misbegotten Missionary” (variant title: “Green Patches”) (1950), 3/5 (Average): “Misbegotten Missionary” begins from the perspective of an alien entity that slipped onboard a human ship after its barrier faltered for a moment. The alien utterly believes that it is a superior “unified organism” (34) over the “life fragments” that populate the ship (34). Fanatical in its mindset, the shape-shifting alien wants to convert the entire vessel to its ways–without their consent. Slowly the nature of its own world, the purpose of the human vessel, and the fate of a past voyage become clear.
While not a miserable entry in his canon, I am starting to dread the Asimov stories in Galaxy and struggle to write coherently about them. And there’s a serialized novel on the horizon that I haven’t read yet and thus cannot skip– The Stars, Like Dust (1951). While far superior to “Darwinian Pool Room” (1950), “Misbegotten Missionary” defeats its initial success with a laborious exposition of what happened before. I appreciated the Asimov’s attempt to convey alienness of the entity’s perspective. Maybe if you’re interested in the evolution of Asimov’s attempts to write about entire planets as alien consciousness this is worth tracking down.
I reviewed this in 2021 and completely forgot. I was even more cruel in the earlier review!
Anthony Boucher’s “Transfer Point” (1950), 3/5 (Average): Three survivors retreat beneath the Earth’s surface after two apocalyptic events–the release of a new element (agnoton) and an attack by mysterious “yellow bands” (are they light-like? It’s not entirely clear. It’s pulpy on purpose). The scientist Kirth-Labbery constructed the self-sufficient retreat due to his allergies (!). His daughter Lavra spends her time eating fruit grown in the hydroponics bay. And Vyrko, a self-described intellectual poet, observes and writes about the end of the world, pines after his lost love, and reads historical pulp science fiction –including Damon Knight’s “Not with a Bang” (1950) and Robert A. Heinlein’s “By His Bootstraps” (1941). He notices that only one author seems to predict correctly what will happen. And also strange narrative parallels with himself…
I’m a sucker for metafictional science fiction that contains references and quotations from other authors both real and invented. Boucher’s “Transfer Point” serves as a recursive commentary on the nature of genre and its favorite tropes (last man and woman as Adam and Eve, time travel, etc.). Behind the tale’s ultra-pulpy exterior and sappy silliness, Boucher jabs (gently and with a smile) at science fiction’s Campbellian delusion of future prediction. Despite its moments, Boucher can’t approach the heights of Richard Matheson’s “Patterns of Survival” (1955), a far more complex commentary on the power of science fiction.
Somewhat recommended.
Fritz Leiber’s “Coming Attraction” (1950), 5/5 (Masterpiece): I reviewed this story in 2013. I’ve decided to reread it and modify my earlier review.
In Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s influential The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom (1949), a blueprint of the “new liberal self-image,” he describes the post-WWII period as an “age of anxiety” in which “Western man” is “tense, uncertain, adrift.”2 Channeling this sentiment, branded as an “American brand of misery” (83), Leiber imagines an America transformed after a limited nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
The physical landscape mirrors the psychological scars of New York’s inhabitants. “H-Bomb scars” tunnel faces (78). The Empire State Building thrusts out of “Inferno like a mangled finger” (77). In a disturbed attempt to maintain control, a new “puritanical morality” (80) replete with “anti-sex songs” (78) and required masks to cover female faces takes hold. A sinister media landscape manifests the corruption within. Billboards promote “hysterical slogans” in which “the very letters of the advertiser’s alphabet have begin to crawl with sex” (78). New TV gadgets facilitate touch and pseudo-connection (80). Perverse new forms of TV entertainment, in particular male wrestlers pitted against masked women, transfix all audiences.
Wysten Turner, the British narrator, gets caught up in the disturbing changes that have swept the US. He rescues a masked woman from a car driven by youths replete with hooks designed to snag the dresses of passing women. She embodies loneliness and despair. And he wants to help. Soon he finds himself unable to identify the new erotic and violent rituals of control and release. The games layer on themselves. Our narrator, also manipulated, flees in shame when the bizarre tableau’s true nature is unmasked.
Leiber doles out fascinating and punchy commentary on the anxieties of the modern world. A disturbed, erotic, creepy, and hyper-violent exploration of that reflexive Cold War tendency to equate the inability to control and triumph abroad as caused by internal crisis within society as a whole. A brilliant satire of late 40s/early 50s American Cold War culture.
Highly recommended.
Damon Knight’s “To Serve Man” (1950), 3.5/5 (Good): I reviewed this story in 2023. I decided not to reread it. I’ve reproduced the review below.
The Kanamit, pig-like humanoid aliens, arrive on Earth with a promise to assist humanity that appears to have zero caveats. Their similarity to a human food animal creates a disquieting horror: “when a think with the countenance of a fiend comes from the stars and offers a gift, you are disinclined to accept” (91). The Kanama proclaim that they want “to bring you the peace and plenty which we ourselves enjoy, and which we have in the past brought to other races throughout the galaxy” (92). They introduce fantastic power sources, anti-nuclear explosion shields, and technology to exponentially enhance agricultural productivity. Soon there are no “more standing armies, no more shortages, and no unemployment” (98). But no one can decode their language. And when someone finally figures it out, it will be too late.
I don’t completely understand why “To Serve Man” is one of Knight’s best-known short fictions. It won the 2001 Retro Hugo Award for Best Short Story. I would have voted for Fritz Leiber’s “Coming Attraction” (1950) from the list of nominees! That said, “To Serve Man” is an effective twist-ending story that plays with our expectations but doesn’t have the reflective or incisive impact of Knight’s best — for example “The Enemy” (1958), “You’re Another” (1955), or even “Time Enough” (1960) in Far Out (1961). I’m probably in the minority in this view.
Somewhat recommended.
Clifford D. Simak’s Time Quarry (variant title: Time and Again) (1950). Serialized over three issues. I will post an individual review after I complete the serialization.
Notes
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1950s #avantGarde #bookReviews #books #CliffordDSimak #DamonKnight #FredricBrown #fritzLeiber #HLGold #IsaacAsimov #sciFi #scienceFiction #ShortStories
Magazine Review: Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (October 1950) (Simak, Sturgeon, MacLean, Matheson, Leiber, Brown, Asimov)
Preliminary Note: I plan on reading all 116 issues of the influential, and iconic, SF magazine Galaxy under H. L. Gold’s editorship (October 1950-October 1961) in chronological order. How long this project will take or how seriously/systematically I will take it are complete unknowns. I am a reader of whim. I will choose whether to reread certain stories that I’ve previously covered. Serialized novels will only be reviewed after I complete the entire work and posted as separate reviews. Why Galaxy, you might ask?
First, I can’t escape the pull of 1950s science fiction focused on social commentary and soft science. Second, I am obsessed with 50s American politics during a time of affluence, the rise of TV and mass culture, and the looming terror of the Cold War. Third, there are a legion of well-known 50s authors I’ve yet to address in any substantial manner on the site who appeared behinds its illustrious covers. Fourth, H. L. Gold was interested in all different types of stories.
As SF Encyclopedia explains, Galaxy was an “immediate success” in part because “Astounding was at this time following John W Campbell Jr’s new-found obsession with Dianetics and was otherwise more oriented towards technology.” Gold’s interests, on the other hand, “were comparatively free-ranging: he was interested in psychology, sociology and satire and other humor, and the magazine reflected this.”
I hope you enjoy this series! Feel free to join.
Up Next: the November 1950 issue.
You can read the entire issue here.
Clifford D. Simak’s Time Quarry (variant title: Time and Again) (1950). Serialized over three issues. I will post an individual review after I complete the serialization.
Richard Matheson’s “Third From the Sun” (1950), 3.5/5 (Good): Previously reviewed a decade ago here. As I’ve enjoyed a lot of Matheson I’ve covered as of late, I decided to reread this one.
A brief distillation of dread, a “normal” American family (father, wife, children) and their neighbors plot radical action. Told with crisp lines of dialogue–“‘What time is it?’ she asked, ‘About five.’ ‘We’d better get ready.’ ‘Yes, we’d better.’ They made no move” (61)–Matheson embodies the existential anguish of looming annihilation. While the exact nature isn’t spelled out, it’s not hard to infer the following passage is a reference to nuclear war: “In a few years […] the whole planet would go up with a blinding flash. This was the only way out. Escaping, starting all over again” (62). As the family gets ready and interacts with their co-conspirators on the day of action, Matheson conveys the strangeness of it all by making everyday behaviors points of epistemological immensity. For example, as the family leaves their house and pauses on the porch for the final time, the husband asks “should we lock the door?” (64). She can only respond by smiling “helplessly” and running her hand through her hair, “Does it matter”?” (64).
Unfortunately, the twist is spelled out in the title. But unlike other twist stories, Matheson creates real import with the suggestions that this has all happened before. Despite its tantalizing allure and well-crafted moments, I’d still rank this among Matheson’s middling works. It’s no “Pattern for Survival” (1955) or “Dance of the Dead” (1955).
It’s the second best short fiction in the magazine. Recommended. But then again, I’m a complete sucker for nuclear dread short stories!
Theodore Sturgeon’s “The Stars Are the Styx” (1950), 4/5 (Good): A preliminary thought: was Frederik Pohl thinking of this story when he wrote Gateway (1975)? Pohl was a religious reader of SF and took over Galaxy after Gold’s tenure.
The premise: Humans created Curbstone, an artificial satellite around Earth, to facilitate the ultimate scientific achievement–near instantaneous transportation across the galaxy. How? Individual spaceships, with a solitary crew person or couple, will be hurled out from Curbstone at various points across the space time continuum. They will “appear” in 6000 years and connect to each other (and back to Earth) via a web of “force-beams in the form of a tremendous sphere” by which, like “the synaptic paths of a giant brain, “matter will be transmitted instantly” (74). There’s a catch. Only 54% of the crews will survive the voyage. Some will “appear” in conjunction with other pieces of matter and explode, others will be unable to connect force-beams, some crewmen might go insane before the process completes, etc.
The story revolves around the aging (and rotund) Senior Release Officer on Curbstone, who certifies, counsels, and guides the strange collection of humans who gather at the station willing to take such a risk. Like Charon guiding the boat across the River Styx taking the dead to the “Other Side” (72), he passes humans along the voyage–unable to take it himself. He’s caught in-between both worlds. Unable to return home. Unable to climb into the spacecraft and make the dash for greatness across the universe. He wants to make connections with those on the stations. But he knows that he might be sending them to their deaths. He watches young love, unable to participate, yearning for a touch. The story transpires within the interior thoughts of everyone involved: those taking the steps towards certification, others trying to make a final decision to head off or return to earth, or those who would make the decision if they found someone to make it with them. You could easily imagine this story shorn of its 50s descriptors and redrafted for the New Wave.
Often stories that touch on the longue durée suggest that a moment of far future technological triumph, think a generation ship story in which arrival is hundreds of years away, will trap society in stasis. Sturgeon follows this pattern: “And all Earth is in a state of arrested development because of Curbstone. Everything is held in check” (85). I don’t buy it. 6000 years is an inconceivable length of time! I imagine that humans will more likely ignore something that seems too distant to be relevant (I mean, we’re experiencing Global Warming now but….). Rather than a “realistic” imagining of future tech, “The Stars Are the Styx” operates best as a rumination on the drive to escape, to achieve, to control, to transcend death, and the struggling souls navigating those contingencies. And here Sturgeon triumphs.
This would be a masterpiece if Sturgeon tightened it up a bit. Recommended.
Fritz Leiber’s “Later Than You Think” (1950), 3/5 (Average): The Explorer, returning from a voyage to space, rushes to discuss a recent discovery on Earth with the Archeologist. But this is a very different Earth. Everything gleams with “radiation from some luminous material impregnating the walls and floors” (108). The Archaeologist discovered a time-capsule of artifacts from an earlier civilization that possibly destroyed itself with “atomic energy, out of control” (111). At the revelation, the Explorer’s excitement turns to anguish. He wanted to learn about a species that succeeded! One that successfully survived and strived and aspired and wasn’t prone to the misuse of technology that “outstripped their psychology” (112). Instead, both the present and the past seem obsessed with the idea that “others, greater than themselves, had prospered before them and then died, leaving them to rebuilt a civilization from ruins” (112). The past seems too similar to the present.
Like the Matheson and Asimov in the same issue, Leiber attempts to speculate on the “metaphoric aftershocks” of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the global mind. The twist, silly perhaps, is designed to make us think about the impact of the Cold War decisions–that could be apocalyptic–we might make. But Leiber seems to suggest there’s a destructive heart beating within all highly sentient beings that we cannot escape. Devolution will occur. We will make a fatal error.
Minor Leiber. It’s not bad. It’s not good.
Katherine MacLean’s “Contagion” (1950), 3.5/5 (Good): I’ve read three of MacLean’s fictions– Missing Man (1975), “Echo” (1970), and “Interbalance” (1960)–and enjoyed elements of each. A bunch of her short stories–either ghost-written for her husband or under her own name–appeared in Galaxy under Gold’s stewardship. I look forward to this project as an excuse to finally read them!
“Contagion” (1950) is a contact with an alien planet tale that’s legitimately odd. A hunting party looking for specimens of alien life in order to dissect, sets off from the spaceship Explorer across an alien planet called Minos. Reasonably, the crew is obsessed with a minute medical analysis of flora and fauna. There’s good reason: “the cool wind might be death, for if the animals were like Earth animals, their diseases might be like Earth diseases, alike enough to be contagious, different enough to be impossible to treat” (116). The galaxy seems strewn with vanished colonies and the “corpses of ships” which had “touched on some plague planet” (116).
Unlike other contact stories, the MacLean focuses in extra-ordinary detail on the nature of the medical contraptions, medications and medication dispensaries, and decontamination systems that seem to fill-up all available space within the Explorer. The hunting party encounters a majestically shaped human who spins a crazy tale of adaptation and disease. He’s put through the gamut of medical analysis and invited to visit with the crew. The women, in particular, are obsessed with his physique and pioneer spirit. But there’s a catch, obviously.
If you’re writing about the male gaze re-imagined and critiqued by female authors, put this one on your list. If you’re interested in medical SF, put this one on your list. It’s almost surreal in the strange crisis that transfix the psyche and body–male and female–as the nature of the titular contagion becomes apparent.
Fredric Brown’s “The Last Martian” (1950), 2.75/5 (Below Average): Brown ranks among the authors I mentioned above that I have yet to address in a substantial manner. I’ve only read and reviewed The Light in the Sky Are Stars (1953), a slick 1950s vision of the fanatical men and women who take America by the scruff of the neck and yank it, without letting the law get in the way, towards space and the deep beyond.
A newspaperman learns about a potential story: There’s a guy down in a nearby bar “who claims to be from Mars” (145). He heads over to investigate! Maybe he’ll need to call the police. Over the course of far too many beers, the man reveals incredibly specific details about life on Mars and a catastrophe that ravished society. He simultaneously remembers the life of the man whose body he supposedly inhabits. Is he insane? Did he catch some fragment of Martian intelligence? There’s a twist of course.
“The Last Martian” is polished but doesn’t register as more than minor and forgettable magazine filler.
Isaac Asimov’s “Darwinian Pool Room” (1950), 2/5 (Bad): Mercifully the shortest story in the magazine, Asimov’s “Darwinian Pool Room” imagines a group of academics in Dr. Trotter’s laboratory ruminating on the nature of evolution. The state of a pool table after a game finishes–balls in pockets–and the challenges recreating the game from its ending state serves as the dominate metaphor around which the discusses revolves.
Asimov seems to want to say something about rapid evolutionary transformation/extinction as connected human discoveries in hydrogen weapons and computing. Instead, I couldn’t help but imagine the story as a clichéd manifestation of bored, mostly drunk, graduate students babbling about a vast range of topics all dolled up with pseudo-intellectual mumbo jumbo. I would know, I remember those conversations with a combination of cringe, intellectual jealousy, and growing nostalgia (how I want to be a graduate student early in my degree again!). Regardless, it fits Gold’s remit to focus on idea-heavy stories that don’t always defer to action.
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1950s #avantGarde #bookReviews #books #CliffordDSimak #fantasy #fiction #fritzLeiber #IsaacAsimov #KatherineMacLean #sciFi #scienceFiction #TheodoreSturgeon #writing
Exploration Log 9: Three More Interviews with Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988)
Back in July 2024, I posted six interviews with Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988). Since then I’ve tracked down three more. As in that post, I’ll provide a rundown of each interview and provide quotes of interesting passages. In the interviews, Simak comes across as an author deeply suspicious of rigorous generic distinctions, passionate about all life, and open to science fiction as an ever-changing and evolving entity.
As readers of the site know, I have a substantial interest in Simak’s SF that culminated last year in my September article “‘We Must Start Over Again and Find Some Other Way of Life’: The Role of Organized Labor in the 1940s and ’50s Science Fiction of Clifford D. Simak” (2024) in Journey Planet #84. Since then I’ve posted an Exploration Log on his 1971 Worldcon speech, reviewed Best Science Fiction Stories of Clifford D. Simak (1957), and contributed to a podcast on “The Huddling Place” (1944) (the second City story).
Enjoy! And if you know of more interviews (or are able to update the Internet Speculative Fiction Database entry as it only includes five of the nine interviews I’ve covered) let me know.
THE INTERVIEWS
1. Jim Young interviews Simak in Rune #43 (May 1975). You can read it online here. The review was conducted at his home in Minnetonka, Minnesota in May, 1973. Rune was the fanzine for The Minnesota Science Fiction Society.
Young’s interview, titled “Science Fiction and Meaningful Existence,” starts with a summary of Simak’s achievements and impressions of the “kind, fatherly” man. The meat of the interview begins with a rumination on the concept of “mainstream fiction.” Simak posits that “there is no such thing as mainstream fiction, there is simply fiction.” As with many other interviews, he continues that part of the problem with defining science fiction is our inability to recognize it as “fantasy.” He, personally, has no special guidelines when writing.
Conversation shifts to favorite authors (Steinbeck, Faulkner, Proust, etc.). Simak states he he reads Grapes of Wrath “almost once a year.” In other interviews, Simak seems reluctant to identify specific SF works that he admires–he often mentions authors instead. Here is an exception: “I think that one of the finest books ever written in science fiction is Walter Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz (fix-up 1959). He also, surprisingly (at least to me) identifies Niven as a favorite.
Conversation shifts to the New Wave movement. While Simak is open to experimentation (see his WorldCon speech), he states his personal preferences that a story should still be present in SF — “I’d hate to see us lose that.” Young does not ask for examples. Young presses him on whether SF should “try to warn people about problems that might come up in the future.” Simak, confusingly, suggests in response that contemporary SF is somehow losing its “universality.” He suggests stories on life post-nuclear war are the most successful SF has been exploring a future potentiality. Other than warnings about the “atomic threat,” Simak does not believe SF has been very effective at “placing ourselves in the position of pamphleteers rather than writers.”
Simak moves into a moment of speculation that echoes and interacts with a lot of his own writing. He imagines two futures for humanity (if it survives): 1) humanity continues to be a “great technological race, and we will go out into space and probably the stars — despite the limitations of the speed of light” or 2) once they have gone so far in that direction, they will drop technology, and they will no longer have these technological triumphs — it won’t mean anything to them any longer.” His work almost systematically explores these two paths. See for example A Choice of Gods (1971) (ignore my rating — I imagine I would enjoy this one more now) and my article of his 40s and 50s stories. Simak brings up the Counterculture as an example of people who are not talking about technology or worldly success but instead “meaningful existence.” He acknowledges that this particular movement might not exist for long but another future version might position them as the “forerunners of the future.”
The conversations flows into a discussion of ESP. Simak comes off as a true believe who does not buy current scientific views discounting its existence: “we either don’t have the instruments to measure it, or it may not be measurable.” He returns to his desire that “we’ll probably try to simplify our lives in another hundred years, and possible to use less energy” with more focus on “happiness.” I’m with you Simak on these two points! On ESP? nah. He concludes the interview with a proclamation of his love of history (despite claiming that he does not use it as background in his stories).
Ultimately this interview treads familiar ground with the other six surveyed earlier. Simak is a bit less diplomatic than he can be on the New Wave.
2. Dave Truesdale and Paul McGuire interview Simak in Tangent #2 (May 1975). You can read it online here. The link also contains an audio file with some short commentary “erroneously omitted from the 1975 print interview.” This was not a planned interview but rather a brief, unprepared, discussion after a panel at Minicon 10 in April 1975.
The first questions cover Simak’s writing habits (planning plots, polishing, having fun while writing), current projects, and the personal and thematic evolution of his work. On the later point Simak reiterates a comment claim he makes that “the Golden Age is right now” (he’s explained in other interviews that early SF was often quite poor and anyone could get published as there were so few authors). He points out that even his masterpiece City (fix-up 1959) contains writing that is somewhat “crude and juvenile” that he has moved on from. He puts contemporary claims that the 30s were a “Golden Age” to nostalgic: “you’re young, and this is a new experience, and you think, how wonderful it is.”
Dave and Paul bring up Richard (Dick) Geis, who “seems to only like one certain type of science fiction,” and his claims about genre. Simak takes issue with Geis’ view: “Dick has created a pedestal on which he stands and screams to the high heavens that there’s only one kind of fiction.” Simak, on the other hand, believes “that’s not fact. The strength of science fiction lies in its diversity today.”
He concludes the interview emphasizing praising new voices like Joe Haldeman–“he’s beautiful.” And he knows that in the future SF will evolve further: “there will be kids starting out who are writing kind of, uh, punk stories.” He feels that this range and evolution is part of SF’s strength and we shouldn’t get “faddish” and write only one kind of story.
3. George J. Laskowski, Jr. (Lan) and Maia interview Simak in Lan’s Lantern #11 (July 1981). You can read it online here. The interview was conducted at Minicon, 1980 in Minneapolis. The issue is a “Cliff Simak Special” with art inspired by his work and various remembrances by George R. R. Martin, Jack Williamson, Algis J. Budrys, James E. Gunn, Gregory Benford, Ben Bova, and many others, etc.
The interview starts with a discussion of Simak’s earliest SF stories and his early desire to write. He mentions that he only knew that “The Cubes of Ganymede” had been published when he saw a news release in a fanzine that he had been accepted (by that point he had published numerous other stories)! However, as T. O’Conner Sloane was a notoriously slow editor, he received his copy of the story back three years later with a note saying that he could no longer publish it as it had “become outdated.” Simak confesses that the story was terrible anyway. Lan points out that Simak’s first published short story (1931’s “The World of the Red Sun”) contains an early, if not the first, example of psychology used as a weapon. Unlike E. E. “Doc” Smith, Simak points out that you can’t rely on “mass technology” and power lies “within the mind.” This becomes a central tenet of his SF. He also indicates his “quarrel” with the argument that SF should end happily. We might not win against aliens or gain intelligence — our “egocentrism” might get in the way.
Unlike some of the other more surface and predictable interviews, Lan and Maia quickly dive into a meaty discussion of Simak’s robots (while they don’t mention it by name, they clearly discuss the 1960 story “All the Traps of Earth” in addition to the robots in the 1959 fix-up City). He mentions that he treats robots in his stories as “surrogate humans”–humanity will make robots “so much like himself” even if there’s the possibility that they have “no soul.” Regardless, Simak believes we will make robots as “tools” even if they have names. Simak’s penchant for weird-looking aliens comes up next: “while it may be repulsive to us, we may be just as repulsive to it. If you strip off that repulsive outer cover of both of us, and try to get at what’s inside, there will certainly be, I think, some coming basis for understanding, or if not understand, at least sympathy.” A lengthy tangent begins in which Simak returns to his idea that perhaps in the far future something “greater than intelligence” and the use of tools will become important to future humans.
The Hugo-winning Way Station comes up next. Simak calls it “one of my three best novels.” He points out what he would rewrite if he could. “The Big Front Yard” (1958) and Mastodonia (1978)” come up next and the interaction between the two. The conversation moves to the issue of “faith-inspired” and “faith-inhibited” as concepts. Simak has a “theory that we might become a better race if we didn’t cling so closely to this faith” that he knows of towns in which inhabitants won’t go to stores run by members of another congregation (or religion). This is a more stridently critical stance towards religion than earlier interviews. In connection to dogmatism, they move on to discuss other dogmatic stances towards left-handedness and people who might not be viewed as traditionally productive members of society. Simak comes of, as is often the case, as open to diversity in all its forms.’
Simak discusses old age and the impact of illness on the elderly. His story “Shotgun Cure” (1961) comes up in which a price is given for an alien cure-all. Simak argues the story reiterates that “technology itself was a disease, and it was perhaps the greatest disease of all which will be cured. Well, not necessarily technology itself, but this rat-race, this high-pressured society we live in, which can be tied directly to technology.” Naturally the interview moves to Simak in retirement and why he waited until 72 to retired (something about Social Security and having a small income from writing).
Other topics briefly discussed in the rather unfocused end to the discussion: technological obsolescence, “Dusty Zebra” (1954), oddities like “Mr. Meek Plays Polo” (1944) in Planet Stories, his two collaborations, Time is the Simplest Thing (1961), “Lulu” (1957) (mysteriously “one of his favorites”), Project Pope (1981), Cosmic Engineers (1950), The Visitors (1980), and City (fix-up 1952).
I highly recommend this interview due to the preparation of the interviewers and the specific short stories and novels that come up beyond the predictable handful.
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#1970s #1980s #bookReviews #CliffordDSimak #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology
Please BOOST!
SPECIAL COLLECTORS EDITION of CITY by Clifford D. Simak
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31238823074
or see the full collection here:
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Exploration Log 6: Clifford D. Simak’s 1971 Worldcon Guest of Honor Speech
In an August 1967 editorial in Galaxy titled “S.F. as a Stepping Stone”, Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) voiced his extreme disapproval of the New Wave movement as “‘mainstream’ with just enough of a tang of the not-quite-now and the not-quite-here to qualify it for inclusion in the genre” (4). He concludes: “I hope that when the New Wave has deposited its forth and receded, the vast and solid shore of science fiction will appear once more and continue to serve the good of humanity” (6). The implication is clear: there is an Platonic science fiction form that exists (and that he writes) that must be rediscovered.
Fellow “classic” author Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988) offered a different, and far more inclusive, take at his Guest of Honor speech at Norescon 1 (Worldcon 1971). In an environment of “shrill” disagreement between various New Wave and anti-New Wave camps, Simak celebrated science fiction as a “forum of ideas” open to all voices (148).
Preliminary note: I read the speech in Worldcon Guest of Honor Speeches, ed. Mike Resnick and Joe Siclari (2006). You can listen to the speech (at the 28:00 min. mark) here. For a wonderful range of photographs of Simak at the convention, check out this indispensable photo archive.
As I did with six Simak interviews earlier this year, I will paraphrase his main points and offer a few thoughts of my own.
Let’s get to the speech!
After introducing his family (his son and daughter attended the convention), Clifford D. Simak surveys the general complains made against New Wave science fiction: “I have heard it said that science fiction has lost its sense of wonder; that too many bad stories are being written; that much of it is unreadable” (147). While confessing that he does not understand all the stories published in that moment, he points out that there has always been awful SF — including stories that he wrote himself (147). He wagers that “if a panel of competent critics were to make a survey of science fiction through the years, they would find more praiseworthy pieces of fiction writing in the last few years than in any previous period,” including the “so-called” Golden Age (146).
The speech shifts to the “hopeful signs” represented by the current New Wave environment (148). He argues that the “old tradition” forged in the “thirties and forties” will be “enriched and strengthened” by new voices (148). He suggests the diversity of viewpoints shows that there “must be something viable and vital in the field to attract such talent” (148). In his most poignant and quotable moment, Simak argues that in order for science fiction to be a “forum for ideas,” it is essential that “it attract new talent” (148). He approves of the growing critical study of the genre.
In the following section he finally addresses the New Wave by its name and the controversy it has engendered. He argues that the movement “has become, or is in the process of becoming, a very important part of science fiction” (148). And that different interpretations of science fiction existing at the same time does not invalidate the other view: “we were faced by change and accepted it and made it part of us” (148). Science fiction’s great appeal has been its flexibility to engage with the new and controversy representing many points of view “is a healthy thing” as it shows the refusal to be complacent and demonstrates a deep care about the field (149). He bemoans the “shrillness of some of the controversy” emphasizes the big-tent mentality that there is room for all (149).
As Robert J. Ewald, in When the Fires Burn High and the Wind is From the North: The Pastoral Science Fiction of Clifford D. Simak (2006), suggests, I think it might be worth interrogating Simak’s writing in the late 60s and 70s as a product (or a thread) of the amorphous New Wave. His novels, and interviews, would increasingly question the generic divisions between fantasy and science fiction. In the more permissive publishing environment of the New Wave moment, he would publish his own genre-breaking experiments such as The Goblin Reservation (1968), Destiny Doll (1971), and Out of Their Minds (1970). Ironically, the New Wave critic Asimov applauded Simak’s speech (see photo above).
I found Simak’s speech a refreshing a inclusive message. Here an author of the older generation who started writing in the 1930s steps up and defends the new as equally part of the multi-various generic edifice he helped construct. And in his own way, Simak would also participate in creating the new. Science fiction should, and must, be a forum for diverse ideas.
My other recent posts on Simak
Best Science Fiction Stories of Clifford D. Simak (1967)
Exploration Log 4: Six Interviews with Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988)
#1960s #1970s #books #CliffordDSimak #fiction #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #writing
WHERE THE EVIL DWELLS (1982)
Mixed Media - 29 ½" x 18 ½"
Early in my career, Ace Books commissioned me to illustrate new covers for classics by grandmaster Clifford D. Simak: CITY, TIME AND AGAIN, and THE TROUBLE WITH TYCHO.
1/4
#fantasy #fantasyart #sff #illustration #clifforddsimak @delreybooks
Exploration Log 5: “We Must Start Over Again and Find Some Other Way of Life”: The Role of Organized Labor in the 1940s and ’50s Science Fiction of Clifford D. Simak
My article on organized labor in the 1940s and ’50s science fiction of Clifford D. Simak went live! I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’ve spent the last half year researching and reading religiously for this project–from topics such as Minnesota’s unique brand of radical politics to the work of contemporary intellectuals like C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) whom Simak most likely read.
Please check out the complete issue edited by Olav Rokne and Amanda Wakaruk over at Journey Planet. I have also embedded the PDF below.
The issue contains great work on the depiction of labor rights in a vast variety of other SF mediums. There are four articles that touch on vintage SF. The first two listed are by wonderful community members and official “Friends of the Site.”
Here is my article if it’s easier to read on the site. Click each image to enlarge.
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1940s #1950s #bookReviews #CliffordDSimak #sciFi #scienceFiction
"...𝘛𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩-𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘸-𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭 𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘈 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘸𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴, 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘨𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘴. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘺. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘑𝘰𝘯 𝘞𝘦𝘣𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱. 𝘈 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘸𝘢𝘺, 𝘢 𝘣𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘢𝘭, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘺. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘺𝘳𝘶𝘱, 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘵, 𝘴𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘪𝘵, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘱𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘵 . . . 𝘴𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘰 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵. "𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘯," 𝘑𝘦𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥. "𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺." 𝘌𝘹𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘰𝘨𝘴 𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘯𝘰 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘺. 𝘌𝘹𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨..." #CliffordDSimak 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝘆 (1952) #B48
#Mastodon but 50,000 years ago
https://tangentonline.com/oldtimeradio/x-minus-one-qproject-mastodonq-by-clifford-d-simak2/
I haven't actually listened to it/read it in decades.
DAW Books 1982
🎨 Frank Kelly Freas
#WerewolfWednesday 🐺
#CliffordDSimak #Werewolf #Lycanthrope #LoupGarou #FrankKellyFreas #DAW #WeirdTales #ScienceFiction #SF #SFF @sciencefiction
Resale shop find. I don't know much about this book or the author but a robot pope? I'm in!
_________
#ProjectPope
#CliffordDSimak
CLIFFORD DONALD SIMAK (3 de agosto de 1904 - 25 de abril de 1988) #CliffordDSimak
Virgil Finlay illustration for “Jackpot” by Clifford D. Simak, from the October 1956 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. Also in this issue is the first part of “The Stars My Destination” by Alfred Bester.
#FinlayFriday #VirgilFinlay #CliffordDSimak #GalaxyScienceFiction #Aliens #Illustration #PenandInk #ScienceFiction #Fantasy #SF #SFF @sciencefiction @fantasy
“I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air”
What a great title. #SciFi #CliffordDSimak
CLIFFORD DONALD SIMAK (3 de agosto de 1904 - 25 de abril de 1988) #CliffordDSimak
