#clifforddsimak — Public Fediverse posts

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SPECIAL COLLECTORS EDITION of City by Clifford D. Simak

https://astralcomputing.com/books/city-simak-easton-press

or see the full collection here:

https://astralcomputing.com

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oggi, 15 luglio, alle ore 14 su radio onda rossa: sei racconti di clifford simak

Tutta Scena Teatro ★ Radio Onda Rossa 87.9 fm
oggi, martedì 15 luglio 2025, ore 14

● riduzione di
ANNI SENZA FINE (CITY)
6 racconti
di Clifford D. Simak

un progetto di lacasadargilla / Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli, Alice Palazzi, Maddalena Parise, con la collaborazione di Alessandro Ferroni, Tania Garribba, Fortunato Leccese, Diego Sepe, Roberta Zanardo

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

oggi, 15 luglio, alle ore 14 su radio onda rossa: sei racconti di clifford simak

Tutta Scena Teatro ★ Radio Onda Rossa 87.9 fm
oggi, martedì 15 luglio 2025, ore 14

● riduzione di
ANNI SENZA FINE (CITY)
6 racconti
di Clifford D. Simak

un progetto di lacasadargilla / Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli, Alice Palazzi, Maddalena Parise, con la collaborazione di Alessandro Ferroni, Tania Garribba, Fortunato Leccese, Diego Sepe, Roberta Zanardo

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

oggi, 15 luglio, alle ore 14 su radio onda rossa: sei racconti di clifford simak

Tutta Scena Teatro ★ Radio Onda Rossa 87.9 fm
oggi, martedì 15 luglio 2025, ore 14

● riduzione di
ANNI SENZA FINE (CITY)
6 racconti
di Clifford D. Simak

un progetto di lacasadargilla / Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli, Alice Palazzi, Maddalena Parise, con la collaborazione di Alessandro Ferroni, Tania Garribba, Fortunato Leccese, Diego Sepe, Roberta Zanardo

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

oggi, 15 luglio, alle ore 14 su radio onda rossa: sei racconti di clifford simak

Tutta Scena Teatro ★ Radio Onda Rossa 87.9 fm
oggi, martedì 15 luglio 2025, ore 14

● riduzione di
ANNI SENZA FINE (CITY)
6 racconti
di Clifford D. Simak

un progetto di lacasadargilla / Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli, Alice Palazzi, Maddalena Parise, con la collaborazione di Alessandro Ferroni, Tania Garribba, Fortunato Leccese, Diego Sepe, Roberta Zanardo

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!

• Don Sibley’s cover for Galaxy Science Fiction, ed. H. L. Gold (November 1950)

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

1. Brown adheres to the theory that the Moon is covered with deep dust. He claims that Hell Crater is a bit more solid than other points. Arthur C. Clarke’s A Fall of Moondust (1961) is another example. ↩︎
2. See Ch. 1 of K. A. Courdileone’s Manhood and American Political Culture in the Cold War (2005) for a discussion of Schlesinger. ↩︎

For book reviews consult the INDEX

For cover art posts consult the INDEX

For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX

Exploration Log 9: Three More Interviews with Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988)

• Graphic created by my father

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

• Jim Odbert’s cover for Rune #43 (May 1975)

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.

• Ed Valigursky’s cover for the 1958 edition of Clifford D. Simak’s City (1952)

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.

• Kathy Marschall’s cover for Lan’s Lantern #11 (July 1981)

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.

For book reviews consult the INDEX

For cover art posts consult the INDEX

For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX

#1970s #1980s #bookReviews #CliffordDSimak #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology

Exploration Log 6: Clifford D. Simak’s 1971 Worldcon Guest of Honor Speech

• Graphic created by my father

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!

• Jay Kay Klein’s photograph of Robert Silverberg, Clifford D. Simak, and Isaac Asimov at the 1971 Worldcon

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 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

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

Where we all are?
@bookstodon #Books #CliffordDSimak #Mastodon #SienceFiction

#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.

#ScienceFiction #SF #XMinusOne #CliffordDSimak #Simak

Resale shop find. I don't know much about this book or the author but a robot pope? I'm in!
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#ProjectPope
#CliffordDSimak