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I've vowed to try out a new author each month this year, to find a few more names to draw from when I'm looking.
This month's try was Clifford D Simak. Just before I'd gone to the library, I'd read a Tom Easton review of Project Pope in an old Analog that was pretty favorable, and that book sounded intriguing.
Though I now know I should probably have grabbed Way Station, what I ended up getting was Special Deliverance.
Without resorting to the hyperbole I'm currently feeling (the most pointless, stale book I've ever read!), I'll just say it wasn't my cup of tea.
For those of you who are more familiar with his work, does that mean I should give him a pass, or was that book an anomoly? I did a search, and at least one Hatracker has read his complete works, so I'm interested in hearing some opinions.
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Clifford D Simak is No. 2 on my favorite authors list - (You Know Who is No. 1.)
I'm not surprised you didn't like Special Deliverance - his novelettes usually aren't that good (exeptions being The Trouble with Tycho and The Big Front Yard - which won a Hugo, I think.), and he really shines when he writes about human/alien or human/robot relations. Unlike most scifi authors of the time, almost all of his works deal with how man could interact with the Other peacably and with mutual understanding.
So: What you should have read was Way Station, then Project Pope, then the City collection, 'cos it's a ton of fun, then... Oh, I don't know, Highway of Eternity or Enchanted Pilgramage (sp?). I've got maybe a dozen of his novels, and I love them all... but Way Station, Project Pope, Big Front Yard, and City are the ones I'd recomend starting out with.
*sigh* I love Clifford D Simak... I'm such a huge fanboy... I could go on for hours...
Posts: 353 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I just read a great short story by him. What I've found (and I'm not an expert, he's one of those authors that I pick up every once in a while) is that he writes really good short stories and not so good novels. I've never actually completed one of his novels, though, although I've started to read several, which is evidence all by itself, I think.
I love his short stories in anthologies, I just read a great one, Immigrant, in a lovely little anthology that pretends to be trash, but is actually quite good, called "Galactic Empires." However, the few times I've checked out short story compilations of Simak's work I haven't been nearly as enthralled. I think he's one of those authors that you have to put time inbetween reading.
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"City" is still one of the best science fiction books I've ever read (and I read it for the first time 30 years ago). That was a good year book-wise for me: I discovered "A Canticle for Leibowitz" (different author) that same year as well.
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One of my favorite science fiction novels is Way Station . I am old enough that I should have read it when it first came out, but somehow I missed it. Many years later I picked up an old paperback copy and discovered a favorite.
He is sometimes noted as a writer of "pastoral" science fiction. Is this because of the settings he uses, or is it his style?
Posts: 440 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I've read some good Simak, but I got off on the wrong foot with him. The first Simak I read was a paperback I picked up on the $1 table at a bargain store. It was called The Fellowship of the Talisman, and boy did it stink. I mean seriously. It started my first period of disillusionment with Fantasy when I was in high school.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Yep. Simak either writes really good, or he writes stinkeroos. And I can't think of anything in between. Try City , Way Station , All the Blades of Grass , and Why Call Them Back from Heaven
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Simak's work is often called "Pastoral" sci-fi for a couple of reasons, as near as I can figure:
1) In many of his stories, a lot of the action takes place in "pastoral" setting - wooded areas, farmland, etc... he tends to shy away from future urban landscapes, unlike most sci-fi authors of his era. All of his works show a real love for landscape - whether it be on the moon or in upstate Minnesota(sp!). He often shows an almost spiritual understanding of nature. (Just read any pre-1980 short-story colection with one of his works and compare - he's kind of a maverick.)
2) Most of the conflict in his works arise from a)inter-species misunderstanding or b)human foibles (with the occasional rouge alien) - there are rarely any hard-core villians in his work - and when he has them, they're hardly developed as charachters. His works are very peaceful, especially compared to other authors of the time.
The guy was newspaper editor before he was famous as a sci-fi author (unlike most sci-fi authors, who were involved in some sort of science or science education), and I think he used some of his journalism skills in his story telling - specifically his ability to portray the "human touch" to the reader - to make his work seem... well, less like science fiction, and more like simple story-telling, with some aliens and robots thrown in the mix.
(BTW, I am totally partial to Simak's robots as compared to Asimov's - Asimov was a genius, and his positronic brains and Three-pluz-Zero laws are incredible (and surprisingly practical, in some ways), but Simak has usually delt with robots as an offshoot of man, dealing with robot dreams and emotions - very idealized, I know, but you can't tell me that you prefer any of the Asimov robots to City's Jenkins. He's... human-ish. Not realistic, I know, but kind of like an old friend.)
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blacwolve, you should try City out. It works like a collection of short stories.
I sometimes think he's written the same novel over and over. A group of people who don't know each other (including at least one woman and nonhuman) end up travelling together in search of something and find something else entirely. Special Deliverance is one of those, along with A Heritage of Stars, and Enchanted Pilgrimage. In some ways, so is Project Pope, though it's not as tightly tied to the format. He also has the aliens show up on earth with seemingly helpful technology, but at the end we find out they're trying to take over. All Flesh is Grass and The Visitors fall into that catagory, and They Walked Like Men is sort of a sequal to that type of story.
I have an odd love of Simak that I can't really describe. Special Deliverance is probably my favorite of his to reread, though Way Station and City are obviously of superior quality. It's comfort food. Sorry you didn't like it, but you should give one of his others a try.
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When he was old, he wrote some YA novels that weren't his best work. I don't think his heart was in it.
But his earlier work includes some of the finest stories of my youth. Way Station, The City and the Stars, Why Call Them Back from Heaven; "The Big Front Yard"? Isn't that silly - I remembered it as the big BACK yard, probably because of the kidzine ...
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It is so sad to see a once great author continuing to write when his heart is no longer in it, isn't it?
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Yah, you're right Cow-Eater, some of his works (esp. Enchanted Pilgimmage(sp!) and a Hetirage of Stars) are pretty forumlaic - I still love 'em, though.
OSC - How did Simak set you dreaming? What aspect of his writing got the cogs turning?
screechowl - I've never read Mastidonia, but heard a bit about it - any good?
Mastodonia is about a guy who finds a gateway to the Pleistocene (sp?) era. Actually, his dog puts him on to it first. Then, he finds his secret getting away from him.
It is definitely one of the pastoral novels with a simple, down to earth type of protagonist who finds himself up to his eyes in a unique situation.
I think you can get it at Amazon.
Posts: 440 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I was actually disappointed by City, because of the dog civilization. The sentient dogs weren't the slightest bit "doggy"; they were simply idealized humans. Where was the scent communication? Where was the pack hierarchy? Where was the language of body posture? Some traces of these would surely remain, much as humans have retained traces of their ancestry from earlier primates.
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Cow- I'll try out City and a couple of the others shown here. I'm sort of craving Simak right now, so this was a great time for this thread to surface. Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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Anyone read both Mastodonia and Steven Gould's Wildside? I thought that I'd read most of Simak's stuff, but apparently I missed Mastodonia, and while I'm aware of Gould's novel I haven't read it either. The plots (or at least the premises) sound pretty similar though.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Hey, I got a chance to check out your blog entry today.
quote: The story is structured as a puzzle--Who brought this strange assembly to this world, and how can they get off?--but the solution to the puzzle is ridiculous and simple. In the end, the book ends up feeling like a strange mix of red herrings, pointless wandering, and--what I think is the real point of the book--thinly veiled allegory.
This is obviously Simak's Pilgrim's Progress, with his professor and engineer--the ones embodying Simak's ideal "virtues"--getting to stare down their noses at the antics and blunders of those around them.
And because the book fails as fiction, I think it also fails as polemic. Because the "solution" to the puzzle does not end up requiring much wit, a book that wants to be a tract for the virtue of knowledge feels more like a finger-pointed accusation that those without formal education lack common sense.
I didn't get the sense that the engineer was staring down her nose at the other characters. She just thought that satisfying her own desire was more important than the group's survival. As did most characters, if I recall correctly. The solution was only found by her because she believed it to be there as irrationally as the artist believed it to be in that singing thing. Also, the prof points out the silliness of the puzzle's simple solution and that there isn't value inherent to it's solution so much as luck. Especially for him. Or is blindly following love common sense? He just got lucky in that she was his desire, and in pursueing, followed her right into winning.
It is the aliens that call the other humans fools, not the two people. Even in solving the puzzle, they're still stuck. They aren't given the option of going home.
Maybe that's what I like so much about it, though. That "value" is absurd. That even the supposedly most intelligent beings in the universe have fairly arbitrary standards of worth.
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