A Rediscovery of Clifford D. Simak - A Reading Challenge

[Bick]

Does anyone know -- is it pronounced "SYE=mak" or "SEE-mak" -- or "Simmak"?

Cripes, no I don't. In my head its always been "Sim-ak", so I hope that's right.

 

[Bick]

This bibliography site is excellent, by the way.

 

[Rafellin]

Like many 'classic' authors of his era, I found that his work did nothing for me.

With one colossal exception:

City

It is, for me, one of the finest books I have ever read. It takes a lot to make a short story stick in my head for three decades, to the point that I had forgotten it's title and where it came from; until a wandering curiosity made me acquire a copy of City once again, and - to my delight - in addition to the broad tale I remembered, my 'haunting tale' was also in here, fitted perfectly in the obverse side of the broad tale that had entirely slipped my mind.

 

[hitmouse]

That bibliography site is interesting. 119 editions of City, and the variety of covers is intriguing. The first one is the copy I own:

 

[Bick]

This is the version I have (and which I am currently reading):

It doesn't really suit the City tales, does it? I'm interested to see that there's a translated version among those you posted hitmouse that has nicked the excellent Michael Whelan cover for Niven's 'Destiny's Road'!

 

[J-Sun]

Does anyone know -- is it pronounced "SYE=mak" or "SEE-mak" -- or "Simmak"?

I've always said long-I "SYEmak". According to an audio file of one of his works I just downloaded, that's correct, which is unusual for me.

Here are all that I currently own:

 

[dask]

Cripes, no I don't. In my head its always been "Sim-ak", so I hope that's right.

That's the way I've always said it.

 

[Rafellin]

A quick note regarding copies of City. The final tale Epilog was not written until 1973; 21 years after.

Copies of City from around 1980 onwards usually include it.

 

[Extollager]

Yesterday I reread Simak's "The Big Front Yard." It struck me that it could be regarded as a warm-hearted and funny variation on a Lovecraftian theme. Without warning, extraterrestrials subject humans to perplexing phenomena, establishing a base on our world for purposes that are (at first) inscrutable. A principal character is a rural man whose dog reacts to the unseen presence of the invaders. His house, which has been in the family for many years, ceases to be the familiar and beloved dwelling-place he's known and is (like Lovecraft's "Witch-House") now a place where the dimensions of time and space do not follow the forms of human rationality. Bizarre creatures appear. The protagonist is drawn into another, weird world. Mental contact by means of telepathy (compare "The Shadow Out of Time") occurs. And so on.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I've always said long-I "SYEmak". According to an audio file of one of his works I just downloaded, that's correct, which is unusual for me.

Oh, dear. All those years down the drain. Clearly my mother led me astray, as we've always pronounced it "See-mak". I'll undoubtedly continue to do so, as old habits are hard to break.

I've never seen any of the covers posted by hitmouse, but I have several of J-Sun's.

 

[Extollager]

....we've always pronounced it "See-mak". ....

So each of the three pronunciations has adherents.

Surely somebody here at Chrons knows somebody who knew Simak, or has been to a con where a speaker pronounced his name -- presumably correctly.

My guess is it's "see-mak," but that's a guess.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Could even be She-Mak, Shim-ak, Smack ... Some languages S is always Sh and others Se

 

[Bick]

Book 2: City - Novel, 1952 (fix-up from stories written 1944-1951)

City is recognised as classic SF: it's in the SF Masterworks series and generally considered to be among Simak's finest earlier works. I enjoyed it for a host of reasons, and on the whole I'd say it was very good, though it fell a little short of expectations perhaps. But, this may be because expectations are so high with this novel.

As a 'fix-up' novel, it derives from 8 short stories Simak published between 1944 and 1951. These are connected throughout not by a single individual, but across 11,000 years through one family (the Websters) and their robot. The earlier stories stand up very well as shorts in their own right. Indeed, "The Huddling Place" is a classic and one I've read a few times. As the book progresses, the stories increasingly rely on the reader having read the previous 'tales' and the sense of a continuous novel becomes stronger. Simak also did a clever thing to glue the stories together: he interspersed 'notes' to each tale as if written by the dogs who now rule Earth (and who can barely remember man). It is in these notes that a lot of my pleasure in the book came. These give Simak the opportunity to present his thoughts and ideas in a direct manner and he clearly enjoys the opportunity. From one 'note' for example came the following, that I just love:

"Throughout the tales it becomes clear than Man was running a race, if not with himself, then with some imagined follower who pressed close upon his heels, breathing on his back. Man has engaged in a mad scramble for power and knowledge, but nowhere is there any hint of what he meant to do with it once he had attained it."​

The collected short story structure also allows Simak to show us the long history of the downfall of humans across centuries in a relatively short novel. With such a grand story arc, one gets a good sense of the passage of time and this helps to impart the sense of loss when the humans move on or die out. So, on the plus side, this book is written very well, it presents some great ideas, and has pithy nuggets of wisdom to think about throughout. However, there is one aspect of the book I struggled with slightly and that is the degree of disbelief I was asked to suspend as a reader. The "uplift" (my term) of dogs and other animals, even ants, stretched credibility for me. Likewise the happenings on Jupiter seemed a bit unlikely. I have to remind myself though - Simak came from a generation before the golden age (and this is from the golden age), in which anything was possible, and 'hard' SF as a concept had not formed. To Simak, SF is a literature of ideas, of strange and fantastic futures, and not constrained by what might actually be possible. He writes of the future, but with one foot in fantasy, perhaps. I just need to readjust my SF barometer slightly to accept intelligent ants and dogs chatting to wolves. So, if you can leave your 'hard SF' goggles off, and just come along for the ride, I think this is an excellent book, full of ideas and it will stay with me for a long time, I'm sure. If you want to just dip in and read one or two tales, I'd recommend "The Huddling Place" and then perhaps the short tale "Desertion" as being the best of the bunch.

Next up, Book 3 in the challenge for me: Shakespeare's Planet (which I'm already enjoying hugely).

 

[Extollager]

May I say -- I think that is a fine example of how to write a medium-length book review, Bick.

 

[Bick]

Many thanks, Extollager, that's kind of you to say so. I think it garners quite varied opinions so I'd be interested to see if there are others views of it.

 

[J-Sun]

You are fast - I'm still creeping along at p.72 of the same Simak.

The collected short story structure also allows Simak to show us the long history of the downfall of humans across centuries in a relatively short novel.

This is a big part of why it may well be my favorite form - great scope in concise structure.

However, there is one aspect of the book I struggled with slightly and that is the degree of disbelief I was asked to suspend as a reader.

I think that was one of the major stumbling blocks for me. There's a variety of "science fantasy", though - it's easier to suspend disbelief about FTL spaceships and such because it's seemingly just an extension of things from a naive point of view and, by golly, you ought to be able to have them. Uplifted ants, not so much - counter-intuitive not-especially desirable or logically extended things make much greater demands.

I have to remind myself though - Simak came from a generation before the golden age (and this is from the golden age), in which anything was possible, and 'hard' SF as a concept had not formed. To Simak, SF is a literature of ideas, of strange and fantastic futures, and not constrained by what might actually be possible. He writes of the future, but with one foot in fantasy, perhaps.

I wouldn't agree with the "no 'hard sf' concept" - not a defined term, but a concept. Gernsback's late 20s "scientifiction" was loudly trumpeted as real science in the fiction and it was post-Gernsback 30s Amazing and 30s Astounding that became bems-and-blasters adventure fiction and, still, much of it was criticized for not being real SF. But I agree that 'hard sf' was more principle than practice and that Simak is more like Bradbury than Clement (very much like Bradbury, actually). And I agree that what was widely known or considered to be scientifically possible was much looser and you could get away with absolutely wild things earlier.

I think that is a fine example of how to write a medium-length book review, Bick

*nods in unison*

 

[Ray McCarthy]

An off topic aside inspired J-sun:

The amount of belief I can muster in the unlikely is possibly proportional to how good the story is. Conversely, total realism won't save a rubbish story.
In a related idea, if the story is compelling and voice acting is good then animation quality can be Captain Pugwash or Flintstones. Top of the range Disney / Don Bluth or Pixar animation and CGI is not really that important and won't save a trivial story (e.g. Thumbalina?). My son was at a media lecture and he was astounded by the lecturer claiming the media was more important than content. Is that why BBC, RTE and others are wasting so much money on Web services, digital initiatives, 'Apps', promotion of DAB, Twitter, Facebook etc rather than making actual programs?

 

[Vince W]

I've downloaded Empire from Gutenberg and have been rapidly reading that. I must say Simak's vivid economy of words is something that is sorely needed these days.

One of the most interesting things, I think, isn't what sort of new science or technology Simak created, but rather the mundane things he left in.

Spoiler

One prime example is that Page has a toothache and instead of some miracle cure Simak has him head to a dentist to have the tooth pulled. It's interesting to see the way Simak saw the future progressing. Two hundred years from now we have colonised the solar system, but we can't save a man's tooth.

 

[hitmouse]

Next up, Book 3 in the challenge for me: Shakespeare's Planet (which I'm already enjoying hugely).

My copy of Shakespear's Planet:

Curiously awful cover. Terrific book, though. Have read it several times.

 

[Extollager]

I must say Simak's vivid economy of words is something that is sorely needed these days.

I'll be enjoying that quality again when I pick up one of his books soon. I've said critical things about the word-processor-spawned* copiousness in comments here. It really puts me off when I see some 600-page new sf novel being advertised -- and as "second in the XYZ trilogy!!" to boot. As they used to say in MAD magazine:


*As I suspect -- combined with slack editing or even editing that encourages verbose writing.