SIMAK, Clifford D(onald)

(1904-1988)

   US writer whose primary occupation 1929-76 was newspaper work, and who became a full-time writer of sf only after his retirement. He was, however, a prolific and increasingly popular sf figure - after afalse start in 1931 - from the true beginning of his career in 1938. His first published stories, beginning with "The World of the Red Sun" for Wonder Stories in 1931, were unremarkable, though significantly that firsttale deals with TIME TRAVEL, which became his favourite sf device for the importation of ALIENS into rural Wisconsin, always his favourite venue. Apart from 1 novelette, The Creator (1935 Marvel Tales; 1946 chap), hepublished no sf 1932-8; then, inspired by John W. CAMPBELL Jr's editorial policy at ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION, he began to produce such stories as "Rule 18" and "Reunion on Ganymede" (both 1938). He swiftly followed withhis first full-length novel, Cosmic Engineers (1939 ASF; rev 1950), a Galaxy-spanning epic in the vein of E.E. SMITH and Edmond HAMILTON. Hecontinued to write steadily for Campbell, and his work gradually became identifiably Simakian - constrained, nostalgic, intensely emotional beneath a calmly competent generic surface. Stories like "Rim of the Deep" (1940), "Tools" (1942) and "Hunch" (1943) were signs of this development,though the full CDS did not "arrive" until the appearance of "City" and its sequel, "Huddling Place" (both 1944). These tales concerned the NEAR FUTURE exodus of mankind from the CITIES and the return to a PASTORALexistence aided by a benign technology. As the series progresses, the planet is abandoned by all humans except the reclusive Websters; and Jenkins, an excellently depicted ROBOT, is left to monitor the forcedEVOLUTION of intelligent dogs, who are destined to inherit the Earth. As CITY (fixup 1952; exp 1981) the sequence won an INTERNATIONAL FANTASY AWARD. It remains CDS's best known work.In 1950 he found another market in the new magazine GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION, which serialized his novel Time and Again (1951; vt First He Died 1953). A trickily plotted time-travel story, it proved to be very popular - though ominously prefiguring some of his over-plotted works of the late 1970s. Also of strong interest is Ring Around the Sun (1953), which involves the discovery of a chain of PARALLELWORLDS and the machinations of a secret society of mutants who are plotting to subvert the world's economy by producing everlasting goods. Its anti-urban and pro-agrarian sentiments were by now a standard part ofCDS's work; in stories like "Neighbors" (1954) he became sf's leading spokesman for rural, Midwestern values. His stories in general contain little violence and much folk humour, and stress the value of individualism tempered by compassion - "good neighbourliness", in short. Throughout the 1950s, he produced dozens of competent short stories, manyassembled in Strangers in the Universe (coll 1956; with 4 stories cut 1957; with 4 different stories cut 1958 UK), The Worlds of Clifford Simak(coll 1960; with 6 stories cut 1961; with 3 stories cut, vt Aliens for Neighbours 1961 UK; text restored in 2 vols, vt The Worlds of Clifford Simak 1961 US and Other Worlds of Clifford Simak 1962 US) and All the Traps of Earth (coll 1962; with 3 stories cut 1963; text restored in 2 vols, vt All the Traps of Earth 1964 UK and The Night of the Puudly 1964 UK). Two highpoints were the stories "The Big Front Yard" (1958), whichwon a 1959 HUGO, and "A Death in the House" (1959). Many of these tales appear in the retrospective Skirmish: The Great Short Fiction (coll 1977). After 1960 CDS began to produce novels at the rate of roughly one a year.Time is the Simplest Thing (1961) and They Walked Like Men (1962) are workmanlike and entertaining, but WAY STATION (1963), which won the 1964 Hugo, more impressively concerns a lonely farmer given IMMORTALITY inreturn for his services as a galactic station-master, his house having been made into a way-station for aliens who teleport from star to star. Its warmth, imaginative detail and finely rendered bucolic scenes makethis probably CDS's best novel. All Flesh is Grass (1965), Why Call them Back from Heaven? (1967) and The Werewolf Principle (1967) are enjoyable,if essentially repetitive. The Goblin Reservation (1968) seemed at first glance to be innovative, striking out into new territory; but in fact it turned out to be the old Wisconsin-valley fantasy in a new and whimsical guise. CDS had always wrestled with such whimsy - notoriously paired with nostalgia in many authors - and by the start of the 1970s whimsy seemed to be winning. Its triumph may have derived from the fact that the venues for which CDS felt genuine emotion were now 40 years gone, and the world had irrevocably repudiated and scummed over the rural simplicities dear to his heart; however, this cannot excuse his sentimental sidestepping of change. Novels like Destiny Doll (1971), Cemetery World (cut 1973; text restored1983), Enchanted Pilgrimage (1975), Shakespeare's Planet (1976), Mastodonia (1978; vt Catface 1978 UK), Special Deliverance (1982), Where the Evil Dwells (1982) and Highway of Eternity (1986; vt Highway to Eternity 1987 UK), his last novel, contain only flashes of the old talent,mingled with a good deal of sheer silliness. There were exceptions. A Choice of Gods (1972) is an elegiac tale in which CDS reiterated theplainsong of his favourite themes: the depopulated world, the sage old man, the liberated robots, the "haunted" house, teleporting to the stars, etc. A Heritage of Stars (1977), a quest novel set in a post-technological society, is another compendium of CDS's old material. Though he seemed generally to need the relative discipline of sf to achieve his best effects, The Fellowship of the Talisman (1978) is an effective FANTASY. The Visitors (1980), in which aliens once again visit Earth bearingenigmatic gifts, may be his finest late novel, for a vein of irony is allowed some play. The strengths of Project Pope (1981), about the devising of an AI to serve as the ultimate pope, are somewhat vitiated by CDS's visible reluctance to understand COMPUTERS.CDS's late short storiesare less mixed, and the tales assembled in The Marathon Photograph and Other Stories (coll 1986 UK), including the Hugo- and Nebula-winning"Grotto of the Dancing Deer" (1980), retain all the skill and much of the emotional saliency of his prime. He was a man of strong moral convictions and little real concern for ideas, and surprisingly for a man of such professional attainments he rarely tended to stray outside his natural bailiwick. Wisconsin in about 1925 - or any extraterrestrial venue demonstrating the same rooted virtues - was that true home, and when he was in residence CDS reigned as the pastoral king of his genre. He received the NEBULA Grand Master Award in 1977.

DP/JC

   Other works: Empire (1951); The Trouble with Tycho (1961 chap dos); Worlds without End (coll 1964); Best Science Fiction Stories of Clifford Simak (coll 1967 UK); So Bright the Vision (coll 1968 dos); Out of their Minds (1969); Our Children's Children (1974); The Best of Clifford D. Simak (coll 1975 UK); 4 collections ed Francis Lyall, being Brother and Other Stories (coll 1986 UK), Off-Planet (coll 1988 UK), The Autumn Land and Other Stories (coll 1990 UK) and Immigrant and Other Stories (coll 1991 UK); The Creator and Other Stories (coll 1993 UK), the title story being the same text as the 1946 pamphlet.As Editor: Nebula Award Stories 6 (anth 1971); The Best of Astounding (anth 1978).

   About the author: "Clifford D. Simak" by Sam MOSKOWITZ, in Seekers of Tomorrow (1966); Clifford D. Simak: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1949) by Muriel R. Becker.

   See also: ANDROIDS; ARTS; ASTEROIDS; COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; COMMUNICATIONS; CRYONICS; DIMENSIONS; ECOLOGY; ECONOMICS; ESCHATOLOGY; ESP; GALACTIC EMPIRES; GAMES AND SPORTS; GENERATION STARSHIPS; GODS AND DEMONS; GOLDEN AGE OF SF; JUPITER; LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS; LONGEVITY (IN WRITERS AND PUBLICATIONS); MACHINES; MARS; MATTER TRANSMISSION; MERCURY; MESSIAHS; MONEY; MOON; MYTHOLOGY; OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM; OUTER PLANETS; PARALLEL WORLDS; PARASITISM AND SYMBIOSIS; POLLUTION; RELIGION; SOCIOLOGY; SPACE OPERA; SPACESHIPS; SUN; SUPERNATURAL CREATURES; VENUS.