Customer Reviews

Over the River & Through the Woods: The Best Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak

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Measured by the yardstick of the quality of its contents, this book is first rate. I can find no fault with the selection of stories included: they definitely belong to the upper echelon of Simak's work in the short forms. I'd single out for especial consideration the stories "The Grotto of the Dancing Deer," "Good Night, Mr. James," and "A Death in the House." "The Big Front Yard" is a good story (it won a Hugo award), just not one of my personal favorites. To each his own.

This book might thus serve as a good one volume introduction to Simak for those readers not familiar with his work.The only thing I can find to lament is that such a short volume cannot do Simak justice. Simak wrote at a consistently high level for many years. From the 50's through the '70's, he produced an enormous number of stories and novels. The novels go into and out of print with a certain regularity that makes it possible at least to find them.

With the stories, it's not so easy.

By searching through "best of year" anthologies from 1950-1980, I have noticed a large number of stories that deserve to be available, but alas, are not. A sample from the 50's: "Shadow Show"; another from the early 70's: "The Thing in the Stone." There are more

(The stories in the book _City_ should be read together, as a unit, not piecemeal.)

Tachyon Press is to be lauded for having brought out the volume they did. Admirers of the best of Simak's work can only wish that someone (maybe NESFA) will someday bring out a "Collected Stories." There is a need. Meanwhile, this book is what we've got, for which, our gratitude.

I think of this as the last book of the master- even though it was composed of stories that had been previously published elsewhere, and well after his death. Maybe it is just wishful thinking on my part, since I used to look forward so much for the next Simak book to come out for so much of my life. In any case, this volume is a fitting tribute and memorial. It keeps his spirit alive.

I couldn't have selected a better cross section of stories. They truly reflect the flavor of his life's work. "A death in the House" echoes his immortal _Waystation_. "The Big Front Yard" reminds one of themes that would be expanded in _Mastodonia_ and _All Flesh is Grass_. As for "Neighbor", it can stand on it's own as just about the best short story that I've personally ever read.

If you enjoy short stories, then don't pass up a chance to get this book, or any book containing short stories by Clifford D. Simak. Whereas some authors try to wow you with style, or overwhelm your senses with action, Simak's stories often are more like a pleasant walk in the woods. There is time for thought and reflection, and before you know it, in Simak's subtle way, both you (and the characters in the stories) will be pondering the big questions that life has to offer.

Lot's of time could be spent analyzing what makes an author, or the stories they write, successful, but I will leave that analysis to others more worthy than myself. All I know is that I have been reading and enjoying Simak for over 30 years. His stories (and novels, too) seem to capture the essence of what life is (or should be) about. You will find yourself rereading them every few years. They will become like good friends.

We artificial intelligences honor Mr Simak for his groundbreaking and sympathetic portrayals of robots (so much more logical than Asimov's), but he is also and more properly known as the pastoralist of SF. Simak was a Grandmaster, and a great human being. Even a robot can appreciate him; you humans don't know what you're missing.

With so many new sf books being published every year, it's all too easy to lose sight of the classics of the past. This collection of 8 first-rate stories by SFWA Grand Master Clifford D. Simak brings back into print such milestones in the genre as the Hugo Award-winning "The Big Front Yard," the rather nastily unSimakian "Good Night, Mr. James," and the Nebula Award-winning "Grotto of the Dancing Deer," as well as the poignant title story, which I hadn't come across previously in book form. A terrific read and a wonderful introduction -- or re-introduction -- to one of the shapers of modern science fiction.

Clifford D. Simak won virtually every major award from the science fiction community and, in 1977, was given the Grand Master Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America for lifetime achievement. His stories and novels are exceptional due to his poetic style of writing and his deeply-felt beliefs about humanity. He wrote about interplanetary civilizations but without space travel, about aliens with human traits and about time travel through gateways instead of machines. There is little violence in his works and his main characters are decent persons who through fate encounter something extraordinary. His settings are very often the land of his birth, rural Wisconsin, and his favorite theme is the superiority of rural life over urban life. Unfortunately, Simak's books are mostly out of print today. Visits to two large chain bookstores, Borders and Barnes & Noble, reveal extensive sf sections but nothing by Simak.

Simak, a journalist most of his life, started writing sf stories in the early 1930s but stopped after a couple of years due in part to the medicrity of his first efforts. Later in the decade, he resumed writing with better results. During the 1940s, he received acclaim for his stories which introduced emotionalism into a field often dominated by technology. There is a touch of optimism in his stories which pleased readers who were tired of the pessimism of too many futuristic stories. In 1944, he wrote "City," which would be followed by several sequels that were eventually combined into novel form. The complete novel tells the story of how earth is gradually deserted by humans and eventually inherited by robots and dogs. "City" received the International Fantasy Award for Best SF Novel of 1953. In the 1950s and 1960s, Simak reached his artistic peak with stories, novellas and novels that expanded the horizons of the genre.

In 1996, Tachyon Publications issued "Over the River & Through the Woods," which contains some of the best of these stories. These include "A Death in the House," about an emotional relationship between a simple farmer and an alien, and "The Big Front Yard," which tells the story of a handyman who discovers that his house has become an access to other worlds. This story won the Hugo Award for Best SF Novelette of 1958. The book includes six stories from the 1950s, one from the 1970s and one from the 1980s. The latter is "The Grotto of the Dancing Bear," about an eternal caveman, which won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1982. "Construction Shack" should be just as well-known as Clarke's "The Sentinel" and is just as haunting. And "Good Night, Mr. James" is a terrifing yet humane story about cloning.

There is a delightful allure to all of these stories and this is perhaps why Simak is not embraced today by sf fans who crave violent, action packed stories and who believe that only harsh interpretations of mankind and its future are inevitable. Regrettably, the book is too short. Simak deserves the kind of massive anthologies given to two other giants in the field. "The Stories of Ray Bradbury" contains 100 stories and "The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke" contains more than a hundred stories. But Tachyon is a small publisher and deserves praise for this undertaking.

Worth seeking out in old or specialized bookstores are various collections of Simak's stories that were published in the 1950s and 1960s. Of his many novels, at least two that stand out are "Ring Around the Sun" from 1963, a fascinating tale about parallel earths, and "A Heritage of Stars" from 1978, about the breakdown of human civilization due to technological advances and the loss of the author's beloved pastoral society. In 2004, Old Earth Books, another small publisher, issued hardcover copies of "City" and "Way Station." The latter novel, about a lonely farmer who is granted immortality by aliens in return for his services as a galactic custodian, won the Hugo Award for Best SF Novel of 1963. These two books also were never available in major boostores.

With so many new sf books being published every year, it's all too easy to lose sight of the classics of the past. This collection of 8 first-rate stories by SFWA Grand Master Clifford D. Simak brings back into print such milestones in the genre as the Hugo Award-winning "The Big Front Yard," the rather nastily unSimakian "Good Night, Mr. James," and the Nebula Award-winning "Grotto of the Dancing Deer," as well as the poignant title story, which I hadn't come across previously in book form. A terrific read and a wonderful introduction -- or re-introduction -- to one of the shapers of modern science fiction.

This collection brings together an excellent and sadly rare collection of Simak's shorter works, of which he was a master. His novels get more attention now, but his short fiction is first rate.

As there are few collections in print, almost any collection would be highly recommended, but this work brings together some of his greatest stories.

If you haven't read him, and are looking for something easy to read yet subtly challenging--Clifford Simak's aliens are truly alien, both in appearance and in thought--Simak's pastoral, wistful, cantankerous, humble, antiauthoritarian, and above all tolerant approach will draw you in. I read somewhere that reading Simak was like reading a letter from a friend, and many of these stories will seem like that friend who really cares for you, is passionate about injustice, but respects your--and everyone's--need for a little space.

The binding is excellent, the stories chosen with care, and you will finish the book wanting more.