Bibliography: Clifford D. Simak

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This continues the bibliography (checklist) series with Simak and his printed English-language books. The "Main" "Works Published in Simak's Lifetime" is the very concise core that should suffice for most (though the "Other" works in that section and the Open Road posthumous works are also significant) and the rest covers everything else, trying to balance concision and comprehensiveness in a reasonably short page.

The format is '_Title_ (Data)' where the data includes year of first book publication (with--for initial publications in the first section only--a month if known), date of first magazine publication (if any, with the format 'Year-Month+Number of issues (if more than one)~Rate of issues (if the issues are other than monthly)'), variant titles (if any), and occasional other notes. (Longer notes are indicated by asterisks (*) at the end of each item and are found at the end under the abbreviated titles.) Editions are US unless otherwise noted. Abbreviations used are general such as 'U'nited 'K'ingdom, 'c'irca, 'et c'etera, or are mostly the same as for all these checklists: 'P'aper'B'ack, 'T'rade 'P'aper, 'H'ard'C'over, 'NO'vel, 'N'ovell'A', 'N'ovelett'E', 'S'hort 'S'tory, 'exp'anded, 'mag'azine, 'rest'ored, 'rev'ised, and 'v'ariant 't'itle. There are also a few abbreviations specific to this checklist which are for Simak's three major collections of independent stories: _'Strangers' in the Universe_, _The 'Worlds' of Clifford Simak_ (never to the other two with "Worlds" in the titles), and _All the 'Traps' of Earth_. In one subsection, I also refer to its books by the last part of their dates. And, as always, I'm especially indebted to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database[1] and the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction[2] and welcome corrections.

Works Published in Simak's Lifetime

Main

All the titles in this subsection are novels except for five collections marked [C], one connected collection marked [CC], and one novella marked [NA].

Simak's long career had many segments. He published five stories in 1931-32 and one more in 1935 but his main career runs from 1938 until 1986 and that stretch perhaps most significantly divides in two at 1966 where he published no short fiction from 1966-68 while publishing three novels. In the first period of 28 years, he wrote something like 106 stories and 8 novels while, in the second of 20, he wrote 20 stories and 18 novels.

Phase I

Phase II

Other (Derivative/UK-only/Pamphlet)

Posthumous Works

Until the final subsection, all the below are collections except for one omnibus marked [O]. While the books in the first subsection made a substantial contribution at the time in their place, none of the rest did much until the group of collections from Open Road.

1986-97: Severn House/Methuen/Mandarin Group

Simak lived to 1988 and this UK-only group includes two volumes just prior to that but the bulk of them came out after that and they belong together. (The final one also came out one year before the book in the next subsection but is grouped here for the same reason.) They are all edited and introduced by Francis Lyall and were published in HC except 90-91 and all those by Severn House except 88 by Methuen. They were published in PB by Methuen/Mandarin (sometimes using only one or the other of the names) except 93 and 97. (Severn House also published 93 in TP.) They all contain 4-7 stories except 93 (9) and are 190pp or less except 88 (223), 93 (278), and 97 (250). The contents are generally collected for the first time but each reprints a story from Simak's major antemortem US collections except 86a (0), 90 (2), and 91/93 (3). These reprint 5 of 11 from _Strangers_, 5 of 12 from _Worlds_, and just 1 of 9 from _Traps_.

1996: Tachyon Derivative

This limited-edition HC (though there was an SFBC version, too) reprints four longer stories (3 from _Worlds_, 1 from _Traps_) and adds four shorter ones.

2005-06: Darkside Press's _Collected Stories_

The limited-edition HC volumes from this obviously abandoned series collect only twenty-four stories.

2010: Wildside Press Volume

This is a TP of four public domain stories.

2013: A Gollancz _SF Gateway Omnibus_

A TP which reprints three unrelated novels.

2015-23: Open Road's _The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak_

These TPs aren't completely complete but do collect essentially all the stories.

Other (Short Fiction Singles)

Other than _The Creator_ and _The Trouble with Tycho_ (discussed above), there were no books of single short Simak fictions until 2007 when the internet and the lapse of some copyrights led to a flood of trivia. Of the dozens of freely available digital tales, some of which were senselessly sold for a buck or more, some also made it into print to be sold with little more reason and for a lot more money. All of those are listed below and are available in _The Complete Short Fiction_. Some of the other places they can be found are also noted below.

Somewhat more impressively, Armchair Fiction has its version of a Double line and has released three more Simak stories bound with works by others.

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Notes

Empire

_Empire_ should arguably be listed in the "Other" section as it was actually written by John W. Campbell, Jr. c.1930 and then rewritten at Campbell's request by Simak c.1940. Neither liked it and it went in the trunk until the editor of _Galaxy_ urgently needed material for his new line of Galaxy Science Fiction Novels, so was finally published. As this was in digest magazine format it never actually appeared in book form in Simak's lifetime. (It was never reprinted until 2009 when someone realized it was in the public domain and it's been reprinted digitally and physically many times since. The unrelated Simak NE "Hellhounds of the Cosmos" was in the same situation from 1932 to 2008. They appeared together in the TP _Empire: With Hellhounds of the Cosmos!_ (2010). Another TP, _The Country Beyond the Curve / Empire_ (2015), attaches Walt Sheldon's 1950 NA "The Country Beyond the Curve" to the Simak novel.)

City

Unusually for such bonus text, most (something like five of nine) editions of _City_ published since the 1981 expansion stick with the original eight-story version rather than reprinting the nine-story Ace text.

Ring

After being published in HC, the first paperback appearance of _Ring Around the Sun_ was in an Ace Double with L. Sprague de Camp's _Cosmic Manhunt_. All other editions are individual publications.

Strangers

The only complete editions of _Strangers in the Universe_ are the US HCs. The US PBs and all UK editions include 7 of the 11 stories, having 4 in common and 3 unique to each, thus leaving one ("Contraption") unavailable in either.

Worlds

The only complete editions of _The Worlds of Clifford Simak_ are the US HCs, though the US split PBs contain all 12 stories between them. The UK vt _Aliens for Neighbours_ contains 9 stories in HC and 6 in PB.

Tycho

_The Trouble with Tycho_ originally appeared as an Ace Double with A. Bertram Chandler's _Bring Back Yesterday_ before being printed separately in 1976. This could also be considered an "Other" book except that it is not too far removed from novel-length and has been published in mass-market paperbacks.

Traps

US PBs of _All the Traps of Earth_ had six of the nine stories until the Avon editions beginning in 1979 restored the three cut stories. The UK editions are split into a book with the original title containing four stories and _The Night of the Puudly_ (which retitles "Good Night, Mr. James" and uses it as the title story) containing the other five.

Vision

_So Bright the Vision_ is a four-story collection originally published with Jeff Sutton's _The Man Who Saw Tomorrow_ before being printed separately in 1976.

Changes

Links

[A]: ISFDB
[B]: SFE
[C]: SFFChronicles

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Page created: 2023-08-15
Last changed: 2024-10-12
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