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Clifford D. Simak

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Clifford D. Simak

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Titles to Look Out For:
1935. The Creator
1976. Shakespeare's Planet

1977. A Heritage of Stars
1978. The Fellowship of the Talisman
1978. Catface
1981. Project Pope
1980. The Visitors

About the Author:
Clifford D. Simak was born and raised in South-Western Wisconsin, a land of wooded hills and deep ravines which he often used as the locale for his stories. Up to the publication of The Fellowship of the Talisman his first true fantasy book, he had written more than 25 books, with something more than 200 short stories to his name.
In 1977, Simak was awarded the Nebula Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. Some critics named him the pastoralist of science fiction

Clifford D. Simak at Amazon:

Simak, Clifford D. 'The Creator', published in 1946 in the United States by Crawford Production
1946, A Crawford Production
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  • The Creator [top]
    First published in 'Marvel Tales', March-April 1935
    Reprinted in 1946 in the United States by Crawford Production
    Reprinted in 2006 in Great Britain in paperback in 'The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction', edited by Mike Ashley, ISBN 9781845293079

    Background to the story: In the early 1930s, the genre of the science-fiction magazine was still a new creation and was finding it's feet, becoming a little uncontrollable in parts and sometimes lapsing into wild-west adventures in space. Clifford Crawford decided to do something about it and started his own magazine, 'Marvel Tales', copies of which still come up for sale even now. He wanted original and cutting edge stories and Clifford D. Simak's story of 'The Creator' was published for the first time in this magazine, Volume 1: 4, March - April, 1935

About this story: Features Scott Marston and Peter Sands both of whom were students of college in California, who became friends, roomed together and realised that their separate interests in science and psychology could be powerfully brought together to create a machine that would take them into a world that Pete had previously only seen in his dreams.

Both Pete and Scott had narrowed down their fields of interest into the study of time (Scott) and consciousness (Pete); with Pete naming his new theory the "consciousness unit" theory. Pete's idea was that when we dream, it is a person's second self setting forth (one's consciousness) upon an adventure and travel. The important point here is that Pete believed that the adventure and travel were completely real and not just a dream.

Scott, in parallel, meanwhile was reaching some astonishing conclusions in his research on time, discovering that there was a time force, equivalent to a fourth dimensional force and with the help of Pete, built a machine that harvested this very time energy force and which sat humming with the potency of it on their work table. Early experiments with the machine proved that when live plants were placed within it, they would disappear, leaving the pot and soil behind. So the machine was proved to be able to move or displace living beings or entities.

When Scott was left some money in a will by a deceased relative, both him and Pete gave up their teaching jobs to concentrate on their respective interests; and Scott built a much larger time-powered machine. When Pete started having dreams about walking around in a huge laboratory (details of which suggested it was not dreamed, but real) and told Scott about them, the two boffins decided to see if Scott's machine could turn their minds and bodies into the consciousness units that Pete believed existed, so the two of them could travel to distant times and spaces to explore and find adventure. But what was the laboratory that Pete kept dreaming about? And how was it possible that Scott could now walk round in the exact same laboratory? Finally, the day arrived whey they were both ready to take the trip together; both clambered into the machine and shut the door, travelling to the laboratory both had now seen so often

Arriving at the laboratory, they congratulated each other, but found themselves faced by a cone of light ten foot tall approaching them. It could their thoughts and talk to their minds without speaking; and not only that, but it called itself...The Creator...

 

Simak, Clifford D. 'Shakespeare's Planet'
1977, Readers' Union
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  • Shakespeare's Planet [top]
    First published in 1976 in Great Britain by Sidgwick & Jackson
    Reprinted in 1977 in Great Britain in hardcover with dustjacket, by The Readers Union, 188pp

Storyline: After a thousand years in space, the earth vessel lands on a remote planet capable of supporting human life. Inside the explorer ship, an almost inaudible hum fills the silence, computer lights blink softly, signalling the awakening of the cryogenically preserved crew.
But only one crew member awakens from his artificial sleep. A systems malfunction has killed the others. Carter Horton is alone. Horton learns almost immediately that the planet is inhabited by a bizarre creature who calls himself Carnivore. And the creature addresses him in English, the language he had learned from an earlier traveller who called himself Shakespeare. Shakespeare is dead, and Horton soon learns that he and Carnivore, too, face certain peril unless they can get away from the strange planet.
Leaving is no simple affair. Carnivore, and before him Shakespeare, had come to the planet via an inner-space tunnel, one of many such tunnels that exist throughout the galaxy. But this tunnel has broken down and works only one way-the wrong way-and Horton's explorer ship is a thousand years obsolete, incapable of returning them to civilisation.

The creature called Carnivore and the earthman, Horton, are marooned on a planet of mysterious ruins bespeaking a catastrophic end to a once grand civilisation. The portentous signs they begin to encounter intimate that some dire, ominous happenings will soon befall them-unless they can repair the inner-space tunnel and leave Shakespeare's Planet

 

Simak, Clifford D. 'A Heritage of Stars' published in 1978 by the Science Fiction Book Club, in hardback with dustjacket, 219pp, No ISBN. Condition: Very good, clean & tidy copy with tanning to internal pages (browning effect from ageing). Price: £3.25, not including post and packing, which is Amazon's standard charge (currently £2.80 for UK buyers, more for overseas customers)
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  • A Heritage of Stars [top]
    1st Edition:1977 published in the USA by Berkley Publishing Corporation. ISBN 0399119469.
    First published in the UK in 1978 by Sidgwick & Jackson, hardcover, ISBN 0283984244.
    Reprinted in 1978 by the Science Fiction Book Club/Readers Union

Storyline: Thousands of years in the future, when the nearly indestructible skulls of destroyed robots litter the forest floors of the American Continent, which barely remembers the greatness of the old technological civilisation, Tom Cushing sets out on a quest to recover lost knowledge and to regain humanity's lost heritage. He treks across the mid-west to find the fabled Place of Going to the Stars, from which ancient technological man left Earth to travel among the alien civilisations of the galaxy. There reside the strange artefacts that humanity brought back from other worlds, and it is rumoured, some of the strange aliens themselves. With Cushing on his travels, gathered about him as he goes, are a weird and wonderful collection of beings. The case of characters includes a friendly robot, intelligent rocks and trees, Shivering Snake, a shimmering, ghostlike snake, the Followers, a group of stalking shadows, and Meg, the hilltop witch

 

Simak, Clifford D. 'The Fellowship of the Talisman', published in 1980 in Great Britain by Sidgwick and Jackson in hardback, 348pp, ISBN 028398581X. Sorry, oult of stock, but click image to access prebuilt search for this title on Amazon UK
1980, Sidgwick & Jackson, hbk
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  • The Fellowship of the Talisman [top]
    1st Edition:1978, published in the USA by Ballantine Books as a Del Rey Book
    First published in Great Britain in 1980 by Sidgwick & Jackson, hardcover, silver & brown design dustjacket. 348 pages, ISBN 028398581X

Storyline: Through a wilderness blighted by horror rode Duncan, son of the noble House of Standish. Astride his mighty war horse, he was pursuing a quest vital to the future of civilisation. With him went a strange fellowship, a brawny man-at-arms, a banshee, a hermit, Ghost, who though erratic was an excellent spy, a turncoat demon, Snoopy, the goblin, and a witch. Opposing them came forces of supernatural malignancy. Aiding them was a girl with the blood of enchanters in her veins who was mounted on an ancient griffin. And all this takes place in England in the 1970s...
But in the world of The Fellowship of the Talisman, the Dark Ages never ended. There had been no Renaissance, no exploration of the lands across the sea.
Duncan Standish had been sent on a dangerous mission which could rekindle the spirit of mankind and give humanity an instrument against the terror and devastation called the Evil, which struck every five centuries.
It was through a land where the monstrous servants of the Evil held sway that Duncan and his oddly assorted followers had to pass

 

Simak, Clifford D. 'Mastodonia', published in 1978 in the United States, 251pp, ISBN 0345275004. Sorry, out of stock, but click image to access prebuilt search for this title

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  • Catface [top]
    1st Edition:1978, published in the USA by Ballantine Books as a Del Rey Book under the title Mastodonia, 251pp, ISBN 0345275004
    First published in Great Britain in 1978 by Sidgwick & Jackson, hardcover, silver & brown design dustjacket, 252 pages. ISBN 028398502X

Storyline: Asa Steele is unprepared for the incredible events that begin to unfold when Rila Elliott-a woman he loved two decades before-steps out of the past and his faithful dog Bowser starts loping into it through time trails he's discovered in his own backyard.
Rila's appearance is mere coincidence, but Bowser's retrieval of fresh dinosaur bones is as inexplicable as is the curious crater in Asa's backyard that seems to have been made by a spaceship from the stars.
And that's only the beginning.
Soon Asa himself trips in time, led into pre-historic ideas by an enigmatic cat-faced creature. Unable to communicate with his alien guide except through a local simpleton named Hiram, Asa attempts to understand the meaning and the purpose of these time trails. Meanwhile Rila arranges to turn them into one of the biggest money-making travel ventures of all time.
In short order, the time trails in the quiet town of Willow Bend become the focus of global attention, government scrutiny and the target for an unprecedented solution to the unemployment and overpopulation

'Catface' Editions:
 

 

Simak, Clifford D. 'Project Pope', published in 1981 in Great Britain by Sidgwick & Jackson, in hardback, 314pp, ISBN 0283988037. Condition: Very good, clean and tidy condition, well looked-after with unclipped dustjacket. Price: £7.20, not including post and packing, which is Amazon UK's standard charge (currently £2.80 for UK buyers, more for overseas customers)
1981, Sidgwick & Jackson
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  • Project Pope [top]
    1st Edition:1981, published in the USA by Ballantine Books as a Del Rey Book
    First published in 1981 in Great Britain by Sidgwick & Jackson, hardcover, full colour dustjacket with robot pope on front, 314 pages, ISBN 0283988037

Storyline: On the Rim planet called End of Nothing, a bizarre society of robots and humans toiled for a thousand years to perfect a religion that would create a new and all-embracing faith-no novelty in a galaxy crowded with religions. But one project was hidden from the hordes of pilgrims welcomed at Vatican-17 on End of Nothing. A group of trained human sensitives were sending their minds ranging through all of time and space, gathering information. With that information, a computer of infinite knowledge, wisdom, and infallibility was being constructed in secret-the ultimate Pope.
Of the three outsiders allowed residence on End of Nothing, one was tolerated at a distance by Vatican-17, one was welcomed-and one was a threat to be countered.
Decker hardly mattered. His lifeboat had landed him on the remote planet, and he kept to himself in the wilderness. Neither the human nor robot authorities knew of the unseen companion who whispered constantly in Decker's mind.
Dr Jason Tennyson had fled the political furies of his homeworld. Here, Vatican-17's physician had died, and Tennyson's skills were desperately needed and well rewarded.
Jill Roberts was a journalist in quest of a sensational story she had scented. Vatican-17 knew she could not be allowed to break the news of Project Pope before it was completed-and debated two possible ways of stopping her.
Then one of the Searcher sensitives threw Vatican-17 into turmoil, threatening its very existence and involving the three outsiders in a sudden power struggle between human and robot.
Drifting in unsuspected dimensions, the woman had encountered Heaven

 

Simak, Clifford. 'The Visitors' published in 1982 in Great Britain by Methuen in paperback, 288pp, ISBN 0147065302. Condition: Has some light handling wear to the cover, for example the odd small crease to the cover or spine and some very light tanning to internal pages. Price: £1.45, not including post and packing (which is Amazon UK's standard charge (currently £2.80 for UK buyers, more for overseas customers)
1982, Methuen, pbk

Simak, Clifford D. 'The Visitors'
1981, Sidgwick & Jackson, hbk
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  • The Visitors [top]
    First published in 1980 in the USA by Ballantine Books as a Del Rey Book
    First published in 1981 in Great Britain by Sidgwick & Jackson, hardcover, with full colour dustjacket of large black square object suspended midair above forested land, 284 pages, ISBN 0283987189

    Reprinted in paperback in 1982 in Great Britain by Methuen, in paperback, 288pp, ISBN 0417065302

Storyline: It looked like a big black box-perhaps fifty feet high, two hundred long. And it had settled squarely on forestry student Jerry Conklin's car.
The local people were the first to see it, and one of them was the first and only human to shoot at it. He paid for his rashness with instant death.
Within hours, the press, the government and the public knew something strange had happened and were beginning to face the incredible possibility that the black box was something from outer space. A machine? An intelligent being? There was no way to know.
But Jerry Conklin knew. The visitor had scooped him up, held him inside itself for hours, then let him go-and Jerry had sensed its thoughts and feelings. He knew the visitor was a living, intelligent creature.
Then more of the giant black boxes descended to Earth, almost all in the United States. And they began eating trees...and reproducing. The visitors seemed harmless if left alone, but their powers of defence, and their very existence, threatened world stability. America's allies, and its enemies, demanded more information.
But there was none...

 

 



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