Talk:Clifford D. Simak

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"Aided by a friend"?[edit]

Aided by a friend, he continued writing and publishing science fiction and, later, fantasy, into his 80s.

What does "aided by a friend" mean? A writing partner, who deserves partial credit for the later works? Or just an amanuensis, a secretary who took care of the nuts and bolts? Do we have a name? --Michael K. Smith 20:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I recall from Simak's obituary, when Simak's wife died, his health deteriorated and he had trouble functioning outside the house. A friend stepped in and helped with groceries, bills and such, which allowed Simak to concentrate on writing again. I'll see if I can find that obituary or some other source, but it may take a while.
Also, the recently removed link to The Auk House used to be a valid link when I last checked it about a year ago, but it looks like the domain has been taken over by some unrelated company :( Ahasuerus 22:43, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Ahasuerus, for this correction, but it should be added to text. Reading your "adied by a friend" - I always started to think that this uncredited friend co-wrote novels by Simak. It should be corrected something like "aided by friend in his everyday life", freed from housework by his friend etc. Sergey Slenkov (talk) 13:54, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Surname[edit]

What ethnicity was his surname? Badagnani 22:32, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I looked it up on ancestry.com. Its origin is central European (ie Austrian,Czech). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.71.196.141 (talk) 19:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Czech obviously - not Ausrian! Sergey Slenkov (talk) 13:49, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any names that it is etymologically connected to? 198.177.27.19 (talk) 06:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Simek is apparently a 'pet form' of "Simon" in Czech. Radioflux (talk) 00:26, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Time travel?[edit]

The article says that "Another idea often found in the stories is the idea that there is no past time for a time traveler to go to." and cites Time and Again as an example. But that book is, with respect to time travel, a pretty standard story, where people go back in order to attempt to change the future. Is this an exception? --NE2 06:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Which Time and Again do they mean? There is a Simak novel by that title, and a Jack Finney, that I know of. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That would be Time and Again (Clifford Simak novel) (1951), obviously. — Loadmaster (talk) 21:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dramatized for Television or Cinema[edit]

Have any of Clifford D. Simak's works been dramatized for television or cinema? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.177.27.13 (talk) 08:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An adaptation of "Way Station" is in the works. This movie is currently in production with Peter Winther attached to direct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.71.196.141 (talk) 20:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The story "Goodnight, Mr. James" was adapted into the Outer Limits episode The Duplicate Man. I remember once reading a Simak quote to the effect that "Goodnight Mr. James" was (very uncharacteristically) one of the only stories he ever wrote that employed violence -- and, consequently the only one that was ever adapted for TV or film. 70.29.14.52 (talk) 19:07, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the quote is authentic, then it would be incorrect. His novel Time and Again contains several incidents of violence, including the main character being hit and knocked out with a metal wrench. — Loadmaster (talk) 20:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I'm pretty sure I've got the gist of the quote correct. But it's quite possible Simak was speaking off-the-cuff, and misremembering, exaggerating or simply not considering EVERYTHING in his published oeuvre. (As well, the violence in "Goodnight Mr James" is *much* heavier than a bop on the head with a wrench.) Anyway, a similar (sourced) quote now appears in the article, though I seem to remember it from an interview rather than a book intro. 70.27.1.113 (talk) 06:32, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Simak's stories "Beach Head" and "Target Generation" were adapted for two 1969 episodes of Out of the Unknown. Unfortunately, the episodes were wiped by the BBC and no copies are known to survive. 70.55.217.195 (talk) 06:25, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

City[edit]

The write-up about City is incorrect. In City, all of the humans leave Earth voluntarily before the ants take over, by re-embodying themselves in the form of creatures on Jupiter whose intensity of experience is vastly greater than that of humans, and hence they wind up preferring to live in that form. Some of the dogs go with them, but only some. The tool-using ant civilization collapses just as it is about to encompass the last remaining patch of Earth, and then crumbles away. The story is actually told by sentient dogs, sitting around campfires and talking of ancient mysterious things such as Men and Cities. There is not a time travel theme in City.

Joseph McCord lycodont@hal-pc.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.150.254.91 (talk) 23:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Time and Again[edit]

A minor character in Simak's Time and Again is an old man in Bridgeport, Connecticut (in the then-future time of 1977) who called himself "Old Cliff". It's an obvious self-reference to Clifford Simak himself. The character even mentions having written a story about destiny in his younger days, a self-reference to the novel itself. — Loadmaster (talk) 21:12, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whose quote, then?[edit]

"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine," is a phrase misattributed to Arthur Stanley Eddington. To whom, then, should it be attributed? Scott Johnson (talk) 11:36, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps Haldane; see here. Mike Christie (talk) 11:59, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Double negative[edit]

"After explaining what themes he avoids - no large-scale alien invasions, no space wars, no empire sagas - he states"

He avoids NO space wars? Shouldn't it be: "he avoids space wars"? I'm not a native English speaker, but this sentence seems to be wrong. 08:31, 25 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.193.116.152 (talk)


bad link[edit]

please check the Out of Our Minds link, since (that was funny!) redirects to a certain "Melissa Auf der Maur" wiki page... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.204.114.65 (talk) 07:09, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright-free works at Gutenberg[edit]

There is/are one novel and four short stories of Simak's available at Gutenberg.org. I know Wiki shouldn't become a "link farm", yet a lot of readers wouldn't think to check Gutenberg. For now, I put in a single External Link to his Gutenberg search page. That makes the link valid if works come and go. Is that OK? Clayton Emery — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.37.171.36 (talk) 18:32, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Alien Vacation Homes[edit]

I recall reading, years ago, a Clifford Simak story about vacation lake homes being built in quantity and available at a very low price, and they turn out to be in some kind of alternate dimensionality that doesn't correspond to the local geography. It turns out that an alien was sent to Earth to solve a big problem, and was trying to solve the wrong problem. I cannot find any reference to this story here or elsewhere. Does anyone else recognize this? jaknouse (talk) 03:31, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The story is "Carbon Copy". Your recollection is correct. The homes get sold, but the people move into a different "space" so that the development appears empty. Clayton Emery

Proposed split[edit]

I propose moving the "Works" section to a new article: Clifford D. Simak bibliography. Viriditas (talk) 09:30, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Viriditas, that's fine with me. Size and content-wise the Works section is already similar to the bibliographies listed in Category:Science fiction bibliographies and Category:Fantasy bibliographies. I would suggest that in the main article that the section be renamed to "Selected works" with:
Main article: Clifford D. Simak bibliography
Simak's award winning works include:
Way Station is a 1963 science fiction novel that was originally published as Here Gather the Stars in two parts in Galaxy Magazine in June and August 1963. Way Station won the 1964 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
The Big Front Yard won the 1959 Hugo Award for Best Novelette.
Grotto of the Dancing Deer won the 1980 Nebula Award for Best Short Story and the 1981 Hugo Award for Best Short Story.
--Marc Kupper|talk 20:18, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:47, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. It is one thing to prune and split a bibliography from a writer bio. But it is virtually universal practice to include either a reasonably detailed narrative discussion of a writer's career (cf the Heinlein bio) or a listing/discussion of their major works (cf Asimov bio). Simply removing the heart of the bio, what the author wrote, is not constructive. Better too much than next to nothing. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 17:21, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • By all means, then, please do go ahead and write a reasonably detailed narrative discussion of the author's writing career, which mention a few of the more major works. I warmly invite you to do so. Meanwhile, this article in its current state consists of a very long bibliography somewhat bordered by a meager sprinkling of text. It is mildly ludicrous in this form. But do what you will; I hate to disturb your article. Cheers. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 04:01, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The article had existed in a semi-split state for three years with the duplicated "Works" sections in this article and Clifford D. Simak bibliography getting out of sync. I compared the two and got them back in sync by copying the additions/improvements between the copies. Once that was done I did the split again, replacing the Works section in the this article with a narrative style summary of Simak's works. As several books have been written about Clifford Simak it should be possible to expand the "Works" section in this article so that it's comparable to what is in the Robert A. Heinlein#Works article. --Marc Kupper|talk 10:00, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

His wife Kay[edit]

I take it he called Agnes Kuchenberg "Kay"? --Haruo (talk) 07:15, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Date of novels[edit]

Cosmic Engineers was first published in book form in 1950, but was serialized in Astounding in 1939, so the language in the works section ("From 1950 to 1986 Clifford Simak wrote over 30 novels") needs tweaking. I'm hesitant to make it just "From 1939 to 1986", since there was a gap for ten years. Thanks for doing the biblio split by the way; an improvement. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:57, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Name pronunciation[edit]

Multiple YouTube clips, including from a 1971 interview with Simak, pronounce the name as /'sɪmæk/ rather than /'sɪmək/. It's possible that the provided source for the pronunciation is in error. Chernorizets (talk) 11:09, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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