Tags
2010s, 2016, Amazing Stories, anthology/collection, Astounding Science Fiction, Clifford Simak, Galaxy Science Fiction, Hugo Award winner, Nebula Award winner, Open Road Media, science fiction, short fiction, Wonder Stories
In the span of his fifty-five year career, Clifford Simak penned some of the most iconic science fiction ever written: over a hundred short stories paired with a fistful of award-winning novels like City, Why Call Them Back From Heaven?, and Way Station. Simak’s writing is defined by his themes—robots, immortality, cave men, time travel, all underlined by a rich feeling of pastoral life and small-town Americana. His writing is often thoughtful and subdued, whether they are flights of whimsy or sad reflections on humanity’s shortcomings. Despite his many awards, Simak is considered one of the genre’s more underrated masters; it’s been a while since many of his stories were reprinted, a situation thankfully being rectified via a nine-volume series collecting all of Simak’s short fiction. I’ve already read and reviewed the first volume, I Am Crying All Inside; Grotto of the Dancing Deer is the fourth volume, released earlier this year.
Open Road Media – 2016.
The title story, “Grotto of the Dancing Deer,” is a quiet tale that touches on many of Simak’s core themes. An archaeologist investigating a series of ancient cave paintings in France notices that his local laborer always seems to be in the right place to discover these pieces of art. He realizes that this laborer was the original painter, doomed to walk the earth as an immortal, but trapped by that secret in lonely isolation. Simak handles the subject with soft care and precision, and the story is rich in pastoral vibes tinged with loneliness. It won the Hugo and Nebula for best short story for a reason: it’s a powerful but subtle piece.
The earliest stories in this collection are pieces of pure pulp entertainment, a bit ragged and archaic compared to the author’s more refined works. “Hunger Death” deals with a newspaper journalist investigating a killer disease where the infected starve to death, who discovers that a backwater Venusian colony-city—mostly down on their luck Okie-types, drawn to the planet by false advertising—is the only place immune to the sickness. It foreshadows where Simak was going with its folksy characters saving the day, but it feels quite primitive, both in Simak’s early writing and in the focus on print journalism. “Mutiny on Mercury” is one of the author’s earliest tales, and it’s almost unrecognizable, reading more like a draft from Otis Adelbert Kline. The mining planet of Mercury finds itself under a slave revolt when the traitorous Martians lead the strong-but-stupid moon men on a revolt against humanity, against which our bravo hero Tom Clark fights back with sword and gun. The story has good adventure and some harrowing thrills, but I found the slavery element quite distasteful and crude in its execution.
The stories I liked best come from the period of Simak’s high-water mark, the works he produced for Galaxy during the 1950s and 1960s. “Crying Jag” is one of the most effective: a small-town drunk is visited by two aliens, who themselves get drunk—and become addicted to—humanity’s tales of woe and sorrow, sucking the sadness out of whoever they meet. It’s a strange tale, but a brilliant one told with pathos. The starship crew in “Jackpot” have searched many planets for untapped minerals, but finally strike it big when they discover alien relics—sort of an alien library—on an uninhabited world. But the men become conflicted on what to do with them, showing that Simak’s space exploiters could be humanists after all. And “Day of Truce” deals with an ongoing war between roving youth gangs and suburban adults who have fortified their house into an electrified stronghold. While this setup may seem hyperbolic, it’s handled very well as both a metaphor and a solid story.
This series collecting Simak’s work continues to be well worth your time and interest, though I wish they had been presented either chronologically—well, maybe not, given the quality of his ’30s fiction—or thematically. Or at least with Simak’s western stories devoted to a single volume, to make it easier on readers of that genre. Still, it’s hard to fault the series given that Simak’s work is of consistent high quality. Clifford Simak is one of those rare gems in the annals of science fiction history, a talented writer who penned thoughtful, deeply humane stories. I fear that Simak’s name is oft forgotten or overlooked because he didn’t write what many readers expect SF to look like—space opera, planetary adventure, hard science—so I hope that these volumes bring his works to a wider audience.
Contents List:
- Over the River and Through the Woods (Amazing Stories, May 1965)
- The Grotto of the Dancing Deer (The Marathon Photograph and Other Stories, 1980)
- The Reformation of Hangman’s Gulch (Big-Book Western Magazine, Dec 1944)
- The Civilization Game (Galaxy, Nov 1958)
- Crying Jag (Galaxy, Feb 1960)
- Hunger Death (Astounding Science Fiction, Oct 1938)
- Mutiny on Mercury (Wonder Stories, Mar 1932)
- Jackpot (Galaxy, Oct 1956)
- Day of Truce (Galaxy, Feb 1963)
- Unsilent Spring (Stellar #2, 1976)
Book Details
Title: Grotto of the Dancing Deer: And Other Stories (The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak Book 4)
Author: Clifford Simak
First Published Date: 1932 – 1980 (short stories in magazines and anthologies)
Release Date: 1 March 2016
Price I Paid: $0 (e-ARC via NetGalley and Open Road Media)
ISBN/ASIN: B014QI1NKM
MSRP: $7.99 ebook
Battered, Tattered, Yellowed, & Creased 
I recently got in a debate with a Simak fan about the phrase “pastoral.” He thought my usage of the term was a dismissal rather than a descriptor. What would you say is so appealing about his “pastoral” nature? Does it somehow appeal to a notion of our past we’ve lost (or at least many of us)? Does it somehow bring SF into the everyday?
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Interesting… I don’t find “pastoral” to be much of a dismissal, but I guess it’s a matter of perspective. I’m also not sure “pastoral” may not be the best descriptor… I think Pavane or Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang are more pastoral than many of these shorts.
I do find it fascinating that Simak looks at elements that we’ve lost (or at least, lost touch with), particularly his naturalist and humanist themes. And I find his use of those themes beautifully mournful and haunting while remaining hopeful/optimistic. All told it makes Simak rather unique in SF—his themes look forward and backward at the same time, and manage to look backward without being regressive.
I think his writing is effective in the same way some of Bradbury’s was, imbuing wonder into the everyday and using relatable human themes. And since Bradbury was one of the first SF authors that clicked for me, maybe I’m biased from the double dose of nostalgia.
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When I see or use the word “pastoral” to describe a story, I think of the literal pasture, bringing to mind slower, deliberate country life. Way Station includes several scenes of the protagonist walking through the woods, sitting in the grass, worrying out a problem. So does Sweet Birds. I guess it could be interpreted as a throwback to “the good, old times” but I see it more as an invocation of nature being a primary focus of the narrative. With that definition, Sherri Tepper’s Grass could qualify as pastoral, too, considering the entire planet is a great big rainbow pasture, although I think people prefer the more specific label of “eco-feminism.”
In that way, Bradbury doesn’t feel pastoral at all– rather, to me, Bradbury is suburban– although he and Simak do share the qualities of romanticizing a slower, old-fashioned lifestyle and I agree with Chris that they both do it in a way that adds wonder to every day life, and not in a regressive way. And of course, the funny thing is that both authors’ bibliographies are full of traditional genre stuff, but that’s not how they’re remembered.
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I have to agree with Megan’s definition… When I see “pastoral” I think of rolling fields of grass, possibly with a “stop and smell the roses” tone though it’s not required. More naturalism and less of “the good old days/the way things were.” (For pastoral Bradbury, I was thinking Dandelion Wine, but that could be considered more “small town nostalgia” than pastoral.)
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This collection sounds quite mouthwatering! I must check out the earlier vols.
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Great review! I hope collections like this start becoming more common. There are many vintage authors I would love to see in this format.
Regarding Simak, I have one of these volumes… the first, I think. I just started reading All Flesh is Grass today and the first few pages feel exactly like Time is the Simplest Thing (wacky) and nothing like the pastoral feel of Way Station. Since Flesh comes after Way Station, I was a bit surprised, but I expect it will wind down to something more thoughtful.
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Also, if the stories aren’t being organized chronologically or thematically, do the installments feel completely random?
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They are completely random, or if there is logic behind it I haven’t figured it out.
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Ugh, that’s going to drive me crazy.
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Thanks! Which other authors would you like to see? I’m curious.
I haven’t read All Flesh yet, but I’ve heard that his later books had a lot more whimsy, or were more oddball than his earlier works. Looking forward to your review!
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I somehow got the impression that Simak started oddball and then got more serious. Looks like he went back-and-forth between the two modes.
I know there are a lot of great collections out there, but you know how I prefer digital copies. It’s getting better, but so few collections are being revived in ebook format, so I’m less willing to explore vintage short fiction (so much is online anyway, but ugh, pdfs are hard to notate on). Then again, I’m so overwhelmed by Mt. TBR right now, it’s not like I’ll get to them soon.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think I’ve seen ebook collections of Russ, Wilhelm, Brunner, Sturgeon… even that PKD collection you rec’d and I read last year was not digitized yet.
(Coode St podcast had this discussion this summer and of course mentioned that the hang up lies with the estates–Sturgeon particularly. They also discussed why anyone other than a scholar would have need for something like a nine-volume collection of mostly less-than-stellar short fiction of one author, but here you are and not the only person who I’ve seen get excited about Simak’s entire back-catalogue, so that’s just typical Coode St being out-of-touch with younger vintage fans.) (I sometimes think Gary thinks we don’t exist.)
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I feel your pain, as I’m kind of in the same boat—I read enough books that it’s easier (and sometimes cheaper) to go digital, since I don’t have to worry about buying another set of shelves. I don’t mind having physical books, but they’re less practical to store (don’t get me started on magazines), so I’ve shifted the vast majority of my book purchases to digital.
I’ve found that a lot of novels were digitized—especially in the UK, with many of those Gollancz Gateway ebooks are now available in the US (Compton, Sladek, Cowper, Coney, Keith Roberts, Pangborn, Pat Cadigan, etc etc)—but collections are a hornet’s-nest of copyright to wade through… Not just with the authors’ estates as some of the magazines still hold the rights, even when they’ve folded, then been bought and sold several times since.
Brunner and Sturgeon have most of their novels in digital, but yeah, not a lot of their short fiction. Last I checked, the only Wilhelm in digital was Sweet Birds, and I don’t think Russ was at all, both of which are a shame. There’s a couple of authors who have some good e-representation—most of Robert Sheckley’s collections are $3-4 per; there’s Silverberg, Vance, PKD, LeGuin, and I just bought Compton’s Katherine Mortenhoe in digital—but I wonder if we’ll ever see someone like Cyril Kornbluth or Wilson Tucker digitized.
I’ll freely admit that I’m enough of a scholar and a geek to think a nine-volume Simak collection is awesome. But when the e-version is relatively cheap and ends up another few kilobytes on your Kindle, I don’t see the size or niche appeal of the series acting as a gatekeeper, restricting interest only to scholars…
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I’ve heard that his later books had a lot more whimsy, or were more oddball than his earlier works
I haven’t read all of Simak’s novels, but I’ve read most of them. From my own impressions, I’d say they fall into three chronological categories. In the first you had undoubted classics like City, Way Station, All Flesh is Grass, Time and Again, Time is the Simplest Thing, Ring Around the Sun (a personal favorite that I’ve made a note to try to reread soon), They Walked Like Men and more; then you got readable but lightweight and often a bit silly stuff, like Why Call Them Back from Heaven, The Goblin Reservation and The Werewolf Principle; and then later on you got a stack of dull-as-ditchwater ones, like The Visitors.
I’ve always wondered, with exactly zero evidence to back up my speculation, if he had a minor stroke or suchlike after All Flesh is Grass, because there’s a real in quality, followed by a plummet, thereafter.
As for his short stories, though, I don’t think I’ve ever read a bad one. The term “pastoral” is well chosen for much of his fiction, because he was indeed harkening back to an earlier, more innocent and more rural age. He makes this quite explicit in one story — I forget which — where Our Hero comes across a guy sitting by a riverside, fishing. “Just call me Old Cliff,” the fisherman says. That was where Simak was coming from: a glowing affection for a slower-moving past where life was less cluttered and people were, by and large, trusting and to be trusted.
Apologies for waffling on too long.
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I would never call Why Call Them Back From Heaven? (1967) lightweight or silly… If anything its one of his more serious novels in tone and import.
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Looks great – these are only ebooks right? Not there yet myself …
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The first three are currently available in paperback, but they are released in ebook first.
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Great news – thanks chum!
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