Nine tales of imagination and wonder from one of the formative voices of science fiction and fantasy, the author of Way Station and City. Named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, Clifford D. Simak was a preeminent voice during the decades that established sci-fi as a genre to be reckoned with. Held in the same esteem as fellow luminaries Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury, his novels continue to enthrall today’s readers. And his short fiction is still as gripping and surprising now as when it first entertained an entire generation of fans. The title story is just one example of this. Cheviot Sherwood doesn’t believe in miracles. They never seem to pay off. So when he’s marooned on a planet with no plan for escape and no working radio, he takes it in stride and prepares for a long stay gathering food, making shelter, and collecting all the diamonds the world has to offer. But when a ship like none he’s ever encountered lands, he sees his salvation—and an opportunity to take the priceless craft for himself. Unfortunately, his “rescuer” has the same idea . . . This volume also includes the celebrated short works “Eternity Lost,” “Shotgun Cure,” and “Paradise,” among others. Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook.

Fleeing a carnivorous race of alien monsters, the entire surviving human population from five hundred years in the future escapes into the present in this thrilling science fiction adventure from one of the Golden Age greats Our human descendants from five centuries in the future are coming to visit—all one billion of them—arriving via tunnels through time. Even though the present is merely a stopover and their ultimate destination is the age of the dinosaurs, their arrival has caused a worldwide uproar. Some folks want them gone and some want to go with them, as governments and powerful corporations alike scheme to get their hands on remarkable, potentially profitable time travel technology. There is a dark and terrifying reason, however, for the visitors’ abrupt arrival. Our frightened descendants are seeking sanctuary from carnivorous aliens who have descended upon the future Earth, a threat that could mean the rapid destruction of the entire human race. And the end could come sooner than anyone imagined—for some of the intelligent, rapidly breeding extraterrestrial monsters who have been devouring our children’s children may well have followed their prey back to the now. A speculative fiction master who stands alongside Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein in the pantheon of Golden Age science fiction gods, multiple Hugo and Nebula Award–winner Clifford D. Simak delivers an alien invasion tale that is at once wildly imaginative, seriously thought-provoking, and just plain fun.

This groundbreaking retrospective collection features the classic science fiction stories of Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988). When the Science Fiction Writers of America began bestowing their Grand Master awards, Simak was the third writer so honored. Only Robert Heinlein and Jack Williamson preceded him, and he received his award before such luminaries as Fritz Leiber, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury. Simak earned this distinction by producing, over a long period of time, a significant body of popular, respected, often award-winning work, including his classics City and Way Station, and many shorter works, eight of which are contained in this collection. Readers unfamiliar with Simak are in for a treat. More than half of the stories here were among the best stories of their respective years. "The Big Front Yard" (1958) won a Hugo. "A Death in the House" (1959) was selected by Judith Merril for Year's Best SF: Fifth Annual Edition. "Over the River and Through the Woods" (1965) made the cut for World's Best Science Fiction: 1966 edited by Donald Wollheim. Contents: A Death in the House The Big Front Yard Goodnight Mr. James Dusty Zebra Neighbor Over the River & Through the Woods Construction Shack Grotto of the Dancing Deer [He] wrote for so long and always so well that his excellence came to be taken for granted, as we take sunlight for granted until we go blind. - Poul Anderson I read Cliff's stories with particular attention, and I couldn't help but notice the simplicity and directness of the writing - the utter clarity of it. I made up my mind to imitate it, and I labored over the years to make my writing simpler, clearer, more uncluttered, to present my scenes on a bare stage. - Isaac Asimov Without Simak, science fiction would have been without its most humane element, its most humane spokesman for the wisdom of the ordinary person and the value of life lived close to the land. - James Gunn Good fantasy - and that includes science fiction - takes off from the known for its flights into the new. Cliff Simak was a master of the art. His known was the rural Midwest that he loved. His new could reach to the ends of space and time, but never beyond reality. Even his cosmic aliens always had half human dimensions that made them believable. I loved him, as so many did, for his unfailing warmth and a wit that was keen but never cruel. I heard from him often during the painful time after his wife's death. His own death touched me deeply, and I'm happy to see him remembered with this collection of his best-loved stories. - Jack Williamson I always loved his stories, short or long. He made me love them -and the rural America of his childhood - as much as he did. - Lester del Rey Ten years ago it would have been inconceivable that a volume of the best stories of Clifford Simak (author of the classic City) would not have been published by Putnam or Del Rey, but today we have to be grateful to the one-man firm of Tachyon Publications for preserving Over the River and Through the Woods, which includes some of Simak's best stories, including two Hugo Award winners. After all, Simak is dead, which means his career is flatlined, even if Robert Heinlein said, "to read science fiction is to read Simak. The reader who does not like Simak stories does not like science fiction at all." Simak was a master of a special kind of nostalgic science fiction that reconciled the values of his youth (the rural Midwest of the 1920s) with the larger universe. Material that became ludicrous cliche in the hands of lesser writers - all those endless flying saucers landing in the hillbilly's back acre - was by Simak handled with elegance and dignity."A Death in the House" is typical: A farmer finds a dying alien. He does what he can, but that's very little. The farmer conceals the grave, wanting to give his "guest" that much dignity. But the alien is plantlike. It (or its young) sprouts out of the corpse. Human and alien struggle toward understanding. In "The Big Front Yard," a rural handyman finds his house transformed into a gateway to other worlds. The common people have the good sense; trouble starts when profiteers and the government get involved. The tone is light, friendly and clever. This is not to suggest that Simak was a writer with no hard edges. "Good Night Mr. James" is a horror story, about a duplicate human being created to destroy a particularly nasty alien illegally smuggled to Earth. But the gentler mode was more typical, and he could also write humor. "Dusty Zebra" is a long technological joke, maybe a bit slight to be included when a 50-year career must be distilled into 218 pages. Simak's last story, the last in the book, "The Grotto of the Dancing Deer," is about an immortal caveman, quite different from de Camp's "Gnarly Man." He is the original artist who painted that cave art the scientists keep finding; after all this time, he just has to tell someone. The story won both the Hugo and the Nebula for 1980, because both readers and fellow professionals wanted to say "thank you." - The Washington Post Book World Clifford D. Simak is another classic SF writer who staked out a distinctive territory based on his rural midwestern roots - only a couple hundred miles north of Bradbury's - but he never strayed very far from a few classic SF themes which he treated with considerably more rigor than Bradbury, if sometimes with as much sentimentality. Simak's City is at least as important to the history of SF as Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles - some would say more so, given its more challenging conceptual framework - and his other short stories are among the most enduring in the genre, as Over the River & Through the Woods, a new limited edition from Tachyon Publications, attests. Yet Simak, like Sturgeon, seems in danger of fading into the limbo of historical anthologies; while his work was once as widely available as that of any of the giants, today these stories seem almost like new discoveries - and are just as fresh. Part of the reason may be not that Simak's folksy language seems to belie the underlying sense of alienation and tragedy that characterizes much of his work; part may be due to the rediscovery of American regional idioms among younger SF writers from Terry Bisson to Nancy Kress . . . 'Over the River & Through the Woods' contains eight Simak stories from 1951 through 1980 - which means it includes none of the classic stories like "Desertion" or "Huddling Place", which later went to make up City, but does include his late Hugo and Nebula-winning masterpiece "The Grotto of the Dancing Deer" and the Hugo-winning "The Big Front Yard." One of the first things that comes to mind when rereading the latter story after several years - it concerns a characteristically laconic farmer with a dog named Towser (the only name Simak seems to have permitted for dogs) who finds on his property a gateway to distant worlds - is that few contemporary writers would have let such a simple and elegant premise be confined to a novella. Simak's focus is on the unimpressed rustic whose very lack of response to the wonder at his doorstep intensifies our own. When a rustic is impressed by an alien presence, such as in "A Death in the House," it is less likely to be from a sense of wonder than from a sense of companionship. Simak's roots may be firmly in SF, but he writes of alien encounters in a way Willa Cather might have written of them. Aliens are strange but unthreatening, and in some cases (as in "Neighbor") they can turn the entire neighborhood into a pastoral Shangri-la, isolated from the outside in a way that encapsulates what must be Simak's own drams of lost innocence. But Simak could write about more than wonderful things happening to remote farmers. "Good Night, Mr. James" is a very early treatment (1951) of what we would today call a cloning story, done with the kind of cynical humor that is needed for what is essentially a double- and triple-cross tale. It reveals Simak's healthy streak of humor, as does "Dusty Zebra," in which trivial objects are zapped into another dimension in return for high-tech wonders. "Construction Shack" ironically explores an almost Stapledonian notion of whole solar systems being engineered by ancient aliens (Pluto is the construction shack of the title), cast in terms of the matter-of-fact space jockeys so familiar from pulp SF. Simak may be at his best, however, when his theme is isolation and abandonment. The title story concerns children from the future sent back to the refuge of the 1890s. The best tale in the collection and one of the high points of Simak's late career, "The Grotto of the Dancing Deer," concerns an anthropologist who comes to realize that his assistant seems to know far too much about certain ancient cave paintings, and may in fact have been their creator. Simak's evocation, in a few pages, of the sheer loneliness of immortality and the daunting perspectives of time involved, again could be a lesson to a generation of younger writers, and reminds us brilliantly of what Simak was capable of. - Locus

Ten stories of wonder and imagination by an author named Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America In the collection’s title story, Frederick Gray is closing in on seventy and has outlived his usefulness as a professor of law. He has no family; his best friend, fellow faculty member Ben Lovell, has recently died. Before Gray moves into a retirement home, he takes a final canoe trip to a favorite fishing spot he and Lovell had visited many times, only to find that someone has built a house on the remote riverside. When an accident leaves Gray stranded and in pain, he returns to the shelter seeking aid and instead finds a new reason for living. Nine additional tales showcase Clifford D. Simak’s talent for spinning stories that allow us to glimpse the possibilities of life beyond Earth as well as expand our wisdom of what it means to be human. Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook.

Out of their minds and the force of their imagination, men have created countless beings, from demons and monsters of legend to comic-strip characters. What if their world were real--if dragons, devils and Don Quixote hobnobbed with Dagwood Bumstead and Charlie Brown? Such a world would have its facinations..and its dreadful perils--if it existed. Horton Smith found out that it did..and that he was right in the middle of it!

In rural Wisconsin, wonder clashes dangerously with corporate greed when an alien visitor opens up a gateway through time into a breathtaking prehistoric lost world On sabbatical from teaching at a small university, paleontologist Asa Steele is content to relax amidst the pastoral splendor of his Wisconsin farm. That is, until his dog starts bringing home unrecognizable artifacts and, strangest of all, fresh dinosaur bones. Since boyhood, Asa has heard the rumors of a UFO crash site nearby, and his encounter with a cat-faced alien life form proves the old story to be shockingly true. A gregarious immortal stranded on Earth for fifty thousand years, Catface has the power to create portals in time, and now he has opened a gateway into a prehistoric world of wonder and beauty, a place Asa calls “Mastodonia.” But keeping this idyllic realm a secret from a prying government and the greedy corporate entities it serves could prove impossible—and perilous—when there are resources to drain, land to despoil, and gargantuan vanished beasts from a distant age to hunt down and destroy in the name of profit. Clifford D. Simak’s glorious vision of a gateway to the past and of the tantalizing commercial potential of all things prehistoric predates Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park by many years, yet it remains as provocative, enthralling, and fun for twenty-first-century science fiction lovers as it was for its original readers. Breathtaking, thrilling, imaginative, and awe-inspiring, Mastodonia is a world that, once entered, can never be forgotten, such is the unique creative genius of legendary science fiction Grand Master Simak, one of the most revered writers ever to dream the future . . . and the past.

A strange assortment of humans and otherworldly beings joins a young soldier of God on his perilous quest through an alternate, technology-free reality ruled by an all-powerful Evil In an alternate world where the Dark Ages never ended, “the Evil” that arises every five hundred years has prevented all manner of technological advancement, even well into the twentieth century. The son of a powerful English noble, young Duncan Standish has always longed to be a soldier of the Lord, and now he’s been offered a rare opportunity to fulfill his dream. Entrusted with the delivery of an ancient manuscript—purported to be irrefutable evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ—to a noted Oxenford scholar, Duncan must journey many perilous miles in the company of a motley group of fellow travelers, including a goblin, a ghost, and other magical and non-magical companions. But the road they traverse together is fraught with terrible trials that would test even the most devout, for the Evil is strong in this place of dark wonders. Multiple Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award–winner and SFWA Grand Master Clifford D. Simak moves easily from science fiction to quest fantasy in this enthralling tale of magic, peril, and discovery on an Earth that never was. Rich in color, thrills, and wild invention, and populated by a highly original and unforgettable cast of characters, Fellowship of the Talisman showcases the author’s peerless storytelling skills, demonstrating once again that the great Simak had few equals in the realm of twentieth-century speculative fiction.

"Hudson lay in his sleeping bag, staring at the sky. It bothered him a lot. There was not one familiar constellation, not one star that he could name with any certainty. This juggling of the stars, he thought, emphasized more than anything else in this ancient land the vast gulf of years which lay between him and the Earth where he had been-or would be-born."

Earth: expensive, elite graveyard to the galaxy. Ravaged 10,000 years earlier by war, Earth was reclaimed by its space-dwelling offspring as a planet of landscaping and tombstones. None of them fully human, Fletcher, Cynthia, and Elmer journey through this dead world, discovering human traits and undertaking a quest to rebuild a human world on Earth.

Andrew Blake is found in a space capsule on a distant planet and is brought back to an unfamiliar Earth, where antigravity devices have replaced the wheel, and houses talk and even fly! Yet nothing is as strange as Blake's own feelings. Tormented by eerie sensations and loss of memory, he doesn't know who he really is or exactly where he has come from. His destiny only begins to grow frighteningly clear when he meets a weird, tassel-eared creature who darkly hints at the truth about Blake's origins. Slowly Blake becomes aware of the long hushed-up "Werewolf Principle," a scientific theory buried in the past, which holds the key to Blake's own fate-and the future of the human species.--book cover

Tales of the unknown in which a fix-it man crosses into another dimension—and more Hiram Taine is a handyman who can fix anything. When he isn’t fiddling with his tools, he is roaming through the woods with his dog, Towser, as he has done for as long as he can remember. He likes things that he can understand. But when a new ceiling appears in his basement—a ceiling that appears to have the ability to repair television sets so they’re better than before—he knows he has come up against a mystery that no man can solve. Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novelette, “The Big Front Yard” is a powerful story about what happens when an ordinary man finds reality coming apart around him. Along with the other stories in this collection, it is some of the most lyrical science fiction ever published. Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook.

First-class entertainment (The Sunday Times) from a classic SF author. En route to an interplanetary research mission, a scientist is abducted by a strange, shadowy race of aliens and taken to a previously uncharted planet, a storehouse of information that would be invaluable--even to an Earth so advanced that time travel allows goblins, dinosaurs, even Shakespeare to coexist.

Ten stories of mystery and imagination in a world that cannot be—including the never-before-published “I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air,” originally written for Harlan Ellison’s The Last Dangerous Visions ™ People work. Folk play. That is the way it has been in this country as long as Sam can remember. He is happy, and he understands that this is the way it should be. People are bigger than folk. They are stronger. They do not need food or water. They do not need the warmth of a fire. All they need is a job to do and a blacksmith to fix them when they break. The people work so the folk can drink their moonshine, fish a little, throw a horseshoe. But when Sam starts to wonder about why the world is this way, his life will never be the same. Along with the other stories in this collection, “I Am Crying All Inside” is a compact marvel: a picture of an impossible reality that is not so different from our own. Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook.

A human space traveler trapped on a remote planet must somehow unravel a confounding alien technology—or else surrender himself to a host of incomprehensible horrors For thousands of years, Carter Horton has been traveling across the galaxy toward a distant world capable of supporting human life. At journey’s end, awakened from his millennia-long sleep by a curiously adaptive android, he is informed that his crewmates have all perished due to a system malfunction. But worse is yet to come: Horton’s sentient ship is refusing to return him to Earth, and a strangely cordial predator is waiting for him on the planet’s surface. The repulsive creature, Carnivore, arrived here via a tunnel across the universe, as did his late companion—a human dubbing himself William Shakespeare—whom Carnivore just recently devoured. But the tunnel moves in only one direction, and if Carter is unable to reverse it, he will find himself marooned forever in this incomprehensible world, at the mercy of monsters and a terrifying, mind-freezing alien anomaly that occurs every evening in the “God-hour.” With unparalleled verve, award-winning science fiction Grand Master Clifford D. Simak performs a truly astonishing feat of world-creation in Shakespeare’s Planet. Bursting with intelligence, imagination, and breathtaking invention, this is a gem of speculative fiction from one of the genre’s most revered and innovative artists.

Two classic novels and a short story collection from the legendary Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author in one volume. This volume from an icon of the Golden Age of science fiction includes: City: In this International Fantasy Award–winning novel, millennia have passed since humankind abandoned Earth, leaving their most loyal animal companions alone. Granted the power of speech centuries earlier, the intelligent, pacifist dogs are the last keepers of human history. With the aid of Jenkins, an ageless service robot, the dogs live in harmony and peace. But now they’re threatened by the reawakened remnants of a warlike race called “Man.” A Heritage of Stars: More than a thousand years have passed since humankind intentionally destroyed its treacherous technology. The scant knowledge that has survived is kept in monastery-like “universities” where Tom Cushing learns of the legendary “Place of Going to the Stars.” On an amazing trek across what was once America, Tom and a band of misfits seek the source of the myth, only to discover an astonishing revelation at the end of their journey. Grotto of the Dancing Deer: Ten tales of wonder, danger, and the future, including the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning “Grotto of the Dancing Deer,” in which a man carrying an ancient secret finally speaks up, unable to bear any longer the loneliness he has experienced for millennia; “Over the River,” where children from an embattled future are sent back for safekeeping to their ancestors in the peaceful past; “Day of Truce,” about the inhabitants of a suburban subdivision who must barricade themselves against bands of roving attackers who invade when the gates open wide one day every year; and seven more stories from a master of speculative fiction.

Tales of nostalgia and loss in a world overrun by technology Hank is walking home from the bar when the Model T pulls alongside him. It’s been decades since he saw a car this old, and the sound of it takes him right back to his twenties. The door is open, and when he climbs in, the car takes off—without a driver. Before he knows what’s happened, Hank is right back at Big Spring Pavilion, where he spent his youth drinking bootleg whiskey and chasing pretty girls. He will find the past is not quite as he remembered it, but still a lovely place to go for a drive. This collection includes some of the finest short fiction Clifford Simak ever wrote, including “City,” the story that became the basis for his beloved novel of the same name. In the history of science fiction, no author has ever better understood that the Great Plains and the cosmos are closer together than we think. Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook.

Simak's "City" is a series of connected stories, a series of legends, myths, and campfire stories told by Dogs about the end of human civilization, centering on the Webster family, who, among their other accomplishments, designed the ships that took Men to the stars and gave Dogs the gift of speech and robots to be their hands. Contents: · City · nv Astounding May 1944 · Huddling Place · ss Astounding Jul 1944 · Census · nv Astounding Sep 1944 · Desertion · ss Astounding Nov 1944 · Paradise · ss Astounding Jun 1946 · Hobbies · nv Astounding Nov 1946 · Aesop · nv Astounding Dec 1947 · The Simple Way [The Trouble with Ants] · nv Fantastic Adventures Jan 1951 · Author’s Note · is · Epilog · ss Astounding, ed. Harry Harrison, Random, 1973

Synopsis - From the magazine: “July 17, H. Jackson killed by Nelson ... Old Henry Dide ... July 18, Stover Idled stranger, got 500 dolar...So read the ragged cripple’s “Who’s Who In Hell” of Gun Gulch town. And when square-shooting tinhorn Grant Culver, on the trail of his bushwhacked pardner, read those lines, he knew his own rendezvous with deadly gunflame was only seconds away... .

Without setting foot on another planet, people like Shep Blaine were reaching out to the stars with their minds, telepathically contacting strange beings on other worlds. But even Blaine was unprepared for what happened when he communed with the soul of an utterly alien being light years from Earth. After recovering from his experience, he becomes a dangerous man: not only has he gained startling new powers - but he now understands that humankind must share the stars. Hunted through time and space by those who he used to trust, Blaine undergoes a unique odyssey that takes him through a nightmarish version of small-town America as he seeks to find others who share his vision of a humane future. Blaine has mastered death and time. Now he must master the fear and ignorance that threatened to destroy him!

The Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapacks are designed to introduce readers to classic science fiction writers who might otherwise be forgotten. This volume assembles 2 novels and 4 short works by 3-time Hugo Award-winner Clifford D. Simak.

'One of those complex and enormously inventive stories... based on some real, honest, practical ethical thinking. It is an idea book.' - Groff Conklin in Galaxy Science Fiction Asher Sutton has been lost in deepest space for twenty years. Suddenly arrives a warning from the future, that he will return- and that he must be killed. He is destined to write a book whose message may lead to the death of millions in centuries to come. For this reason Sutton is hounded by the sinister warring factions of the future who wish to influence or prevent the writing of this book he has not yet begun to write. Yet already a copy has been found in the burnt-out wreckage of a space-craft on Alderbaran XII.

The Planet beckoned them from space--& closed round them like a venus Fly Trap! Captain Mike Ross finds himself leading an interplanetary expedition to an anonymous planet that welcomes them with a homing beam & then seals shut around them. Their ship is sealed against them & they are hurled into a wholly inhospitable desert. "Assailed by strange perils & even stranger temptations, the little group stumbled towards its destiny--Mike Ross, the pilot, Sara Foster, the big game hunter, blind George Smith, & the odious Friar Tuck. Before them was a legend made flesh, around them were creatures of myth & mystery, close behind them stalked Nemesis. The doll, the little wooden painted doll, was to be their salvation. Or their damnation, for each might choose, & find, his own Nirvana."

A mind-opening collection of short science fiction from one of the genre’s most revered Grand Masters. Legendary author Robert A. Heinlein proclaimed, “To read science fiction is to read Simak. A reader who does not like Simak stories does not like science fiction at all.” The remarkably talented Clifford D. Simak was able to ground his vast imagination in reality, and then introduce readers to fantastical worlds and concepts they could instantly and completely dig into, comprehend, and enjoy. In the title story, a man’s newfound ability to walk in the past allows him to dwell among dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers . . . and something even more timeless. In “Construction Shack,” the first manned expedition to Pluto reveals that no matter how advanced aliens may be, even they don’t always get everything right. And in “Univac 2200,” the thin line between humans creating technology and humans becoming technology is about to be crossed—and there may be no going back. Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook.

Money was worthless; it had no value! It couldn't buy housing, clothing, or food. Someone with enormous quantities of cash was buying houses and tearing them down, buying stores and closing them. Perhaps a few people could have stopped the transactions before it was too late. They could have said that Earth was being taken over by alien beings in the shapes of bowling balls, talking dogs, and dolls that walked like men. In fact, they did say it. The trouble was, no one believed them!

Collected tales of wonder, danger, and the future, including the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning title story This volume contains ten stellar short stories by science fiction Grand Master Clifford D. Simak. In “Grotto of the Dancing Deer,” a man carrying an ancient secret finally speaks up, unable to bear any longer the loneliness he has experienced for millennia. In “Over the River,” which Simak wrote in memory of his beloved grandmother Ellen, children from an embattled future are sent back for safekeeping to their ancestors in the peaceful past. And in “Day of Truce,” the inhabitants of a suburban subdivision must barricade themselves against bands of roving attackers. On only one day each year do the gates open wide. . . . Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook. Contents: The Language of Clifford D. Simak • essay by David W. Wixon Over the River and Through the Woods • (1965) • short story by Clifford D. Simak The Grotto of the Dancing Deer • (1980) • short story by Clifford D. Simak (variant of Grotto of the Dancing Deer) The Reformation of Hangman's Gulch • non-genre • (1944) • novelette by Clifford D. Simak The Civilization Game • (1958) • novelette by Clifford D. Simak Crying Jag • (1960) • novelette by Clifford D. Simak Hunger Death • (1938) • novelette by Clifford D. Simak Mutiny on Mercury • (1932) • novelette by Clifford D. Simak Jackpot • (1956) • novelette by Clifford D. Simak Day of Truce • (1963) • novelette by Clifford D. Simak Unsilent Spring • (1976) • novelette by Clifford D. Simak and Richard S. Simak

A scholar, a goblin, and a gnome, among others, pursue the secrets of a vanished ancient race through a wasteland of dark magic in this enthralling fantasy quest adventure On an Earth that is different from ours, the young scholar Mark Cornwall becomes a target of the Inquisition, and specifically its most evil and obsessed agent, Beckett. Damned for asking questions, Mark is forced to escape over the border into the Wastelands, a magical realm that is home to all manner of flesh-devouring monsters. Luckily he will not have to make his journey alone. He is accompanied by a cadre of stalwart companions, including the rafter goblin Oliver, Snively the gnome, and secretive Mary from one of three parallel planes. Somewhere beyond the vengeful, blood-hungry Hellhounds, somewhere past the horrific legacy of the now-destroyed Chaos Beast, the mysteries of the Old Ones are waiting to be revealed—and only those with the courage to seek them will be able to alter the destiny of their worlds. In Enchanted Pilgrimage, Clifford D. Simak ingeniously blends elements of science fiction into a savory fantasy stew. The award-winning Grand Master of science fiction spreads his wings and takes glorious flight into a bold new realm of magic and adventure, demonstrating why he remains one of the most acclaimed storytellers in the literature of the remarkable.

Twelve tales of the unknown from a master of science fiction Clifford D. Simak had a sublime ability to evoke a lost way of life. He spent his youth in rural Wisconsin, a landscape filled with mysterious hollows, cliffs, dark forests, and the Wisconsin River flowing in its deep-cut valley. As Simak wandered the countryside and the ridges, he peopled them with imaginary characters who later came to life in his stories. One such individual is Johnny, the orphaned farm boy of “The Contraption,” who stumbles upon a wrecked starship and receives a priceless gift from its owners. Another is the old prospector Eli, whose surprising discoveries on Mercury get him killed in “Spaceship in a Flask.” In “Huddling Place,” a man with paralyzing agoraphobia is the only one who can save the life of a dear friend on Mars—if he can bear to make the trip. And in the title story, aliens slowly take over Earth while humans leave it behind and head for the Homestead Planets. Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook.

Two reporters looking for a story in the outer reaches of the Solar System come upon a derelict spaceship. Inside, they find the only inhabitant, a beautiful young woman who has been imprisoned for a thousand years in suspended animation, suspended but aware for the whole time. Together they set off on a grand adventure across the vastness of space and time in a search for a race known as the Cosmic Engineers on a mission to save the universe. Originally published as a short novel in Astounding Stories in 1939 and later expanded in this 1950 version, Cosmic Engineers shows the scope and imagination of one of science fictions true masters, Clifford Simak.

Multiple masterpieces of science fiction from a Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author in one volume. From a master of the Golden Age of science fiction, this collection includes: Way Station:Enoch Wallace lives a secluded life in the backwoods of Wisconsin. He carries a nineteenth-century rifle and never seems to age—a fact that has caught the attention of prying government eyes. The truth is Enoch's the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War, and for close to a century, he has operated a secret way station for aliens passing through on journeys to other stars. But the gifts of knowledge and immortality that his intergalactic guests have bestowed upon him have opened Enoch's eyes to humanity's impending destruction. Time and Again: Twenty years ago, Asher Sutton vanished in the star system 61 Cygni. Now, he has returned to Earth, but the star-traveler is no longer completely human—and he has a...

Tales of science fiction and adventure from the Hugo Award–winning author of Way Station and *City. The long and prolific career of Clifford D. Simak cemented him as one of the formative voices of the science fiction and fantasy genre. The third writer to be named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, his literary legacy stands alongside those of Robert A. Heinlein and Ray Bradbury. This striking collection of nine tales showcases Simak’s ability to take the everyday and turn it into something truly compelling, taking readers on a long journey in a very short time. In “Dusty Zebra,” Joe discovers a portal that allows him to exchange everyday objects with an entity he can neither see nor hear, and soon learns that one man’s treasure may be another dimension’s trash. In “Retrograde Evolution,” an interplanetary trading vessel tries to figure out how to deal with a remote society that has suddenly decided to become far less civilized. And in “Project Mastodon,” an unusual ambassador from an unheard-of country offers amazing opportunities in a place the modern world can never compete with: the past. Simak’s mastery of the short form is on display in these and six other stories. Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook.*

Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit, striding across his untended farm as he has done for over a century, still carrying the gun with which he had served in the Civil War. But what his neighbors must never know is that, inside his unchanging house, he meets with a host of unimaginable friends from the farthest stars. More than a hundred years before, an alien named Ulysses had recruited Enoch as the keeper of Earth's only galactic transfer station. Now, as Enoch studies the progress of Earth and tends the tanks where the aliens appear, the charts he made indicate his world is doomed to destruction. His alien friends can only offer help that seems worse than the dreaded disaster. Then he discovers the horror that lies across the galaxy...

A college professor and other oddballs are dropped onto a bleak world near a giant blue cube -- with no idea how to proceed.

Robot believers at the far end of the galaxy endeavor to create a true religion, but their efforts could be shattered by a shocking revelation Far in the future, on the remote planet End of Nothing, sentient robots are engaged in a remarkable enterprise. They call their project Vatican-17: an endeavor to create a truly universal religion presided over by a pope, whose extreme godliness and infallible artificial intelligence are fed by telepathic human Listeners who psychically delve into the mysteries of the universe. But the great and holy mission could be compromised by one shocking revelation that threatens to inspire serious crises of faith among the spiritual, truth-seeking robotic acolytes while tearing them into warring religious factions.  For the Listener Mary is claiming that she has just discovered Heaven. There are those among the Clifford D. Simak faithful who consider Project Pope his masterpiece. But whether the crowning literary achievement of a multiple Hugo and Nebula Award–winning science fiction Grand Master or merely another brilliant novel of speculative fiction to stand among his many, Simak’s breathtaking search for God in the machine ingeniously blends science and spirituality in a truly miraculous way that few science fiction writers, if any, have been able to accomplish.

A handful of humans and a multitude of robots create a new society on a mysteriously abandoned Earth in this breathtaking science fiction classic from one of the genre's acknowledged mastersWhat if you woke up one morning on Earth . . . and no one else was there? That is the reality that greeted a handful of humans, including Jason Whitney, his wife Martha, and the remnants of a tribe of Native Americans in the year 2135. Their inexplicable abandonment had unexpected benefits: the eventual development of mental telepathy and other extrasensory powers, inner peace, and best of all, near-immortality. Now, five thousand years later, most of the remaining humans live a tranquil, pastoral life, leaving technological and religious exploration to the masses of robot servants who no longer have humans to serve. But the unexpected reappearance of Jason's brother, who had teleported to the stars many years before, threatens to change everything yet again—for...

Thousands of years into the future man has completely destroyed a technology-based society and lives a tribal existence, worshipping the 'brain'-cases of long-rusted robots. Here and there pockets of knowledge remain, and young Tom Cushing lives in one such university. His imagination fired by reading of the fabled 'Place of Going to the Stars' in an ancient manuscript, he sets out on a long odyssey to find out if the legend is true. His journey encompasses excitement, danger and some strange and colourful companions who commune with plants, can sense life and include the very last robot. But nothing he meets along the way compares with what he and his motley group find at Thunderhead Butte, the Place of Going to the Stars, their journey's end. Here wonder abounds almost as at the edge of the universe. A new challenge, for man to rediscover his destiny, to fulfil his heritage and recover his lost knowledge.

Arnold Grant leaned forward in his chair. His face was twisted in fury. "There were plans, weren't there?" he demanded. "There were equations and formulas. Why didn't you bring us some of them?" "I tried," pleaded Wilson. Perspiration stood out on his forehead. The cigarette in his mouth was limp and dead. "One of them was always there. I never could get hold of any papers. I asked questions, but they were too busy to answer. And I couldn't ask too much, because then they would have suspected me." Half a continent away, the men they were speaking of -- the very men that Wilson had been hired to spy upon -- were watching everything that was said. They were not pleased.

Time travel involves dangers—from saber-toothed tigers to killer robots—but it may be humanity’s only hope in this novel by a Nebula Award–winning author. What is the price of eternal life? Secret agent Jay Corcoran is about to learn the answer when his investigation into an inexplicable disappearance carries him and journalist friend Tom Boone hundreds of years into the past. Corcoran and Boone’s powerful extrasensory abilities lead them to an advanced transportation system through time, and back to the bucolic eighteenth-century English countryside. There, they discover a family from the distant future that is hiding from the Immortals—an alien race that, many centuries on, is seducing human subjects with the promise of immortality. But the cost of life eternal is the corporeal self, and there is no place in the aliens’ future for anyone unwilling to exist as mind alone. Now that the Evans family’s sanctuary has been breached, escape is the only answer—for Tom Boone and Jay Corcoran as well—and the only way out is forward . . . far forward. But racing through space and time can be a hazardous occupation, especially with monstrous beasts, killer robots, and Immortal body-destroyers waiting at every juncture. The last novel from acclaimed science fiction Grand Master Clifford D. Simak, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and numerous other awards, Highway of Eternity combines breathtaking action with provocative ideas and unparalleled ingenuity, the hallmarks of Simak’s exceptional art. It is a fitting finale for the man who stands alongside Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke as one of the true giants of speculative fiction’s Golden Age.

Simak's stories often repeat a few basic ideas and themes. First and foremost is a setting in rural Wisconsin. A crusty individualistic backwoodsman character literally comes with the territory. But the rural setting is not always as idyllic as here and it is largely dominated by intolerance and isolationism.

Who controls power controls the Solar System, and Interplanetary Power, through its power accumulators controls power. Spencer Chambers, the president of Interplanetary Power, used that control to rule the Solar System with an iron thumb that allowed no dissent. When Russell Page and his friend Harry Wilson develop and alternative source of power they find themselves drawn into a conflict that will decide the fate of the system, and whether man will live in freedom or as slaves. Will they succeed, or will Interplanetary Power keep its Empire? with Includes Hellhounds of the Cosmos - When the Earth is threatened by beings from another dimension an army of ninety-nine brave men enters the fourth dimension to battle the Hellhounds of the Cosmos!

A mysterious invisible barrier suddenly encloses a small, out-of-the-way American town. It's been put there by a galactic intelligence intent on imposing harmony and cooperation on the different peoples of the universe. But to the inhabitants, the barrier evokes stark terror.

"The paper had gone to press, graphically describing the latest of the many horrible events which had been enacted upon the Earth in the last six months. The headlines screamed that Six Corners, a little hamlet in Pennsylvania, had been wiped out by the Horror. Another front-page story told of a Terror in the Amazon Valley which had sent the natives down the river in babbling fear. Other stories told of deaths here and there, all attributable to the "Black Horror," as it was called."

A collection of ten stories by Simak that date from 1939 to 1971. It also includes a six-page introduction by Simak, and a three-page bibliography of his science fiction books. The book is edited by Angus Wells. Contents: 1. A Death in the House 2. Day of Truce 3. Final Gentleman 4. Madness from Mars 5. Shotgun Cure 6. Small Deer 7. Sunspot Purge 8. The Autumn Land 9. The Sitters 10. The Thing in the Stone

EPUB (reformatted cover and toc)A short story collectionContentsTHE GOLDEN BUGSLEG. FORST.SO BRIGHT THE VISIONGALACTIC CHEST

Scanned, converted, re-formatted, proofed, custom title page, custom book cover and eBook creation by Jerry

Science Fiction. 50324 words long.

Collected tales of wonder, danger, and the future, including the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning title story This volume contains ten stellar short stories by science fiction Grand Master Clifford D. Simak. In "Grotto of the Dancing Deer," a man carrying an ancient secret finally speaks up, unable to bear any longer the loneliness he has experienced for millennia. In "Over the River," which Simak wrote in memory of his beloved grandmother Ellen, children from an embattled future are sent back for safekeeping to their ancestors in the peaceful past. And in "Day of Truce," the inhabitants of a suburban subdivision must barricade themselves against bands of roving attackers. On only one day each year do the gates open wide. . . . Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook.

EDITORIAL REVIEW: A collection of short tales by the author of City and Grotto of the Dancing Deer includes the title story, in which God is depicted as an experimental scientist killed by his own creation, and others. Contents: The Creator Shotgun Cure All the Traps of Earth Death Scene Reunion on Ganymede The Money Tree Party Line The Answers The Thing in the Stone

Tales of science fiction and adventure from the Hugo Award–winning author of Way Station and City. The long and prolific career of Clifford D. Simak cemented him as one of the formative voices of the science fiction and fantasy genre. The third writer to be named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, his literary legacy stands alongside those of Robert A. Heinlein and Ray Bradbury. This striking collection of nine tales showcases Simak's ability to take the everyday and turn it into something truly compelling, taking readers on a long journey in a very short time. In "Dusty Zebra," Joe discovers a portal that allows him to exchange everyday objects with an entity he can neither see nor hear, and soon learns that one man's treasure may be another dimension's trash. In "Retrograde Evolution," an interplanetary trading vessel tries to figure out how to deal with a remote society that has suddenly decided to...

A man who suffered brain damage can see the ancient past and hear the traffic of the stars—and the creature trapped under a mountain.

Transcriber’s Note: FB2Library.Elements.CiteItem

Volunteers risk their sanity by sending their minds into the void to query alien intelligences.

Nine tales of imagination and wonder from one of the formative voices of science fiction and fantasy, the author of Way Station and City. Named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, Clifford D. Simak was a preeminent voice during the decades that established sci-fi as a genre to be reckoned with. Held in the same esteem as fellow luminaries Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury, his novels continue to enthrall today's readers. And his short fiction is still as gripping and surprising now as when it first entertained an entire generation of fans. The title story is just one example of this. Cheviot Sherwood doesn't believe in miracles. They never seem to pay off. So when he's marooned on a planet with no plan for escape and no working radio, he takes it in stride and prepares for a long stay gathering food, making shelter, and collecting all the diamonds the world has to offer. But when a ship like...

Short story published in Thrilling Wonder Stories (April 1939). The fourth, and only, spaceship to return from Mars holds an insane crew and a Martian "furball".

Won Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 1959.

Without setting foot on another planet, people like Shep Blaine were reaching out to the stars with their minds, telepathically contacting strange beings on other worlds. But even Blaine was unprepared for what happened when he communed with the soul of an utterly alien being light years from Earth. After recovering from his experience, he becomes a dangerous man: not only has he gained startling new powers — but he now understands that humankind must share the stars. Hunted through time and space by those who he used to trust, Blaine undergoes a unique odyssey that takes him through a nightmarish version of small-town America as he seeks to find others who share his vision of a humane future. Blaine has mastered death and time. Now he must master the fear and ignorance that threatened to destroy him! Serialized in Analog Science Fact & Fiction as The Fisherman in 1961. Later published by Doubleday as  Time is the Simplest Thing . Nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1962.

Everyone on Earth gains the power to see a day into the future, but some visions are better not "seen".

The Creator is a science fiction novelette by author Clifford D. Simak . It was published in book form in 1946 by Crawford Publications in an edition of 500 copies. It had previously appeared in the September 1935 issue of the magazine Marvel Tales .

An alien gives a country doctor a vaccine to wipe out mankind's diseases—including a few we never recognized.

The Science Fiction Short Stories of Clifford D. Simak CONTENTS Dusty Zebra Honorable Opponent Carbon Copy Idiot's Crusade Operation Stinky Jackpot Death Scene Neighbor

A runaway robot gains the ability to telekinetically fix any problem, yet can't fix his own problem: the need to be needed.

A newcomer to a run-down farm brings peace and prosperity to a poor but pleasant community, but powerfully resists the inquisitive

A real estate salesman is making a fortune leasing houses to families — except the houses remain empty.

Like every farmer on every planet, Duncan had to hunt down anything that damaged his crops—even though he was aware this was—

An engineer drifting through life finds himself trapped in a village where nothing ever happens.

The village idiot has been possessed by an anthropologist alien, but now the "idiot" has ideas of his own.

On a parallel Earth perpetually laid waste by the Harriers of the Horde, a young man must ferry what may be a true account of Jesus's teachings to distant London. He's helped by a lonely ghost, a goblin, a demon, and a warrior woman riding a griffin.