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I Am Crying All Inside and Other Stories
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.
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.
Contents:
* Clifford D. Simak: Grand Master Indeed! • essay by David W. Wixon
* Installment Plan (1959) / novelette by Clifford D. Simak: A work gang shows up on a remote planet to collect the harvest of podars needed for medicine, but the natives would not sell.
* I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air (1973) / short story by Clifford D. Simak: After being rebuilt as an alien monster, a human astronaut plans revenge against his alien tormentors. (Originally written in 1973 for Harlan Ellison's un-published anthology The Last Dangerous Visions.)
* Small Deer (1965) / short story by Clifford D. Simak: A tinkerer fires up a time machine and learns what killed off the dinosaurs, and may come back.
* Ogre (1944) / novelette by Clifford D. Simak: On a planet ruled by intelligent vegetables - music trees, rifle trees, and electro-vines - humans seeking to exploit the resources find themselves exploited.
* Gleaners (1960) / novelette by Clifford D. Simak: The put-upon director of Past, Inc. sends out operatives to cherry-pick treasures from the past, until some oddly prescient folk in his office suggest another way.
* Madness from Mars (1939) / short story by Clifford D. Simak: The fourth, and only, spaceship to return from Mars holds an insane crew and a Martian "furball".
* Gunsmoke Interlude (1952) / short story by Clifford D. Simak
I Am Crying All Inside (1969) / short story by Clifford D. Simak: The smart and rich people of Earth have left, along with their smart machines, leaving behind the rest.
* The Call from Beyond (1950) / novelette by Clifford D. Simak
*All the Traps of Earth (1960) / novelette by Clifford D. Simak: A runaway robot gains the ability to telekinetically fix any problem, yet cannot fix his own problem: the need to be needed.
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 20, 2015
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1053 people want to read
About the author
Clifford D. Simak
969 books1,059 followers"He was honored by fans with three Hugo awards and by colleagues with one Nebula award and was named the third Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) in 1977." (Wikipedia)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford...
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews
May 21, 2022
Born in Wisconsin in 1904, Clifford D. Simak enjoyed a fifty-five year career as a science fiction author. He died in 1988.
This is the first collection of his short stories. All though he is mostly known for writing science fiction, some of his work is more than that. The science fiction genre has allowed an author to do more than write about outer space.
Philosophy, religion, sociology and other disciplines are themes that are tackled here. Simak does more than explore aliens or other life forms, he wants to observe the why, of it. The how of it.
I enjoyed reading most of the stories in this collection. Especially the short western. I’m sure this collection will have something for everyone.
This is the first collection of his short stories. All though he is mostly known for writing science fiction, some of his work is more than that. The science fiction genre has allowed an author to do more than write about outer space.
Philosophy, religion, sociology and other disciplines are themes that are tackled here. Simak does more than explore aliens or other life forms, he wants to observe the why, of it. The how of it.
I enjoyed reading most of the stories in this collection. Especially the short western. I’m sure this collection will have something for everyone.
August 2, 2015
The executors of Simak's estate have embarked on a project to re-release all of Simak's short stories, originally published in the half-century from 1931-1981. This is the first volume in this retrospective of a long career in the genre.
*** “Installment Plan”
A man and his robotic sales team run into trouble on what was expected to be a routine trading mission to a semi-primitive planet. Why won't the natives sell their 'podars,' when previous visitors found them eager to do business?
*** “I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Away Up In the Air”
Originally written for the third, never-published 'Dangerous Visions' anthology, the editors are excited that this story appears here for the first time.
A ruthless, money-hungry prospector is practically rubbing his hands together in greed over his 'strike' on a new planet and his plans to exploit the native population for profit. However, when he's crushed in a landslide and the unexpectedly-talented locals provide him with a new-and-improved body, his plans are forced to change.
*** “Small Deer”
An epistolary piece, in which a 'savant syndrome' type writes a letter detailing how he and a similarly afflicted/talented buddy have created a time machine and discovered the real reason the dinosaurs went extinct.
*** “Ogre”
It's got a similar 'capitalist' feel to the earlier stories, "I Have no Head..." and "Installment Plan." The whole 'trying to make money off alien planets' seems to be a Simak theme.
On this planet, there are alien singing trees which, through a symbiotic relationship, make addictively beautiful music. These compositions are all the rage back on Earth, and a couple of rival groups of prospector types both want to make even greater profits.
However, the aliens might have a trick or two up their sleeves...
Fun, in a madcap way, but it does feel a little dated (especially when a racial slur pops up at random.)
**** “Gleaners”
"Past, Inc." is in the business of time travel. The concept is a remarkable precursor to Kage Baker's 'The Company' and Connie Willis' time travel series. As in 'The Company' books, employees of Past, Inc. are often assigned to track down and grab 'lost' and valuable items for future profit. Like in Willis' writings, there's an often-humorous focus on the bureaucracy of the work and the sharp toll it takes on the travelers. It's far more 'capitalist' than either, however.
The writing here isn't as polished or incisive as either of the later writers' - but it's still both historically fascinating and entertaining.
**** “Madness From Mars”
The editor notes that apparently, Simak didn't much like this story, but he doesn't understand why. I too, am baffled. I think it's one of the best in the collection.
The first 'successful' mission returns from Mars. Unfortunately, 'success' is relative. Although the ship made it back to Earth, only one crew member has survived long enough to pilot the ship toward home. However, the mission has returned with a living 'animal' - a tribble-like creature - from Mars.
Of course, experts are eager to study it - and everyone would like to piece together what happened on this latest doomed expedition.
** “Gunsmoke Interlude”
In addition to the science fiction that he's known for, Simak also wrote quite a few Western stories. This is one of them.
A man with a price on his head comes to town. The new, young sheriff asks him to 'check-in' his guns for the night. But the badass gunman would feel 'naked' without his weapons.
OK, I understand being stubborn and rigid - but there's a limit, and this story pushes it a bit past believability.
*** “I Am Crying All Inside”
A story of hillbillies and robots, living a life of farming and moonshine. It's a nice, unexpected perspective on a possible future - and an interesting sentiment.
*** “The Call From Beyond”
Escaping the strictures and biases of Earth, an exceptional man (or so he tells us) heads out to the proscribed area of Pluto, hoping that the ban on travel to the area will allow him to set up a solitary existence. However once he's there, he discovers that the restrictions were based on false reports, and that actually, a team of explorers thought dead are (at least in part) alive, and have hatched a nefarious plot. Without knowing the details, our protagonist quickly adjusts him plans with an eye to sussing out the situation and possibly getting in on the action.
*** “All the Traps of Earth”
This story starts with a meditative feel, implicitly comparing the plight of a robot to slavery. An old, faithful retainer is about to be sold off as devalued chattel now that his useful task is done. However, the second part of the story is not quite as strong - the robot makes the illegal decision to run away, and a fun, but more-typical Space Adventure begins. Still, an interesting and worthwhile piece.
Many thanks to Open Road Media and NetGalley for the opportunity to read these classic stories. As always, my opinions are solely my own.
*** “Installment Plan”
A man and his robotic sales team run into trouble on what was expected to be a routine trading mission to a semi-primitive planet. Why won't the natives sell their 'podars,' when previous visitors found them eager to do business?
*** “I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Away Up In the Air”
Originally written for the third, never-published 'Dangerous Visions' anthology, the editors are excited that this story appears here for the first time.
A ruthless, money-hungry prospector is practically rubbing his hands together in greed over his 'strike' on a new planet and his plans to exploit the native population for profit. However, when he's crushed in a landslide and the unexpectedly-talented locals provide him with a new-and-improved body, his plans are forced to change.
*** “Small Deer”
An epistolary piece, in which a 'savant syndrome' type writes a letter detailing how he and a similarly afflicted/talented buddy have created a time machine and discovered the real reason the dinosaurs went extinct.
*** “Ogre”
It's got a similar 'capitalist' feel to the earlier stories, "I Have no Head..." and "Installment Plan." The whole 'trying to make money off alien planets' seems to be a Simak theme.
On this planet, there are alien singing trees which, through a symbiotic relationship, make addictively beautiful music. These compositions are all the rage back on Earth, and a couple of rival groups of prospector types both want to make even greater profits.
However, the aliens might have a trick or two up their sleeves...
Fun, in a madcap way, but it does feel a little dated (especially when a racial slur pops up at random.)
**** “Gleaners”
"Past, Inc." is in the business of time travel. The concept is a remarkable precursor to Kage Baker's 'The Company' and Connie Willis' time travel series. As in 'The Company' books, employees of Past, Inc. are often assigned to track down and grab 'lost' and valuable items for future profit. Like in Willis' writings, there's an often-humorous focus on the bureaucracy of the work and the sharp toll it takes on the travelers. It's far more 'capitalist' than either, however.
The writing here isn't as polished or incisive as either of the later writers' - but it's still both historically fascinating and entertaining.
**** “Madness From Mars”
The editor notes that apparently, Simak didn't much like this story, but he doesn't understand why. I too, am baffled. I think it's one of the best in the collection.
The first 'successful' mission returns from Mars. Unfortunately, 'success' is relative. Although the ship made it back to Earth, only one crew member has survived long enough to pilot the ship toward home. However, the mission has returned with a living 'animal' - a tribble-like creature - from Mars.
Of course, experts are eager to study it - and everyone would like to piece together what happened on this latest doomed expedition.
** “Gunsmoke Interlude”
In addition to the science fiction that he's known for, Simak also wrote quite a few Western stories. This is one of them.
A man with a price on his head comes to town. The new, young sheriff asks him to 'check-in' his guns for the night. But the badass gunman would feel 'naked' without his weapons.
OK, I understand being stubborn and rigid - but there's a limit, and this story pushes it a bit past believability.
*** “I Am Crying All Inside”
A story of hillbillies and robots, living a life of farming and moonshine. It's a nice, unexpected perspective on a possible future - and an interesting sentiment.
*** “The Call From Beyond”
Escaping the strictures and biases of Earth, an exceptional man (or so he tells us) heads out to the proscribed area of Pluto, hoping that the ban on travel to the area will allow him to set up a solitary existence. However once he's there, he discovers that the restrictions were based on false reports, and that actually, a team of explorers thought dead are (at least in part) alive, and have hatched a nefarious plot. Without knowing the details, our protagonist quickly adjusts him plans with an eye to sussing out the situation and possibly getting in on the action.
*** “All the Traps of Earth”
This story starts with a meditative feel, implicitly comparing the plight of a robot to slavery. An old, faithful retainer is about to be sold off as devalued chattel now that his useful task is done. However, the second part of the story is not quite as strong - the robot makes the illegal decision to run away, and a fun, but more-typical Space Adventure begins. Still, an interesting and worthwhile piece.
Many thanks to Open Road Media and NetGalley for the opportunity to read these classic stories. As always, my opinions are solely my own.
October 17, 2020
A great and awesome short stories collection!!!
Loved them very much!!!
Never before heard from Simak, but his fantastic imagination and literary craft did thoroughly capture my whole attention..
Folks, all stories in this book are indeed very good!!!
If you are fond of science fiction and also of short stories, then go for it!!!
I could tell you a lot, but I prefer not to do so..
The best will be to dive deep in the stories knowing nothing at all about them!!!
Having said that, these are stories published during the 1940 to 1960..
Still fresh and snarling with very sharp teeths!!!
Happy reading..
Dean;)
Loved them very much!!!
Never before heard from Simak, but his fantastic imagination and literary craft did thoroughly capture my whole attention..
Folks, all stories in this book are indeed very good!!!
If you are fond of science fiction and also of short stories, then go for it!!!
I could tell you a lot, but I prefer not to do so..
The best will be to dive deep in the stories knowing nothing at all about them!!!
Having said that, these are stories published during the 1940 to 1960..
Still fresh and snarling with very sharp teeths!!!
Happy reading..
Dean;)
October 28, 2015
4 stars - Metaphorosis Reviews
A collection of speculative stories from Clifford D. Simak.
I've been on a little bit of a Clifford Simak kick lately, triggered by a chance reading of All Flesh is Grass, and I've been happy to revisit or discover more of his work. This collection of warm, friendly stories - the first in a projected dozen - kept me feeling that way.
While I tend to think of Simak in terms of small-town, Earth-bound stories, the short stories here are definite SF of the man meets alien variety. Plus a western. They're all good, and they all show the everyday-man touch Simak was so good at. The stories are:
Installment Plan - a nice story about robot-human cooperation. Not a logic-puzzle Asimov story, not evil robots; just coexistence.
I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air - a clever story about man's pretensions to superiority. Some great points, but the execution of the end is weak.
Small Deer - what really happened to the dinosaurs? A thin story with no great surprises.
Ogre - humans tangle with aliens over music. One of my favorites, with some sophisticated concepts under its pulp-incredible surface.
Gleaners - the manager of a time-travel agency runs out of patience. It's hard to do much that's interesting with time travel. Simak pulls it off by focusing on the people involved, and not worrying too much about science.
Madness from Mars - astronauts bring back a seemingly innocuous Martian creature. Another story where there's real pathos beneath the pulpy plot.
Gunsmoke Interlude - a gunslinger runs into a tough sheriff. I hadn't actually known that Simak wrote westerns. This one is very good, up until a weak ending.
I Am Crying All Inside - robots and humans left behind by emigration. The seeds of a really good story are here, but they don't really come out.
The Call From Beyond - a man looking for solitude finds humans in an unexpected place. A bit long, and the ending could have been stronger, but interesting despite it.
All the Traps of Earth - a robot at the end of his lifecycle looks for purpose. One of the few stories I'd read before, and for good reason. The ending is a bit trite, but as with Installment Plan, Simak does a great job of treating robots as real characters rather than props.
The book is a decent size for quick consumption, though the dozen-volume plan seems ambitious, and I wonder why they didn't choose fewer, bigger books. The stories have short, mildly interesting, but inoffensive forewords that provide a little context, from a long-time Simak associate. What's missing is any explanation of the selection and ordering criteria. I couldn't see any logic to it - not chronological, not thematic (that western). It's a common problem in single-author collections (cf the Roger Zelazny 6 volume set), but an irritant nonetheless.
If you haven't read much Simak, this is a good place to start - a short but solid set of SF stories about people, rather than gimmicks.
A collection of speculative stories from Clifford D. Simak.
I've been on a little bit of a Clifford Simak kick lately, triggered by a chance reading of All Flesh is Grass, and I've been happy to revisit or discover more of his work. This collection of warm, friendly stories - the first in a projected dozen - kept me feeling that way.
While I tend to think of Simak in terms of small-town, Earth-bound stories, the short stories here are definite SF of the man meets alien variety. Plus a western. They're all good, and they all show the everyday-man touch Simak was so good at. The stories are:
Installment Plan - a nice story about robot-human cooperation. Not a logic-puzzle Asimov story, not evil robots; just coexistence.
I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air - a clever story about man's pretensions to superiority. Some great points, but the execution of the end is weak.
Small Deer - what really happened to the dinosaurs? A thin story with no great surprises.
Ogre - humans tangle with aliens over music. One of my favorites, with some sophisticated concepts under its pulp-incredible surface.
Gleaners - the manager of a time-travel agency runs out of patience. It's hard to do much that's interesting with time travel. Simak pulls it off by focusing on the people involved, and not worrying too much about science.
Madness from Mars - astronauts bring back a seemingly innocuous Martian creature. Another story where there's real pathos beneath the pulpy plot.
Gunsmoke Interlude - a gunslinger runs into a tough sheriff. I hadn't actually known that Simak wrote westerns. This one is very good, up until a weak ending.
I Am Crying All Inside - robots and humans left behind by emigration. The seeds of a really good story are here, but they don't really come out.
The Call From Beyond - a man looking for solitude finds humans in an unexpected place. A bit long, and the ending could have been stronger, but interesting despite it.
All the Traps of Earth - a robot at the end of his lifecycle looks for purpose. One of the few stories I'd read before, and for good reason. The ending is a bit trite, but as with Installment Plan, Simak does a great job of treating robots as real characters rather than props.
The book is a decent size for quick consumption, though the dozen-volume plan seems ambitious, and I wonder why they didn't choose fewer, bigger books. The stories have short, mildly interesting, but inoffensive forewords that provide a little context, from a long-time Simak associate. What's missing is any explanation of the selection and ordering criteria. I couldn't see any logic to it - not chronological, not thematic (that western). It's a common problem in single-author collections (cf the Roger Zelazny 6 volume set), but an irritant nonetheless.
If you haven't read much Simak, this is a good place to start - a short but solid set of SF stories about people, rather than gimmicks.
May 6, 2016
These stories are truly embedded with imagination and humanity's scope. Not just in space travel or time travel or science fiction criteria for genre, either.
This is volume #1 - he has about 14 volumes of stories published in his lifetime.
There are some within this collection which foresee some aspects of scientific discovery and interest. But most dwell within spheres of human intelligence and values of emotion and cognition. For instance, like what is "human" when the body becomes changed and the mind does not. I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Up in the Air is one of the stories with that kind of slant.
But there is space travel, time travel, agriculture and business enterprise between planets and systems and all kinds of other material here too. Most are 5 star, a couple are 3- but most are excellent, tense, and embedded reads for outcome and for conceptions. Very original conceptions.
One not original conception but a universal theme that I adore is encapsulated in one of these stories. In fact this exact core, between 4 out of my last 10 reads, seems to be the strongest common thread- despite all being different genre writing. And that surrounds the gaining of knowledge for a physical truth or condition causing a loss of "happy" ignorance. Much akin to eating of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden biblical sense. Childhood left behind, simplicity left behind, full knowledge equates full responsibility- all being fall outs of the change for what is known. I Am Crying All Inside equates perfectly to leaving behind the mind of an innocent.
The longer story of Installment Plan is 5 star, IMHO. Madness from Mars and Small Deer are also superlative. Small Deer I do remember from a journal read many years ago. Extremely short and perfectly written.
When I am looking for crisp writing and great imagination- I far prefer this author to any magic realism or wild jaunts of current moderns. There is class here far beyond the fact that he was the only person to win all of the awards possible for this genre's stories. Well deserved and it will not happen again. Most of those award fields became extinct.
I'll return to Simak. And I usually do not seek out any short story format.
This is volume #1 - he has about 14 volumes of stories published in his lifetime.
There are some within this collection which foresee some aspects of scientific discovery and interest. But most dwell within spheres of human intelligence and values of emotion and cognition. For instance, like what is "human" when the body becomes changed and the mind does not. I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Up in the Air is one of the stories with that kind of slant.
But there is space travel, time travel, agriculture and business enterprise between planets and systems and all kinds of other material here too. Most are 5 star, a couple are 3- but most are excellent, tense, and embedded reads for outcome and for conceptions. Very original conceptions.
One not original conception but a universal theme that I adore is encapsulated in one of these stories. In fact this exact core, between 4 out of my last 10 reads, seems to be the strongest common thread- despite all being different genre writing. And that surrounds the gaining of knowledge for a physical truth or condition causing a loss of "happy" ignorance. Much akin to eating of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden biblical sense. Childhood left behind, simplicity left behind, full knowledge equates full responsibility- all being fall outs of the change for what is known. I Am Crying All Inside equates perfectly to leaving behind the mind of an innocent.
The longer story of Installment Plan is 5 star, IMHO. Madness from Mars and Small Deer are also superlative. Small Deer I do remember from a journal read many years ago. Extremely short and perfectly written.
When I am looking for crisp writing and great imagination- I far prefer this author to any magic realism or wild jaunts of current moderns. There is class here far beyond the fact that he was the only person to win all of the awards possible for this genre's stories. Well deserved and it will not happen again. Most of those award fields became extinct.
I'll return to Simak. And I usually do not seek out any short story format.
January 13, 2016
This is one of the best books I have ever read. Looking forward to volume 2!
May 4, 2020
Collection of short stories. Classic science fiction. I’ve listened to and quite enjoyed them. Stories listed below:
INSTALLMENT PLAN. Robots gain new skills and personalities whenever their brain box transmod is switched out. Set on distant planet. Humans. Humanid gnomes. A podar plant harvested for tranquilizer drug. A cartel of the future.
I HAVE NO ARMS AND MY EYES ARE FLOATING ABOVE MY HEAD. First person POV. Set on an alien planet. A human and a bunch of large lobster-like sentient beings. So this hysterically mean-spirited man rants and raves about his misfortune, finds that his hatred is his last surviving speck of humanity, and plans vengeance. But others have made plans, too. We laughed out loud. But it went on a bit too long.
Also heard SMALL DEER, about time-travel and the age of dinosaurs. Well told. With a warning for all of us billions, especially those who indulge in too much fast food and café lattes.
INSTALLMENT PLAN. Robots gain new skills and personalities whenever their brain box transmod is switched out. Set on distant planet. Humans. Humanid gnomes. A podar plant harvested for tranquilizer drug. A cartel of the future.
I HAVE NO ARMS AND MY EYES ARE FLOATING ABOVE MY HEAD. First person POV. Set on an alien planet. A human and a bunch of large lobster-like sentient beings. So this hysterically mean-spirited man rants and raves about his misfortune, finds that his hatred is his last surviving speck of humanity, and plans vengeance. But others have made plans, too. We laughed out loud. But it went on a bit too long.
Also heard SMALL DEER, about time-travel and the age of dinosaurs. Well told. With a warning for all of us billions, especially those who indulge in too much fast food and café lattes.
May 18, 2017
4.5 stars.
September 6, 2025
As one of my wise GR friends said in the thread for a book that I have forgotten and in a review that I stopped receiving notifications about, good science fiction de-centers the importance of humankind and human intelligence. And in doing this, the best writers reflect humanity back to readers as an object of study. Simak excels at this kind of writing, and it is precisely what I like about him the most.
For my tastes, Simak is at his best when writing about robots, robot civilizations, robot philosophy, and robot religion. The books where he takes up these themes (e.g., A Choice of Gods, and Project Pope) are among my favorites not only of his work but of all the science fiction I have read. There are numerous stories in this collection that are similarly themed, including the best story of the bunch, “All The Traps Of Earth” which is kind of a like a robot version of The Remains of the Day, it’s a lovely story and truly worth seeking out even if you never read this volume. There is also a scene of mind/body transference which is terrific: thoughtful and sad. Stories like “Installment Plan” and the title story, “I Am Crying All Inside,” have some of these elements and are solidly good.
The other place where Simak really shines is in writing about alien intelligence. He is not far from doing this already in his work on robots. The best example of this kind of theme is Simak’s post war book, City which is my favorite of his works, an imagined world in which humankind is nearly extinct and is definitely past the point of no return. The dominant species on Earth are sentient dogs and robots that have developed a world around their values and worldviews. Simak has stories covering similar territory here, like “I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up In The Air,” in which a human consciousness is transferred to an alien body and sensory system, and “Ogre” which is a story with a really nifty concept (i.e., plant life is the dominant sentient species) even if I thought that the story was kind of flat.
There are then a couple of time travel stories, “Gleaners” and “Small Deer,” the latter of which had a disturbing conclusion to it, but these were kind of typical time travel yarns, messing with butterfly effects, relativity, and temporal paradoxes. Okay. Not great. Then there were two stories that were, for lack of a better way to put it … Lovecraft-type cosmic horror? I can appreciate what those stories (i.e., “The Call From Beyond” and “Madness From Mars”) were attempting to do, but they seemed further afield from the Simak that I was hoping for. I probably didn’t give these stories a fair chance. Likewise for “Gunsmoke Interlude” which just didn’t appeal.
For my tastes, Simak is at his best when writing about robots, robot civilizations, robot philosophy, and robot religion. The books where he takes up these themes (e.g., A Choice of Gods, and Project Pope) are among my favorites not only of his work but of all the science fiction I have read. There are numerous stories in this collection that are similarly themed, including the best story of the bunch, “All The Traps Of Earth” which is kind of a like a robot version of The Remains of the Day, it’s a lovely story and truly worth seeking out even if you never read this volume. There is also a scene of mind/body transference which is terrific: thoughtful and sad. Stories like “Installment Plan” and the title story, “I Am Crying All Inside,” have some of these elements and are solidly good.
The other place where Simak really shines is in writing about alien intelligence. He is not far from doing this already in his work on robots. The best example of this kind of theme is Simak’s post war book, City which is my favorite of his works, an imagined world in which humankind is nearly extinct and is definitely past the point of no return. The dominant species on Earth are sentient dogs and robots that have developed a world around their values and worldviews. Simak has stories covering similar territory here, like “I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up In The Air,” in which a human consciousness is transferred to an alien body and sensory system, and “Ogre” which is a story with a really nifty concept (i.e., plant life is the dominant sentient species) even if I thought that the story was kind of flat.
There are then a couple of time travel stories, “Gleaners” and “Small Deer,” the latter of which had a disturbing conclusion to it, but these were kind of typical time travel yarns, messing with butterfly effects, relativity, and temporal paradoxes. Okay. Not great. Then there were two stories that were, for lack of a better way to put it … Lovecraft-type cosmic horror? I can appreciate what those stories (i.e., “The Call From Beyond” and “Madness From Mars”) were attempting to do, but they seemed further afield from the Simak that I was hoping for. I probably didn’t give these stories a fair chance. Likewise for “Gunsmoke Interlude” which just didn’t appeal.
July 10, 2020
Когато си намерих пълните съчинения - 12 от 14 книжки са излезли до сега - на Саймък, нарочно прескочих първата, защото половината произведения ги бях чел вече. Сега се върнах към нея, причината е, че тук наистина са събрани някой от най-добрите му произведения.
Може би трябва да кажа няколко думи за съставителя на тази серия. Дейвид Уиксън е дългогодишен приятел на Саймък и доста време е отговарял за кореспонденцията на писателя. След смърта на Саймък наследява и цялата му литература. Уводите към разказите и самите томове са издържани с дълбоко познаване на саймъковата проза и вярно приятелство, което ги прави приятни за четене почти колкото самите разкази.
“Installment Plan” - Едно от по-ранните произведения на Саймък. Става въпрос за колонизиране на планета с минимален човешки и роботски персонал, като идеята за "чипове" с различни професионални умения за роботите ми допадна доста.
“I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Away Up In the Air” - Както си личи по заглавието, тук има пръст Харлан Елисън. ТОва е и едно от произведенията излизало само тук. Влиянието на Елисън прорязва и цялото произведение, което е хитроумно, цинично и доволно сатирично. Приносът на Саймък, според мен е от така дълбоко загнезденото в цялата му литература разочарование от човечеството.
Един амбициозен и не особено добър човек попада на планета населена от разумни омари. Те го даряват с ново тяло, което той не харесва по никакъв начин. Успява да запази разсъдък, благодарение на човешките амбиция и омраза, но го очаква изненада. Както и всички нас.
“Small Deer” - Пътуване във времето и чист ужас на ниво достойно за старите майстори. Епистоларно произведение, което обяснява изчезването на динозаврите и носи една космическа заплаха за човечеството в необозримото бъдеще.
“Ogre” - Преведено на български като "Човекоядци" и издавано в едноимения сборник, това е едно от любимите ми неща от Саймък. Тук отново имаме разумен живот на растителна основа, което е повтаряща се тема в цялото творчество на Саймък. Повече съм писал в ревюто си към преведеното произведение.
“Gleaners” - Отново пътуване във времето, но този път гледната точка е чисто цивилизационна. Много добро и хомогенно пероизведения.
На един менажер на компания за пътуване във времето мног отдавна му е писнало от всички глупости покрай работата. Всекидневно се разправя с всякакви идиоти и иска да се махне. Не е наясно, че вече има преденачертано бъдеще.
“Madness From Mars” - "Лудост от Марс" е излизала на български в списание "Спектър", ако не се лъжа. Много добро произведение за цивилизационен контакт, което отново доказва гледната точка на Саймък за контакт между цивилизации, а именно, че трябва да е само на ниво идеи.
Една марсианска експедиция едва успява да се завърне на земята с извънземна форма на живот. Привидно безобидното същество, без да иска може да причини краха на цивилизацията.
“Gunsmoke Interlude” - Шеметен уестърн от типа който най-много харесвам - мъжаги, чест и скрити мотиви.
“I Am Crying All Inside” - Разказът дал име на този том от поредицата е поредната тъжна елегия за бъдещето на люлката на човечеството. Харесах зверски.
“The Call From Beyond” - Това, това е произведението. Вдъхновено от Лъвкрафт, неочаквано и много сбъркано.
Уж опитващ се да избяга от правосъдието, чак на спътниците на Плутон, престъпник. Попада на отдавна самоизолирала се група странници, които имат тайна. Тайна, която може да промени вселената, такава каквато я познаваме.
“All the Traps of Earth” - "Всички капани на Земята" е излизала в пиратски преведената антология "Смажи лагерите си с кръв" и е едно от най-добрите неща на Саймък. За мен бие 200 годишния човек на Азимов и то не с една дължина, а с половин писта.
Робот служил 600 години на една фамилия и избегнал участта на другите роботи, благодарение на екстравагантността на господарите си, е оставен на произвола, след смъртта на последния наследник. Ще трябва отново да намери предназначението си, докато се сблъсква с бюрократщина, лицемерие, алчност и разбити надежди.
Може би трябва да кажа няколко думи за съставителя на тази серия. Дейвид Уиксън е дългогодишен приятел на Саймък и доста време е отговарял за кореспонденцията на писателя. След смърта на Саймък наследява и цялата му литература. Уводите към разказите и самите томове са издържани с дълбоко познаване на саймъковата проза и вярно приятелство, което ги прави приятни за четене почти колкото самите разкази.
“Installment Plan” - Едно от по-ранните произведения на Саймък. Става въпрос за колонизиране на планета с минимален човешки и роботски персонал, като идеята за "чипове" с различни професионални умения за роботите ми допадна доста.
“I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Away Up In the Air” - Както си личи по заглавието, тук има пръст Харлан Елисън. ТОва е и едно от произведенията излизало само тук. Влиянието на Елисън прорязва и цялото произведение, което е хитроумно, цинично и доволно сатирично. Приносът на Саймък, според мен е от така дълбоко загнезденото в цялата му литература разочарование от човечеството.
Един амбициозен и не особено добър човек попада на планета населена от разумни омари. Те го даряват с ново тяло, което той не харесва по никакъв начин. Успява да запази разсъдък, благодарение на човешките амбиция и омраза, но го очаква изненада. Както и всички нас.
“Small Deer” - Пътуване във времето и чист ужас на ниво достойно за старите майстори. Епистоларно произведение, което обяснява изчезването на динозаврите и носи една космическа заплаха за човечеството в необозримото бъдеще.
“Ogre” - Преведено на български като "Човекоядци" и издавано в едноимения сборник, това е едно от любимите ми неща от Саймък. Тук отново имаме разумен живот на растителна основа, което е повтаряща се тема в цялото творчество на Саймък. Повече съм писал в ревюто си към преведеното произведение.
“Gleaners” - Отново пътуване във времето, но този път гледната точка е чисто цивилизационна. Много добро и хомогенно пероизведения.
На един менажер на компания за пътуване във времето мног отдавна му е писнало от всички глупости покрай работата. Всекидневно се разправя с всякакви идиоти и иска да се махне. Не е наясно, че вече има преденачертано бъдеще.
“Madness From Mars” - "Лудост от Марс" е излизала на български в списание "Спектър", ако не се лъжа. Много добро произведение за цивилизационен контакт, което отново доказва гледната точка на Саймък за контакт между цивилизации, а именно, че трябва да е само на ниво идеи.
Една марсианска експедиция едва успява да се завърне на земята с извънземна форма на живот. Привидно безобидното същество, без да иска може да причини краха на цивилизацията.
“Gunsmoke Interlude” - Шеметен уестърн от типа който най-много харесвам - мъжаги, чест и скрити мотиви.
“I Am Crying All Inside” - Разказът дал име на този том от поредицата е поредната тъжна елегия за бъдещето на люлката на човечеството. Харесах зверски.
“The Call From Beyond” - Това, това е произведението. Вдъхновено от Лъвкрафт, неочаквано и много сбъркано.
Уж опитващ се да избяга от правосъдието, чак на спътниците на Плутон, престъпник. Попада на отдавна самоизолирала се група странници, които имат тайна. Тайна, която може да промени вселената, такава каквато я познаваме.
“All the Traps of Earth” - "Всички капани на Земята" е излизала в пиратски преведената антология "Смажи лагерите си с кръв" и е едно от най-добрите неща на Саймък. За мен бие 200 годишния човек на Азимов и то не с една дължина, а с половин писта.
Робот служил 600 години на една фамилия и избегнал участта на другите роботи, благодарение на екстравагантността на господарите си, е оставен на произвола, след смъртта на последния наследник. Ще трябва отново да намери предназначението си, докато се сблъсква с бюрократщина, лицемерие, алчност и разбити надежди.
September 14, 2018
A bit more experimental than many other works by Simak. Definitely still relevant & engrossing. Well, there are a couple of unfortunate word choices, but given the context it's safe to discredit the times, not the author. Imo, the stories got more interesting as the book progressed. And the western was good; I'd like to read more of Simak's westerns.
Installment Plan - too long for too little payoff, perhaps
I Had No Head... - um, really? all-righty then...
Small Deer - clever, even if not likely to be publishable today
Ogre - Trees that make music, a robot that is both bureaucrat and bodyguard, a critter whose calling is to be an encyclopedia and so Encyclopedia is his name... there's enough here for a novella at least
Gleaners - Time Travel; I'd love to see more stories in this world
Madness from Mars - would be a good Twilight Zone episode
Gunsmoke Interlude - pulpy, but still distinct short-short flash fiction
I Am Crying All Inside - These are not ordinary robots
The Call from Beyond - Hm... a little more horror, a taste of Hades and Nietzsche....
All the Traps of Earth - definitely not your typical Robot; good companion to Sea of Rust; marvelous and highly recommended
Installment Plan - too long for too little payoff, perhaps
I Had No Head... - um, really? all-righty then...
Small Deer - clever, even if not likely to be publishable today
Ogre - Trees that make music, a robot that is both bureaucrat and bodyguard, a critter whose calling is to be an encyclopedia and so Encyclopedia is his name... there's enough here for a novella at least
Gleaners - Time Travel; I'd love to see more stories in this world
Madness from Mars - would be a good Twilight Zone episode
Gunsmoke Interlude - pulpy, but still distinct short-short flash fiction
I Am Crying All Inside - These are not ordinary robots
The Call from Beyond - Hm... a little more horror, a taste of Hades and Nietzsche....
All the Traps of Earth - definitely not your typical Robot; good companion to Sea of Rust; marvelous and highly recommended
September 15, 2020
Clifford Simak was the first SF writer who was "my discovery." By that I mean I found him on my own with no outside help of any kind. Asimov, Heinlein, Burroughs, Ellison, I found from various sources be they my Uncle, books hanging around the house, friends or comic books. But not so Simak. I discovered him when the cover of All Flesh is Grass screamed out to me in the Bookworm and I bought and devoured that paperback novel. I then discovered that his short story "The Big Front Yard" was in the Asimov edited "The Hugo Winners." Even in the late 70s/early 80s it felt like Grandmaster Simak was largely forgotten by SF fandom.
The idea of collecting all of Simak's short fiction (including his western output) into a dozen volumes is a welcome one. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme to which stories are in which volume. They aren't chronological or thematic. Maybe the editor knows. Maybe he doesn't. It's probably fine. Thematic volumes run the risk of the stories seeming same-y. Chronological volumes have the disadvantage of showcasing earlier, usually weaker, work in the initial volumes which can make the wait for the better stuff hard.
This first volume is a joy. As with any collection the stories will vary in quality, even with a writer as competent as Simak. The editor gives us some great stuff in this first volume and some that is historically significant. We get the first-ever publication of "I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air" which was written for Ellison's The Last Dangerous Visions. "Gunsmoke Interlude" is one of Simak's handful of westerns which had never been re-printed in a mass format. "Madness From Mars" published in 1939 was one of Simak's very earliest stories.
We get a couple of time-travel stories and a look at Simak's view of robots and of his view of aliens. The title story probably comes closest to evoking the pastoral feel that Simak is probably best known for, the feeling that made him the most "small-town" SF writer, controlling for Bradbury who really didn't write much actual SF.
All-in-all a fine collection by one of SF's greats.
The idea of collecting all of Simak's short fiction (including his western output) into a dozen volumes is a welcome one. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme to which stories are in which volume. They aren't chronological or thematic. Maybe the editor knows. Maybe he doesn't. It's probably fine. Thematic volumes run the risk of the stories seeming same-y. Chronological volumes have the disadvantage of showcasing earlier, usually weaker, work in the initial volumes which can make the wait for the better stuff hard.
This first volume is a joy. As with any collection the stories will vary in quality, even with a writer as competent as Simak. The editor gives us some great stuff in this first volume and some that is historically significant. We get the first-ever publication of "I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air" which was written for Ellison's The Last Dangerous Visions. "Gunsmoke Interlude" is one of Simak's handful of westerns which had never been re-printed in a mass format. "Madness From Mars" published in 1939 was one of Simak's very earliest stories.
We get a couple of time-travel stories and a look at Simak's view of robots and of his view of aliens. The title story probably comes closest to evoking the pastoral feel that Simak is probably best known for, the feeling that made him the most "small-town" SF writer, controlling for Bradbury who really didn't write much actual SF.
All-in-all a fine collection by one of SF's greats.
June 19, 2022
2022 grade C+
A collection of single topic novelettes or extra-long short stories.
1 = Installment plan. Odd commercial SciFi. Kind of a weak but OK.
2 = I Have No Head.... Abandoned.
3 = Small Deer. Fun time travel story presented as a letter. Good.
4 = Ogre. Interesting plant based intelligent life. Good.
5 = Gleaners. Odd time travel travel story from the present POV. Too long but interesting.
6 = Madness From Mars. Grade C+
7 = Gunsmoke Interlude. Boring western.
8 = I Am Crying Inside. no notes
9 = Call from Beyond. An OK but wordy SciFi monster story with a bit of a Lovecraft style.
10 = All the Traps of Earth. A rogue robot escaping from earth and looking for a purpose.
A collection of single topic novelettes or extra-long short stories.
1 = Installment plan. Odd commercial SciFi. Kind of a weak but OK.
2 = I Have No Head.... Abandoned.
3 = Small Deer. Fun time travel story presented as a letter. Good.
4 = Ogre. Interesting plant based intelligent life. Good.
5 = Gleaners. Odd time travel travel story from the present POV. Too long but interesting.
6 = Madness From Mars. Grade C+
7 = Gunsmoke Interlude. Boring western.
8 = I Am Crying Inside. no notes
9 = Call from Beyond. An OK but wordy SciFi monster story with a bit of a Lovecraft style.
10 = All the Traps of Earth. A rogue robot escaping from earth and looking for a purpose.
October 6, 2015
4.5/5.0
December 8, 2025
When I revisited Clifford D. Simak’s ‘I Am Crying All Inside and Other Stories,’ I felt again what I always feel with Simak—that strange, almost tender ache of stepping into a future that is somehow quieter, kinder, and more wistful than our present.
Simak never wrote science fiction like his contemporaries did; his worlds aren’t neon-lit battlefields or glittering dystopias. Instead, they feel like old country roads where the streetlamps happen to be stars and the passersby happen to be robots, aliens, or lonely travellers from another timeline.
The title story alone is enough to bruise the heart. ‘I Am Crying All Inside’ is Simak doing what he does best—taking a being that “shouldn’t” have emotions, in this case an alien, and then peeling back layer after layer until you realise the creature feels more deeply than most humans you know.
And of course, in that classic Simak twist, it’s never melodramatic. The sorrow is gentle, like someone whispering a confession just before dawn.
Honestly, it reminded me a little of reading Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Martian Chronicles’ mixed with the moral warmth of Asimov’s late robot stories. Soft sci-fi, but with emotional teeth.
But the magic of the collection isn’t just the melancholy. Simak is obsessed with ‘‘decency’’—that small, stubborn human quality that refuses to die even in the strangest corners of the universe.
His protagonists are rarely warriors or geniuses. They’re ordinary folk: clerks, farmers, wanderers, archivists.
People who stumble into cosmic wonder the way someone might accidentally walk into a field of fireflies.
And yet, for all its gentleness, the collection has this undercurrent of existential dread. Not the loud, angsty kind — more like the quiet fear of becoming irrelevant in a cosmos that keeps evolving without us.
Several stories circle around the same idea: ‘‘How long can humanity survive, and in what form?’’ Will our values matter in the distant future? Will our memories outlive us? Will the universe care?
In story after story, Simak gently leans in and says:
‘Even if the universe doesn’t care, we should.’
Because caring is the one thing we’re built to do.
His landscapes — forests, old towns, starlit plains — carry that timeless melancholy of someone who loved rural America deeply and worried that the future would erase it. Even his robots feel like they’ve grown up on farms.
They’re polite, thoughtful, sometimes accidentally profound — not metal warriors but metallic philosophers who just want companionship and meaning.
Reading this collection as an adult, I realise how different Simak is from the more bombastic Golden Age writers.
He doesn’t show off. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t need his worlds to be cinematic.
His sci-fi feels like folklore written by someone who has seen the future and decided it’s nothing to be afraid of — as long as we carry our humanity with us.
The stories vary in tone and ambition—some whimsical, some eerie, a few quietly devastating—but everyone feels like a conversation with an old friend who understands loneliness better than most.
Simak writes for the heart first, the intellect second, and the spectacle barely at all.
By the end of the book, I found myself sitting quietly, almost contemplative. That’s the Simak effect.
No explosions, no galaxy-shattering revelations — just the gentle reminder that the universe is vast, but kindness can still echo across it, travelling farther than light.
In a world obsessed with speed and spectacle, Simak feels like a warm lantern held up in the dark.
And sometimes, that’s all we really need.
Most recommended.
Simak never wrote science fiction like his contemporaries did; his worlds aren’t neon-lit battlefields or glittering dystopias. Instead, they feel like old country roads where the streetlamps happen to be stars and the passersby happen to be robots, aliens, or lonely travellers from another timeline.
The title story alone is enough to bruise the heart. ‘I Am Crying All Inside’ is Simak doing what he does best—taking a being that “shouldn’t” have emotions, in this case an alien, and then peeling back layer after layer until you realise the creature feels more deeply than most humans you know.
And of course, in that classic Simak twist, it’s never melodramatic. The sorrow is gentle, like someone whispering a confession just before dawn.
Honestly, it reminded me a little of reading Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Martian Chronicles’ mixed with the moral warmth of Asimov’s late robot stories. Soft sci-fi, but with emotional teeth.
But the magic of the collection isn’t just the melancholy. Simak is obsessed with ‘‘decency’’—that small, stubborn human quality that refuses to die even in the strangest corners of the universe.
His protagonists are rarely warriors or geniuses. They’re ordinary folk: clerks, farmers, wanderers, archivists.
People who stumble into cosmic wonder the way someone might accidentally walk into a field of fireflies.
And yet, for all its gentleness, the collection has this undercurrent of existential dread. Not the loud, angsty kind — more like the quiet fear of becoming irrelevant in a cosmos that keeps evolving without us.
Several stories circle around the same idea: ‘‘How long can humanity survive, and in what form?’’ Will our values matter in the distant future? Will our memories outlive us? Will the universe care?
In story after story, Simak gently leans in and says:
‘Even if the universe doesn’t care, we should.’
Because caring is the one thing we’re built to do.
His landscapes — forests, old towns, starlit plains — carry that timeless melancholy of someone who loved rural America deeply and worried that the future would erase it. Even his robots feel like they’ve grown up on farms.
They’re polite, thoughtful, sometimes accidentally profound — not metal warriors but metallic philosophers who just want companionship and meaning.
Reading this collection as an adult, I realise how different Simak is from the more bombastic Golden Age writers.
He doesn’t show off. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t need his worlds to be cinematic.
His sci-fi feels like folklore written by someone who has seen the future and decided it’s nothing to be afraid of — as long as we carry our humanity with us.
The stories vary in tone and ambition—some whimsical, some eerie, a few quietly devastating—but everyone feels like a conversation with an old friend who understands loneliness better than most.
Simak writes for the heart first, the intellect second, and the spectacle barely at all.
By the end of the book, I found myself sitting quietly, almost contemplative. That’s the Simak effect.
No explosions, no galaxy-shattering revelations — just the gentle reminder that the universe is vast, but kindness can still echo across it, travelling farther than light.
In a world obsessed with speed and spectacle, Simak feels like a warm lantern held up in the dark.
And sometimes, that’s all we really need.
Most recommended.
July 9, 2015
CONTENTS:
“Installment Plan"
"I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Away Up In the Air"
"Small Deer"
"Ogre"
"Gleaners"
"Madness From Mars"
"Gunsmoke Interlude"
"I Am Crying All Inside"
"The Call From Beyond"
"All the Traps of Earth"
Aside from Isaac Asimov novels and the first volume of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, I haven't really read much classic science fiction. I feel there is something worthwhile in expanding horizons, also into the historical context of the past, so I was pleased to have a chance to check out the start to this collection of the complete short fiction by Golden Age author Clifford D. Simak.
As you might expect for something written over half-a-century ago some of Simak's stories are a bit dated in terms of both the science and culturally. But they aren't particularly offensive to modern sensibilities and there is still a lot to be enjoyed within these stories. It should appeal to anyone wanting more exposure to classic tales of the genre from an author whose stories age relatively well and people who want to revisit beloved Simak tales.
This first volume of a planned fourteen in the collection doesn't seem to have any particular scheme to its organization, but the tales do span a range of the types of stories and themes that I gather Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Simak is best known for. Each story is preceded by a short introduction from editor and executor of Simak's writing estate, David W. Dixon.
I Am Crying Inside and Other Stories begins with a longer story that features Simak's repeated exploration of robotic intelligence and emotion. Robots are obviously a frequently visited topic in SF, not new even in Simak's time. Despite the familiarity of the types of questions/dilemmas regarding robots that Simak delves into, his take still doesn't come off as cliched now, or dull. While I find the opening story "Installment Plan" to be overly long, it did resonate with how human the robots were it in, not mere automatons, but created instruments that had emotions and personalities. Simak's robots seem more alive and human than many of his human protagonists. The concluding story "All the Traps of Earth" returns to the robot themes in a far more powerful story where a robot who has escaped mandatory memory erasure finds a home and purpose elsewhere beyond, but not completely divorced from, humanity.
"Small Deer" and "Gleaners" are two representatives of Simak time-travel stories. The latter is about a group that goes back in time to retrieve objects of value and felt like an early version of a story that I've seen crop up often in recent years still. Simak's seems less about the cleverness of the time-travel setup as about the intrigue of the story and characters. "Small Deer" on the other hand is more about the idea than the particular adventure of the plot. In it a man goes back in time to witness the extinction of the dinosaurs and discovers what killed them may be back again for humankind. I enjoyed the story for its "Twilight Zone" type vibe, and it is an example of a Simak tale that includes some elements of horror.
Simak, who won a Stoker achievement award in its first year of being offered, does employ light horror in some of his stories, most evident here with "Madness from Mars" and "The Call from Beyond". The latter can be accurately described as Simak trying some Lovecraft flavors. Both stories feature humanity discovering something unsettling and strange as a result of space exploration. These weren't my favorite stories here, and the science in "Madness from Mars" is particularly dated, but they are fairly good.
The titular "I Am Crying All Inside" and "Gunsmoke Interlude" were the stories I least enjoyed. The latter is straight up pulp Western, a genre I simply could care less about. "I Am Crying All Inside" is one of the most emotionally resonant stories here, the most touching. While Simak made his robots larger-than-life, it seems he usually made his humans more salt-of-the-Earth. Wixon quotes Simak in the intro to this story as responding to criticism of his human protagonists as 'losers' with the explanation: "I like losers". The folksy nature and regional dialect of the voice in the story ruined it for me.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, "I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Away Up In the Air" and "Ogre" were my favorite stories of the bunch. I largely liked both of these stories because of the biological elements they contained and their shared theme of anti-exploitation.
The former story though is weakened by going on far too long for what it is, and with a fair amount of repetition. In it a man arrives on another planet intent on stripping it of its resources for his own economic benefit, with nothing but contempt and disregard for the planet's 'simple', 'uncultured' inhabitants. But after an 'accident' leaving him dead, the planet's lifeforms resurrect him in a body more suitable for the environment and he learns the hard way that his preconceptions are way off, and his greed abhorred. Actually, the guy never really 'learns' the errors of his way as much as the reader is given a cautionary tale. I loved the biological alien detail here linked to the planet's properties, and for a time at least I read with an interpretation that the planet itself was a sentient life guiding these events.
"Ogre" is another fairly long story, but this time rightly so. It features wonderful biological speculation of sentient plant life and plant life adopted to give photosynthetic capabilities to humans through symbiosis. Interesting stuff, and coupled with it we get a plot again warning against the dangers of exploiting another culture and resources. In this story, members of exploration group try to prevent another human from harvesting sentient trees (that are also musical) and taking them back to Earth. Another notable aspect to the story is that it features a set of space exploration rules very much akin to what years later would form the 'Prime Directive' of Star Trek's Federation.
Overall I'm looking forward to seeing the other volumes collecting Simak's fiction, and this reaffirms to me the use of at least trying out some classic Golden Age SFF. It is impossible now to read everything that has gone before to form the genre field and still keep up with the exciting directions it is going today to evolve from that past. But dipping into the historical perspective is valuable not just in showing what has been done well, but also what mistakes to not make or move on from. And it is reassuring - though simultaneously slightly depressing - to see social themes still explored today already brought up so many decades ago in that Golden Age of SF.
Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
“Installment Plan"
"I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Away Up In the Air"
"Small Deer"
"Ogre"
"Gleaners"
"Madness From Mars"
"Gunsmoke Interlude"
"I Am Crying All Inside"
"The Call From Beyond"
"All the Traps of Earth"
Aside from Isaac Asimov novels and the first volume of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, I haven't really read much classic science fiction. I feel there is something worthwhile in expanding horizons, also into the historical context of the past, so I was pleased to have a chance to check out the start to this collection of the complete short fiction by Golden Age author Clifford D. Simak.
As you might expect for something written over half-a-century ago some of Simak's stories are a bit dated in terms of both the science and culturally. But they aren't particularly offensive to modern sensibilities and there is still a lot to be enjoyed within these stories. It should appeal to anyone wanting more exposure to classic tales of the genre from an author whose stories age relatively well and people who want to revisit beloved Simak tales.
This first volume of a planned fourteen in the collection doesn't seem to have any particular scheme to its organization, but the tales do span a range of the types of stories and themes that I gather Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Simak is best known for. Each story is preceded by a short introduction from editor and executor of Simak's writing estate, David W. Dixon.
I Am Crying Inside and Other Stories begins with a longer story that features Simak's repeated exploration of robotic intelligence and emotion. Robots are obviously a frequently visited topic in SF, not new even in Simak's time. Despite the familiarity of the types of questions/dilemmas regarding robots that Simak delves into, his take still doesn't come off as cliched now, or dull. While I find the opening story "Installment Plan" to be overly long, it did resonate with how human the robots were it in, not mere automatons, but created instruments that had emotions and personalities. Simak's robots seem more alive and human than many of his human protagonists. The concluding story "All the Traps of Earth" returns to the robot themes in a far more powerful story where a robot who has escaped mandatory memory erasure finds a home and purpose elsewhere beyond, but not completely divorced from, humanity.
"Small Deer" and "Gleaners" are two representatives of Simak time-travel stories. The latter is about a group that goes back in time to retrieve objects of value and felt like an early version of a story that I've seen crop up often in recent years still. Simak's seems less about the cleverness of the time-travel setup as about the intrigue of the story and characters. "Small Deer" on the other hand is more about the idea than the particular adventure of the plot. In it a man goes back in time to witness the extinction of the dinosaurs and discovers what killed them may be back again for humankind. I enjoyed the story for its "Twilight Zone" type vibe, and it is an example of a Simak tale that includes some elements of horror.
Simak, who won a Stoker achievement award in its first year of being offered, does employ light horror in some of his stories, most evident here with "Madness from Mars" and "The Call from Beyond". The latter can be accurately described as Simak trying some Lovecraft flavors. Both stories feature humanity discovering something unsettling and strange as a result of space exploration. These weren't my favorite stories here, and the science in "Madness from Mars" is particularly dated, but they are fairly good.
The titular "I Am Crying All Inside" and "Gunsmoke Interlude" were the stories I least enjoyed. The latter is straight up pulp Western, a genre I simply could care less about. "I Am Crying All Inside" is one of the most emotionally resonant stories here, the most touching. While Simak made his robots larger-than-life, it seems he usually made his humans more salt-of-the-Earth. Wixon quotes Simak in the intro to this story as responding to criticism of his human protagonists as 'losers' with the explanation: "I like losers". The folksy nature and regional dialect of the voice in the story ruined it for me.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, "I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Away Up In the Air" and "Ogre" were my favorite stories of the bunch. I largely liked both of these stories because of the biological elements they contained and their shared theme of anti-exploitation.
The former story though is weakened by going on far too long for what it is, and with a fair amount of repetition. In it a man arrives on another planet intent on stripping it of its resources for his own economic benefit, with nothing but contempt and disregard for the planet's 'simple', 'uncultured' inhabitants. But after an 'accident' leaving him dead, the planet's lifeforms resurrect him in a body more suitable for the environment and he learns the hard way that his preconceptions are way off, and his greed abhorred. Actually, the guy never really 'learns' the errors of his way as much as the reader is given a cautionary tale. I loved the biological alien detail here linked to the planet's properties, and for a time at least I read with an interpretation that the planet itself was a sentient life guiding these events.
"Ogre" is another fairly long story, but this time rightly so. It features wonderful biological speculation of sentient plant life and plant life adopted to give photosynthetic capabilities to humans through symbiosis. Interesting stuff, and coupled with it we get a plot again warning against the dangers of exploiting another culture and resources. In this story, members of exploration group try to prevent another human from harvesting sentient trees (that are also musical) and taking them back to Earth. Another notable aspect to the story is that it features a set of space exploration rules very much akin to what years later would form the 'Prime Directive' of Star Trek's Federation.
Overall I'm looking forward to seeing the other volumes collecting Simak's fiction, and this reaffirms to me the use of at least trying out some classic Golden Age SFF. It is impossible now to read everything that has gone before to form the genre field and still keep up with the exciting directions it is going today to evolve from that past. But dipping into the historical perspective is valuable not just in showing what has been done well, but also what mistakes to not make or move on from. And it is reassuring - though simultaneously slightly depressing - to see social themes still explored today already brought up so many decades ago in that Golden Age of SF.
Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
July 17, 2015
I have to admit that I had never heard of Clifford D. Simak when I was offered the chance to read this anthology. I’ve long been a fan of science fiction, and I’ve read scores of novels and stories by Simak’s contemporaries. And I realized, when I looked into Simak’s career, that I have seen an “Outer Limits” episode he penned (back in 1964). But these stories were all new to me. And with only a few exceptions, I loved the world Simak created. His characters are real and human and completely (and perfectly!) flawed, his prose is lucid and direct and brilliantly crafted to elicit believable alternate realities, and his themes resonate with a timelessness that seems in itself fantastic. I now call myself a fan, and I’m ready to continue exploring the fiction of Clifford Simak.
This collection contains ten stories, most written between 1939 and 1969. These are stories about the nature of humanity, about greed and conquest, about strangers in strange lands, and about the evolution of technology. Many of the stories involve space travel and robots. Others focus on time travel, something I’ve long been fascinated by. And most of them, in one way or another, highlight the stupidity of human beings trying to exert their dominance over life forms and civilizations about which they know absolutely nothing. What would happen if human beings were capable of traveling to a distant planet inhabited by seemingly less-developed creatures? Simak says we’d conquer, exploit, and subjugate, and I think he’s right.
One of my favorites is “Small Deer” (1965), a time travel story told by an unlikely time traveler who inadvertently discovers why the dinosaur’s disappeared. It’s at once down-to-earth, totally engaging, and decidedly terrifying. But I also loved “Ogre” (1944), about a planet populated by intelligent plants (including mysterious trees whose song can entrance people), and “Madness from Mars” (1939), about a spaceship returning from Mars with a very strange Martian ball of fluff that reminded me a bit of Star Trek’s tribbles. There’s also “I Am Crying All Inside” (1969), about a far future Earth on which human and robotic rejects are left to fend for themselves, and a previously unpublished story, “I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air” (2015), about human hatred and our lust for vengeance. And I can’t fail to mention “Gleaners” (1959), another time travel story about a company called Time, Inc. that specializes in sending its employees back in time on behalf of wealthy clients – Simak does a wonderful job playing with the intricacies and convolutions of time travel.
But while I loved those stories, the one I will never forget is undoubtedly “All the Traps of Earth” (1960), in which a 600-year-old robot, about to be stripped of its memory and revamped for new owners, takes off on a dangerous and illegal journey to find his freedom. Richard Daniel (who earned the right to a “double name” while serving the same family loyally for six centuries), seeks a world where he can be himself. What he finds is the very meaning of living by understanding what so many humans never do – that the most important thing for all of us is to be needed, to be of use, and to be a “teacher of the human race.”
I said at the start that there were a few stories in this collection that I wasn’t crazy about. One is a western called “Gunsmoke Interlude” (1952) – it’s not science fiction and it caught me off guard in this otherwise very homogenous anthology. The other is the first story in the book, “Installment Plan” (1959). It’s not that “Installment Plan” isn’t an interesting sci-fi story with an interesting cast of characters (it is). But it reads like the first of a series that never actually materialized. There’s a fascinating plot focusing on potato-like plants being raised by an apparently backward race of beings – the humans from Earth want the plants because of the drug they can produce (think “unobtanium” from the movie “Avatar”). But the story, which is considerably longer than most of the others, has no real ending, nor does it effectively deal with the themes it suggests. Just know that if this one doesn’t quite work as a stand-alone short story, the others most definitely do.
I’m very glad I had the chance to read this anthology, and I will definitely be checking out other works by Clifford D. Simak. If you’re already a fan, this is a must-have collection. If, like me, you’re coming to these stories without ever having read Simak before, you’re in for a treat. Any sci-fi fan will love them!
[Please note: I was provided a copy of this book for review; the opinions expressed here are my own.]
This collection contains ten stories, most written between 1939 and 1969. These are stories about the nature of humanity, about greed and conquest, about strangers in strange lands, and about the evolution of technology. Many of the stories involve space travel and robots. Others focus on time travel, something I’ve long been fascinated by. And most of them, in one way or another, highlight the stupidity of human beings trying to exert their dominance over life forms and civilizations about which they know absolutely nothing. What would happen if human beings were capable of traveling to a distant planet inhabited by seemingly less-developed creatures? Simak says we’d conquer, exploit, and subjugate, and I think he’s right.
One of my favorites is “Small Deer” (1965), a time travel story told by an unlikely time traveler who inadvertently discovers why the dinosaur’s disappeared. It’s at once down-to-earth, totally engaging, and decidedly terrifying. But I also loved “Ogre” (1944), about a planet populated by intelligent plants (including mysterious trees whose song can entrance people), and “Madness from Mars” (1939), about a spaceship returning from Mars with a very strange Martian ball of fluff that reminded me a bit of Star Trek’s tribbles. There’s also “I Am Crying All Inside” (1969), about a far future Earth on which human and robotic rejects are left to fend for themselves, and a previously unpublished story, “I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air” (2015), about human hatred and our lust for vengeance. And I can’t fail to mention “Gleaners” (1959), another time travel story about a company called Time, Inc. that specializes in sending its employees back in time on behalf of wealthy clients – Simak does a wonderful job playing with the intricacies and convolutions of time travel.
But while I loved those stories, the one I will never forget is undoubtedly “All the Traps of Earth” (1960), in which a 600-year-old robot, about to be stripped of its memory and revamped for new owners, takes off on a dangerous and illegal journey to find his freedom. Richard Daniel (who earned the right to a “double name” while serving the same family loyally for six centuries), seeks a world where he can be himself. What he finds is the very meaning of living by understanding what so many humans never do – that the most important thing for all of us is to be needed, to be of use, and to be a “teacher of the human race.”
I said at the start that there were a few stories in this collection that I wasn’t crazy about. One is a western called “Gunsmoke Interlude” (1952) – it’s not science fiction and it caught me off guard in this otherwise very homogenous anthology. The other is the first story in the book, “Installment Plan” (1959). It’s not that “Installment Plan” isn’t an interesting sci-fi story with an interesting cast of characters (it is). But it reads like the first of a series that never actually materialized. There’s a fascinating plot focusing on potato-like plants being raised by an apparently backward race of beings – the humans from Earth want the plants because of the drug they can produce (think “unobtanium” from the movie “Avatar”). But the story, which is considerably longer than most of the others, has no real ending, nor does it effectively deal with the themes it suggests. Just know that if this one doesn’t quite work as a stand-alone short story, the others most definitely do.
I’m very glad I had the chance to read this anthology, and I will definitely be checking out other works by Clifford D. Simak. If you’re already a fan, this is a must-have collection. If, like me, you’re coming to these stories without ever having read Simak before, you’re in for a treat. Any sci-fi fan will love them!
[Please note: I was provided a copy of this book for review; the opinions expressed here are my own.]
Read
February 28, 2021I was surprised to find this free on Prime Reading, an Amazon perk that generally leans towards the mainstream and/or recent, rather than supplying completists' editions of oddball pastoral SF writers slipped halfway to obscurity. Surprised also to learn that the previously unpublished story it contained has originally been intended for Harlan Ellison's white whale of an anthology, Last Dangerous Visions. Simak, dangerous? The homeliest of all the SF greats? And the story in question was called I Had No Head And My Eyes Were Floating Way Up In The Air, which sounds an awful lot like a clumsy attempt to mimic the most famous of Ellison's arresting titles. Was this going to be a disastrous attempt at bandwagon jumping? Not in the slightest – though its story of a human transferred into another body by aliens he's attempted to swindle does anticipate some of the stranger manifestations of the "You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like" meme. Still, he clings desperately to his hatred as the last thing that makes him human, and though even that is a trap, it is a particularly powerful expression of Simak's weariness with man. Which was when I realised...of course he was dangerous. Homespun as he was, gentle as the individual characters would usually be, underlying it all was a quietism, a sense that it would be much for the best if humans became some other creature that enjoyed life more and felt less horribly driven to do things. If we simply...stopped. Just because he was too much the gentleman to present it as the grand guignol despair of Cioran, or Houllebecq edginess, doesn't make it any less inimical to the tenets on which most of society, and even its counterculture, is founded. Although there is another story here, The Call From Beyond, which has accidentally become edgy since its 1950 publication. Not because of using terminology or attitudes which are now deprecated, though there is a little of that scattered around the other stories. Rather, because in its treatment of that familiar Simak theme, the mutant whose innovations see him ostracised by a suspicious and conformist human society, the evolutionary leap who exiles himself to Pluto's unnamed moon is called Frederick West.
Otherwise, that's one of two stories, and by far the more directly horror-tinged one, in which extraterrestrial music is the vector threatening to overwrite humanity as we've known it. And in general, these are stories where our encounters with the galaxy, even when we go there rather than them coming here, change humanity far more than vice versa. It's noticeable in Installment Plan (which also talks about the human/robot relationship as kin to that between man and dog, presaging Simak's masterpiece, City), where the rules under which human traders operate on alien planets are far more sternly ethical than the rules under which human traders have operated on Earth...well, pretty much anywhere, or ever. Yes, you get the odd alien picking up on old Earth slang – "You never lay it in the groove. You never get gated up. You all got long underwear.' – but that's small change compared to the unknowable yearnings the Other sets off in mankind. And if here people attempt to stop those changes, in a way later Simak protagonists probably wouldn't much bother attempting, there's still a sense that it's ultimately a doomed rearguard action, that sooner or later something will get through which eclipses the petty concerns with which we've hitherto been occupied. The editor compares The Call From Beyond to Lovecraft, which isn't wrong, but overlooks how many Simak stories could be considered as a similar encounter with alien knowledge – except told by someone who has much more sympathy with the strange, inhuman forces.
Elsewhere, Small Deer and Gleaners are solid early time travel stories, but don't feel quite as distinctively Simak as some – except in Gleaners' suspicion that the losses of travelers aren't to the dangers of the past, but its temptations, drawing them away from a worn-out present day: "He had found a sense of springtime. What did he mean by that? A springtime of the heart? A springtime of the spirit? That might well be it, for Nickerson had gone to Italy in the early Renaissance. A springtime of the spirit and the sense of great beginnings." Though even then, tempting as that sounds read in whatever godforsaken season of the spirit this must be, one wonders if it wouldn't be more classic Simak for them to instead be homesteading in some human-free byway of ancient history. Madness From Mars, a story Simak himself disliked, is dated as all get-out – a Mars mission lasting several years costs a whole million bucks! – but again, I agree with the editor that Simak was too harsh - it's a heartbreaking tale of human thoughtlessness towards other animals breeding a terrible tragedy, and all the more powerful for the parallels one could now draw between the blameless critter at its heart and the poor bloody pangolin. There's a short Western - which makes sense given all those stories Simak set amid the bluffs and small farms, and the fact he wrote many space Westerns in a very non-Firefly sense, but still feels odd when you've firmly associated a writer with different genres. And finally, All The Traps Of Earth, the only one here I've read before. Like the title story, and City, its protagonist is a robotic family retainer, who like most Simak robots has the sort of name you'd expect on a supporting character in a Jimmy Stewart film. But then Richard Daniel gets himself tangled up in that other recurrent Simak theme, psi powers and evolutionary leaps... There's a sense that this could easily have made a novel, but somehow I can't see Simak sticking with the Crime & Punishment atmosphere of its middle stretches for that long. In the end he probably had much less faith in mankind than Dostoevsky, but he was so much less febrile about how he made that manifest.
Otherwise, that's one of two stories, and by far the more directly horror-tinged one, in which extraterrestrial music is the vector threatening to overwrite humanity as we've known it. And in general, these are stories where our encounters with the galaxy, even when we go there rather than them coming here, change humanity far more than vice versa. It's noticeable in Installment Plan (which also talks about the human/robot relationship as kin to that between man and dog, presaging Simak's masterpiece, City), where the rules under which human traders operate on alien planets are far more sternly ethical than the rules under which human traders have operated on Earth...well, pretty much anywhere, or ever. Yes, you get the odd alien picking up on old Earth slang – "You never lay it in the groove. You never get gated up. You all got long underwear.' – but that's small change compared to the unknowable yearnings the Other sets off in mankind. And if here people attempt to stop those changes, in a way later Simak protagonists probably wouldn't much bother attempting, there's still a sense that it's ultimately a doomed rearguard action, that sooner or later something will get through which eclipses the petty concerns with which we've hitherto been occupied. The editor compares The Call From Beyond to Lovecraft, which isn't wrong, but overlooks how many Simak stories could be considered as a similar encounter with alien knowledge – except told by someone who has much more sympathy with the strange, inhuman forces.
Elsewhere, Small Deer and Gleaners are solid early time travel stories, but don't feel quite as distinctively Simak as some – except in Gleaners' suspicion that the losses of travelers aren't to the dangers of the past, but its temptations, drawing them away from a worn-out present day: "He had found a sense of springtime. What did he mean by that? A springtime of the heart? A springtime of the spirit? That might well be it, for Nickerson had gone to Italy in the early Renaissance. A springtime of the spirit and the sense of great beginnings." Though even then, tempting as that sounds read in whatever godforsaken season of the spirit this must be, one wonders if it wouldn't be more classic Simak for them to instead be homesteading in some human-free byway of ancient history. Madness From Mars, a story Simak himself disliked, is dated as all get-out – a Mars mission lasting several years costs a whole million bucks! – but again, I agree with the editor that Simak was too harsh - it's a heartbreaking tale of human thoughtlessness towards other animals breeding a terrible tragedy, and all the more powerful for the parallels one could now draw between the blameless critter at its heart and the poor bloody pangolin. There's a short Western - which makes sense given all those stories Simak set amid the bluffs and small farms, and the fact he wrote many space Westerns in a very non-Firefly sense, but still feels odd when you've firmly associated a writer with different genres. And finally, All The Traps Of Earth, the only one here I've read before. Like the title story, and City, its protagonist is a robotic family retainer, who like most Simak robots has the sort of name you'd expect on a supporting character in a Jimmy Stewart film. But then Richard Daniel gets himself tangled up in that other recurrent Simak theme, psi powers and evolutionary leaps... There's a sense that this could easily have made a novel, but somehow I can't see Simak sticking with the Crime & Punishment atmosphere of its middle stretches for that long. In the end he probably had much less faith in mankind than Dostoevsky, but he was so much less febrile about how he made that manifest.
May 6, 2022
This is the first in a 14-volume (!) projected collection of all of Simak's short fiction, and it's a middling-to-good assortment, though I think I prefer his novels.
The stories here are scattered across Simak's multi-decade career, though there are some common themes. Robots and capitalism seem to be some of his favorite topics, often in the same story. Several of these stories involve interplanetary traders and businessmen and various forms of robotic companions trying to make their way among alien peoples. Music is another theme, and time travel, one of Simak's favorite topics, apparently.
These aren't a bad collection of stories, but they're definitely dated and come across now as comical where once they might have been intended to be a little darker. "Pulpier" might be a better word, part of a bygone age where men were men and the one or two female characters in the entire collection are secretaries...
The stories here are scattered across Simak's multi-decade career, though there are some common themes. Robots and capitalism seem to be some of his favorite topics, often in the same story. Several of these stories involve interplanetary traders and businessmen and various forms of robotic companions trying to make their way among alien peoples. Music is another theme, and time travel, one of Simak's favorite topics, apparently.
These aren't a bad collection of stories, but they're definitely dated and come across now as comical where once they might have been intended to be a little darker. "Pulpier" might be a better word, part of a bygone age where men were men and the one or two female characters in the entire collection are secretaries...
May 7, 2021
I really loved this book. Clifford Simak is one of the great sci-fi writers of the middle of the 20th century. For my money, there are few things I get more pure joy out of reading. These short stories are full of wonder and imagination. Highly recommended.
May 8, 2021
It’s been a while since I’ve last read a collection of short stories, and Simak is really good in short fiction - very enjoyable read
March 23, 2019
Clifford Simak is a good choice if you like your classic sci-fi with an all-male cast. He wasn’t a master of prose, but he was a very good storyteller.
October 20, 2015
A random collection of stories by Clifford D. Simak, all science fiction except for one western. I really like this author especially his longer stories and novellas of which a few are included here. This is a good mix of short and longer stories. Each story is prefaced with a short intro by the editor explaining when and where it was first published along with an interesting tidbit about its publication and the editor's personal opinion or remembrance. All of the stories are good garnering mostly 4 or 5 stars with only a couple of 3 stars. Simak is an excellent world-builder and his stories are entirely mesmerizing. It also has all the qualities I like in a short story collection with David Wixon performing an excellent job as editor.
1. The Installment Plan (1959) - Excellent story to start the collection with as it immerses us deeply into Simak's world building. A crew of robots and couple of human leaders has returned to an alien planet to conclude a trade deal, only because of bureaucracy, they are 15 years late. They find the locals uncooperative and the planet in a different state than last reported. This has a bit of everything including a mystery. Loved it! (4/5)
2. I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air (2015 first time in print!) - We listen to the mind ramblings of a man who finds he has been turned into something not human until he discovers one remaining vestige of humanity left to him ... hate. Has a twist ending. I didn't really get into this one as I didn't buy the author's conclusions about humanity since I'm Christian. Ultimately, it all rang hollow to me. (3/5)
3. Small Deer (1965) - A man builds a time machine and discovers the horrible truth of how the dinosaurs became extinct. Written as a letter this is a very fast, short read. Somewhat outdated in its views but, nonetheless, entertaining. (3/5)
4. Ogre (1944) - This is a splendid story of life on an alien planet that I've read before. The race here is plant based and thrives on music. Quite an adventurous tale as beings on both sides plan to conquer Earth. I absolutely love the world-building and alien beings in this one.(5/5)
5. Gleaners (1960) - The goings on at a time travel company. Absolutely loved it! (5/5)
6. Madness from Mars (1939) - An early story and one Simak himself didn't like. However, I thought it was a great story of space travel from the era and the consequences of bringing back an alien animal. (4/5)
7. Gunsmoke Interlude (1952) - This is a short one and a western. Though famous for sci-fi Simak wrote other genres. It's a good redemption story, but I didn't like the smart alec kid who is the redeemer so it fell flat on me. (3/5)
8. I am Crying All Inside (1969) - Whoa! This is short but very powerful. A story of false pride. At first, it sounds like a slave talking about his "people" and the elegant "folks" who live in the big houses, but that is not what is going on at all! Compelling. (5/5)
9. The Call From Beyond (1950) - A novella. I love Simak's longer pieces as they are totally engrossing. His world building is amazing. A team of scientists had secretly been sent to Pluto to work on secret biological human mutations, but three years in had sent an emergency message that all hell had broke loose and the last man was killed during the report. There was a government cover-up, ban and quarantine on Pluto. Our hero comes to Pluto thinking he can come live as a recluse from Earth and be left in peace but finds things are not as he thought they'd be. The story turns into an interesting dissertation on "mutations", not physical but neurological. It's quite interesting in light of today's scientific research and opinion of neurological conditions such as Asperger's which in this story are considered mental mutations and the public's reaction and government's handling of these so-called mental mutants. A page-turner! (5/5)
10. All the Traps of Earth (1960) - The final story in this collection is another long one and again a deep story. Instead of world-building, this story concentrates on character and follows the predicament Richard Daniel, a six-hundred-year-old robot, finds himself in when the last member of the family he has faithfully served all these years passes away. Illegal for a robot to keep the same life memories for more than 100 years Richard rebukes his imminent memory washing and sets out to find a life free of Earth's rules. An exploration of the humanity of a robot. Excellent! (5/5)
January 6, 2020
Wonderful. Simak's passion for humanity (in people and robots) shines through as strong as always in volume 1 of this collection of his short stories.
September 13, 2015
By the time he was named the third Science Fiction Grand Master in 1977, Clifford D. Simak had already been writing in the genre for well over four decades. Well-known for his pastoral take on SF in novels like Way Station, Time is the Simplest Thing, City, and Why Call Them Back From Heaven?, Simak was also quite prolific at writing short fiction, which ran the gamut from space adventures (in the 1930s), to heartland SF (in the '50s and '60s), to works which echoed the New Wave of science fiction (in the late '60s and '70s). And while he's known for those novels and pastoral, bittersweet approach, Simak wrote a wide range of short fiction---even dipping into other genres, like westerns and adventure stories, to pay the bills. The Simak estate has signed off on a new series to collect all of the author's work, and this promises to be the first of fourteen volumes.
Oddly enough, few of these stories have the same pastoral themes as Simak's novels, a combination of bittersweet nostalgia and mournful utopian bliss. Instead, they deal with some other common themes Simak would return to time and time again: capitalism and planetary exploitation, time travel, humanized robots, dehumanized humans. This collection has a wide range of stories, ranging from quite good to average, over the thirty year period from 1939 to 1969. Some of them are throwbacks to Golden Age SF, dealing with themes and an unbridled optimism for space exploration (exploitation?) that hasn't really existed since the '90s; others are still resonant today, full of depth and insight in how Simak presents his ideas and characters.
"I Am Crying All Inside" and "All the Traps of Earth" are some of Simak's artier pieces and very poignant stories, each delivering a good deal of emotional resonance thanks to how Simak handled their robot protagonists. "Small Deer" is a sharp little story that fits with the best of the Galaxy style. Despite their similarities and old-fashioned feel, "Gleaners" and "Installment Plan" have some Golden Age charm and make good use of their ideas. "I Had No Head..." is an interesting switch and inverts those earlier stories' focus---a bit blunt in its commentary, though not at all didactic---though, "Ogre" did that just as well a few decades earlier.
Simak is an odd author compared to many of his Golden Age contemporaries; he could be quite bitter about human failings---greed, violence, how humanity treats and sees people who are different---yet he could also instill such distinct character in his robot protagonists that they remain some of his most enduring characters. This collection begins what promises to be a long journey through his stories, with several fine tales represented here; it should work as a good introduction to his work, though it's less a "greatest hits" collection and more of a core sample. All in all, this is a well-rounded collection that should interest any fan of Simak---or any reader of classic SF who needs more exposure to one of the genre's great authors.
Full story-by-story review, and other classic SF book reviews, found on my blog.
Oddly enough, few of these stories have the same pastoral themes as Simak's novels, a combination of bittersweet nostalgia and mournful utopian bliss. Instead, they deal with some other common themes Simak would return to time and time again: capitalism and planetary exploitation, time travel, humanized robots, dehumanized humans. This collection has a wide range of stories, ranging from quite good to average, over the thirty year period from 1939 to 1969. Some of them are throwbacks to Golden Age SF, dealing with themes and an unbridled optimism for space exploration (exploitation?) that hasn't really existed since the '90s; others are still resonant today, full of depth and insight in how Simak presents his ideas and characters.
"I Am Crying All Inside" and "All the Traps of Earth" are some of Simak's artier pieces and very poignant stories, each delivering a good deal of emotional resonance thanks to how Simak handled their robot protagonists. "Small Deer" is a sharp little story that fits with the best of the Galaxy style. Despite their similarities and old-fashioned feel, "Gleaners" and "Installment Plan" have some Golden Age charm and make good use of their ideas. "I Had No Head..." is an interesting switch and inverts those earlier stories' focus---a bit blunt in its commentary, though not at all didactic---though, "Ogre" did that just as well a few decades earlier.
Simak is an odd author compared to many of his Golden Age contemporaries; he could be quite bitter about human failings---greed, violence, how humanity treats and sees people who are different---yet he could also instill such distinct character in his robot protagonists that they remain some of his most enduring characters. This collection begins what promises to be a long journey through his stories, with several fine tales represented here; it should work as a good introduction to his work, though it's less a "greatest hits" collection and more of a core sample. All in all, this is a well-rounded collection that should interest any fan of Simak---or any reader of classic SF who needs more exposure to one of the genre's great authors.
Full story-by-story review, and other classic SF book reviews, found on my blog.
November 19, 2023
Clifford Simak wrote science fiction from 1931 right through until 1981. He's best known for his novel "City", which was assembled from various short stories that make their appearance in these collections. The collections of his short stories now being published are not in chronological order, so the style varies considerably. Many of the "golden age" stories are dated in both their themes and their language, as you'd expect — space pirates even make an appearance, though thankfully not with slide rules to use to compute courses on paper charts; he was never quite that pulpy.
Simak lived in Minnesota for most of his life, and many of his stories are set in the rural American midwest, complete with farmers and town drunks dealing with alien invasions. He became known for this "pastoral science fiction", yet his rural America isn't always a pleasant place, and he also believed that SF had to be rooted in scientific fact. This combination gives his writing a distinctive flavor. Sometimes the tales are short plot-driven thought experiments, almost like a Philip K. Dick short; other times they are slow and meditative and more character driven — though given when he wrote most of the stories, you likely won't be surprised to hear that the characters are overwhelmingly white and male.
He also wrote westerns and World War II stories. I'll confess that I just skip straight over those. I'm also not going to write separate reviews of every volume in the collection; I've read about a dozen of them at this point, but since the stories aren't in chronological order, you can take this as a review for any of them.
Simak lived in Minnesota for most of his life, and many of his stories are set in the rural American midwest, complete with farmers and town drunks dealing with alien invasions. He became known for this "pastoral science fiction", yet his rural America isn't always a pleasant place, and he also believed that SF had to be rooted in scientific fact. This combination gives his writing a distinctive flavor. Sometimes the tales are short plot-driven thought experiments, almost like a Philip K. Dick short; other times they are slow and meditative and more character driven — though given when he wrote most of the stories, you likely won't be surprised to hear that the characters are overwhelmingly white and male.
He also wrote westerns and World War II stories. I'll confess that I just skip straight over those. I'm also not going to write separate reviews of every volume in the collection; I've read about a dozen of them at this point, but since the stories aren't in chronological order, you can take this as a review for any of them.
December 10, 2015
I AM CRYING ALL INSIDE is the first volume of a projected series of fourteen books collecting Clifford D. Simak's short stories.
It had been quite awhile since I'd read any of Simak's short fiction, but I knew I would enjoy this collection. One of his classics, "All the Traps of Earth," which details the adventures of a robot who's becoming more human, is a highlight.
So is "I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air," originally written for the perhaps never-to-be-seen Harlan Ellison anthology THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS. In this one, a human almost dies only to find himself in a alien body.
Throughout many of these stories, Simak tackles what may be the most basic science fictional question -- What does it mean to be human? He's one of the most discerning writers, SF or otherwise, to do so.
One warning, though, about the story "Ogre," originally published in the January 1944 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION. In it, a character uses the phrase "(n-word) in the woodpile."
It's used as a phrase anyone might say, and not to characterize the speaker as being racist.
By all accounts Simak was a kind and gentle man, so this goes to show just how pervasive such racist references were back then. I'm rarely shocked by anything I read in a work of fiction, but that phrase set me back a bit.
So beware.
It had been quite awhile since I'd read any of Simak's short fiction, but I knew I would enjoy this collection. One of his classics, "All the Traps of Earth," which details the adventures of a robot who's becoming more human, is a highlight.
So is "I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air," originally written for the perhaps never-to-be-seen Harlan Ellison anthology THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS. In this one, a human almost dies only to find himself in a alien body.
Throughout many of these stories, Simak tackles what may be the most basic science fictional question -- What does it mean to be human? He's one of the most discerning writers, SF or otherwise, to do so.
One warning, though, about the story "Ogre," originally published in the January 1944 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION. In it, a character uses the phrase "(n-word) in the woodpile."
It's used as a phrase anyone might say, and not to characterize the speaker as being racist.
By all accounts Simak was a kind and gentle man, so this goes to show just how pervasive such racist references were back then. I'm rarely shocked by anything I read in a work of fiction, but that phrase set me back a bit.
So beware.
June 18, 2016
4.5 stars
For me, Clifford D. Simak was mainly the author of two classics novels, “Way Station” and “City”, two books I read and loved many years ago when I started reading science fiction. And I must confess that I had no idea until recently that he also wrote plenty of stories.
This first volume of his complete short fiction has left me wondering, because if the tales compiled in this volume are really a representative sample of the quality of the rest of his short fiction, I can’t understand why his stories are not much better known, because I found that the ten stories compiled in this volume were powerful, interesting, well- written, surprising, sometimes moving, sometimes philosophical… and most of them have aged really well. So much so, that I even included "I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Away Up In the Air" in my Hugo nominating ballot.
If the rest of the books in this series are as good as this one, we must congratulate Open Road and ourselves, because this is a terrific initiative. Looking forward to the rest of the volumes!
For me, Clifford D. Simak was mainly the author of two classics novels, “Way Station” and “City”, two books I read and loved many years ago when I started reading science fiction. And I must confess that I had no idea until recently that he also wrote plenty of stories.
This first volume of his complete short fiction has left me wondering, because if the tales compiled in this volume are really a representative sample of the quality of the rest of his short fiction, I can’t understand why his stories are not much better known, because I found that the ten stories compiled in this volume were powerful, interesting, well- written, surprising, sometimes moving, sometimes philosophical… and most of them have aged really well. So much so, that I even included "I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Away Up In the Air" in my Hugo nominating ballot.
If the rest of the books in this series are as good as this one, we must congratulate Open Road and ourselves, because this is a terrific initiative. Looking forward to the rest of the volumes!
June 27, 2022
Simak wrote science fiction in a much more speculative age meaning nothing is explained but rather approached from a future where much has been perfected already. This leads to independently thinking and feeling robots but also the robots talk, think and behave almost exactly like humans. One of the robots thinks in and talks with an old timey southern accent (and it serves a family of poor white trash; draw your own conclusions), while another is a sassy former baseball pitcher and it's all too Norman Rockwell's vision of the future most of the time.
But! This kind of treatment of what space flight and having robots leads to the bedrock of a morality that Asmiov, Rodenberry and the rest would improve upon. When man voyages out into the stars what should our role ultimately be? When we build machines that act and think like ourselves but outlast and outlive us, what is to become of man? What would it feel like to be trapped in a lobster like body for an eternity?
Quaint but charming is the final verdict.
But! This kind of treatment of what space flight and having robots leads to the bedrock of a morality that Asmiov, Rodenberry and the rest would improve upon. When man voyages out into the stars what should our role ultimately be? When we build machines that act and think like ourselves but outlast and outlive us, what is to become of man? What would it feel like to be trapped in a lobster like body for an eternity?
Quaint but charming is the final verdict.
November 2, 2015
I Am Crying All Inside by Clifford D. Simak
Clifford Simak is one of those authors whose stories I remember decades later. Way Station captured my imagination at least 40 years ago and I recall it fondly. I'm never a big fan of short stories but Simak was often featured in the pulp scifi of yesteryear. This is a collection of short stories that show how the old guard authors imbued their stories with a sense of hope.
There were a few occurrences that showed the dated aspect of the story. Not the plot or character motivations but references to current technology or prices. One story actually referred to a million dollars as an astronomical sum. Not the mere pittance of today when it can't approach the cost of one of the ubiquitous and extremely annoying repetitive political TV smear ads.
The book was a trundle down to the SciFi of yesteryear and well worth the trundle.
Web: http://simak-bibliography.com/
Clifford Simak is one of those authors whose stories I remember decades later. Way Station captured my imagination at least 40 years ago and I recall it fondly. I'm never a big fan of short stories but Simak was often featured in the pulp scifi of yesteryear. This is a collection of short stories that show how the old guard authors imbued their stories with a sense of hope.
There were a few occurrences that showed the dated aspect of the story. Not the plot or character motivations but references to current technology or prices. One story actually referred to a million dollars as an astronomical sum. Not the mere pittance of today when it can't approach the cost of one of the ubiquitous and extremely annoying repetitive political TV smear ads.
The book was a trundle down to the SciFi of yesteryear and well worth the trundle.
Web: http://simak-bibliography.com/
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