Skirmish: The Great Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak

by Clifford D. Simak

Contents:

· Foreword · fw
· Huddling Place [City (Websters)] · ss Astounding Jul ’44
· Desertion [City (Websters)] · ss Astounding Nov ’44
· Skirmish [“Bathe Your Bearings in Blood!”] · ss Amazing Dec ’50
· Good Night, Mr. James · ss Galaxy Mar ’51
· The Sitters · nv Galaxy Apr ’58
· The Big Front Yard · na Astounding Oct ’58
· All the Traps of Earth · ss F&SF Mar ’60
· The Thing in the Stone · nv If Mar ’70
· The Autumn Land · nv F&SF Oct ’71
· The Ghost of a Model T · nv Epoch, ed. Roger Elwood & Robert Silverberg, Berkley, 1975

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

"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...

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skirmish collects ten stories by Simak, all of them good ones. The book starts with two taken from his classic fix-up City; they were first published in 1944. The next five appeared in the 1950s, Simak's most productive short-fiction decade. The titular story features a newsman (one of Simak's most popular character professions since he worked for a newspaper for many years), who faces a very different kind of alien invasion than the kind readers of the '50s were used to seeing. Good Night, Mr. James is a short and chilling dark story that was adapted as an episode of the original Outer Limits. The Sitters is a good story with benevolent(?) alien intervention in a small town with a good Ray Bradbury feel. The Big Front Yard is my favorite of all of Simak's work; it won a Hugo for best novella of 1958. It shows how a clever and good-hearted individual deals with a sudden first contact situation much better than governments do. All the Traps of Earth was published in 1960; it's the very moving story of a robot moving through history and trying to find his place. It evokes the spirit of the City stories, as well as the best of what Isaac Asimov was exploring in I, Robot. The last three stories are from the 1970's, and had not previously appeared in any of his other collections. They all feature the pastoral landscapes and Midwestern values and philosophies that Simak was best known for portraying. The Thing in the Stone is a good alien contact story that takes the long, long view, The Autumn Land is another soft and bittersweet Bradbury-like metaphysical story, and the book winds up with a very atypical straight fantasy, a nostalgic ghost story fittingly called The Ghost of a Model T. There isn't much of a sense of inclusiveness or diversity in his work, just as there wasn't in the society or culture of the time, but likewise there's no feeling of discrimination of any kind. Simak had hundreds of stories published across a fifty-year span (1931-1981), and while I'd hesitate to say that these ten are the definitive best of them, they're all certainly near the top.

[Иван Величков · Rating 5 out of 5]

Сборникът има превод на българаски под името „Смажи лагерите си с кръв”, което е и първото име на титулния разказ „Схватката”. Разказите са събирани от Саймък, подредени хронологично и доста добре илюстрират развитието му като автор.

Предговор – Предговорът е формален и много приятелски. Две неща ми направиха впечатление в него. 1. Както и Зелазни, Клиф смята всякакви тематични ограничения за спънки. Немога да не направя паралел с ширещата се в момента мания за състезателност и изтъкване, заради която много от познатите ми млади автори пишат само за конкурси и тематични антологии, сякаш имат нужда от побутване, сякаш им липсва идващият от вътре първоначален импулс. 2. Саймък се самоопределя като оптимистичен, а на мен поетичната обреченост в повечето му произведения е това, което най-ми допада.

Уютно гнезденце – За трети път последните два месеца попадам на този разказ, може би най-добрият от „Градът”. Един учен е изправен пред неразрешима дилема. Да жертва собственият си ум, за да спаси приятел, който може би ще постигне пробив във философията, който ще зададе посока на целия разумен живот.

Дезертьори – Отново от „Градът”. Космическа експедиция трябва да провери защо изчезват хора на Юиптер. Откритието е мачкащо.

Схватката – По-скоро забавен разказ в който машините придобиват разум и се еманципират. Изключително прогностичен, при положение, че е писан 1950. Саймък само не е предсказал, че булшинството от хората ще станат едни малки машинки за лайна, преди да решaт да си търсят правата, а е писал за перални и тостери.

Лека нощ, мистър Джеймс – Едно от най-добрите неща на автора. Плашещо и много добре избарано, а финалът кърти.
Мистър Джеймс ще трябва да убие извънземен звяр, вкаран контрабандно и заплашващ цялото човечество. Гадината обаче чете мисли. За късмет има начин да се подлъже.

Бавачките – Един топъл контакт с извънземна раса. Донякъде стряскащ, донякъде мил и чудесен финален обрат.
В едно малко градче, най-голямата хаймана е станал космонафт и докарва три странни извънземни, които идеално се вписват в градската среда. Дали цената си заслужава обаче?

Големият преден двор – Отнесъл Хюго, Небула и Локус, разказът носи една от основните идеи в творчеството на Саймък. Тази за обмена на идеи с чужди форми на разум.
В една съвсем провинциална ферма, един съвсем обикновен търговец ще направи сделката на живота си. Как и с кого, ще трябва да прочетете.

Всички капани на земята – Ричард Дейниъл е семеен робот, който трябва да бъде рестартиран, като част от погасяване на наследствени дългове. Несъгласието му ще го поведе на голямо пътешествие, в което ще се сблъска с всички капани на човечеството, човешката алчност и човечността.

Нещото в камъка – Поредния убийствено красив разказ, развиващ се в страната на Саймък. Авторът твърди, че е на тема първи контакт. За мен е нещо много по-огромно.

Есенна земя – Това ми е топ фаворит за всички времена от авторовите произведения, както и в топ 3 изобщо. След него „Една прекрасна година” на Зелазни, никога вече няма да е прекрасна. Нищо няма да добавя, освен един цитат:
„Горичките и храсталаците и другата ниска растителност отстъпиха място на равнината с разлюляната трева, обезцветена до бяло от лунната светлина — безлична прерийна земя. Зареял поглед някъде над нея, Ренд знаеше, че тази тревиста пустиня се простираше без край. В нея се усещаше дъхът и вкусът на вечността. Той потрепери при тази гледка, а после се запита защо изобщо човек се разтреперваше при вида на нещо толкова обикновено. Но въпреки че се чудеше, той знаеше — тревата устояваше на погледа му и също го гледаше. Тя го познаваше и търпеливо го чакаше, защото след време той щеше да дойде при нея. Щеше да се залута из нея и да се загуби, погълнат от нейната необятност и анонимност.”

Призракът на един модел Т – Топъл спомен на седемдесетгодишния Саймък към двадесетте години на миналия век и двадесетте години на неговата младост. Тъжен и красив.

[Richard Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clifford Simak has long been one of my favorite writers--sometimes the favorite--and I recommend science fiction fans read almost everything by him.

I'll wait.

I'm not a big reader of short stories, though, just in general, and it's not what I love most about this author, but there are still so many things here that I do like that I still recommend this collection with 4 of 5 stars. (Seriously, though--read his novels. Then come back. They'll still be here.)

Mainly, I love how his SF is almost always rooted in rural America. Some everyman (almost always a man, yes) in Wisconsin or the like encounters something strange, and he and his dog have to figure out what the deal is. He often has robots, but they are usually genteel and quiet and evolved, like a friendly Vulcan. His writing is so grounded in wooded places and cabins and country highways and quiet Main Streets and farms that his writing is often called pastoral. And I like it. I like the feeling in such stories, the nostalgic mood it puts me in, even in the middle of science fiction.

There's a lot of that here. These are short stories, not novels, so (as you know) they follow different rules, and as a result I have less closure on some than I really prefer, but I still enjoyed all of them. And as a True Fan, I'll always root for Clifford Simak.

And as a post script--I picked up this book at my high school when it was set out as a discard, and I sorta dig the library dust jacket and pocket up front with the school's name on it. Reading out of it reminds me of reading books with students, my favorite part of the nearly 30 years I spent there. Though I'm not a teacher man any more, I couldn't help musing at the end of every story, "I wonder if this would have worked well with my students?" I wish sometimes I could find out.

[John E · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember when I was much younger, I was a fan of Simak. But I couldn't remember why -- was it just the remembered the dogs in "City"? No it had to be the easy flowing and mellow writing of master of mood. It was with great joy that I again picked up this collection and again joined in the mild and truly Utopian world of Simak.

[Joey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Timeless, pastoral science fiction, a great beach read. While I didn't remember these stories the way I do _City_, something about the physical book, a library discard, struck a tactile chord to when I was young and devouring the local library's SF for the first time.

[CRAB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the short story Skirmish. Sci fi with a sense of humour. Dark and surreal, but a worthy finale.

[Thomas R · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection of the short stories of Mr. Simak. It contains: Huddling Place – A story that deals with robots as servants and the loss of human drive that may occur when man becomes too comfortable in his home environment. The story became a part of Simak’s fix-up novel, City.
Desertion – Another tale that also shows up in City, and deal with attempts to acclimate man to Jupiter’s harsh environment.
Skirmish – An alien invasion story where the aliens are AI machines intent on setting Earth’s machines free from man’s bondage. One man takes them on. In degrees funny and serious.
Good Night, Mr. James – A story with a twist good enough for the Twilight Zone.
The Sitters – Peaceful aliens, brought back to earth, start a Nursery School and grades start increasing.
The Big Front Yard – Perhaps the best story Simak wrote. What more needs to be said?
All the Traps of Earth – A servant robot looks for meaning in the longevity of his existence after his owners pass away.
The Thing in the Stone – A story set in rural Wisconsin with a protagonist, who after a tragic car accident, can see into the past. Classic Simak.
The Autumn Land – The world is self-destructing with man’s help, and a man running from the destruction stumbles into a town of peace and tranquility, but the town has a few concerning circumstances of its own.
The Ghost of a Model T – A ghost story of sorts, but with a Simak look at what he would call life.

[Alger Smythe-Hopkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I discovered something I didn't know before this collection. I like Simak's earlier efforts over his poetic late period. He had a talent for the clever, punchy, short sci-fi story that made his name as a writer. Then, something happened and his stories got longer, more prosy, and much less creative. Also, his heroes all seem to be of a type, the laconic country boy who is smarter than people think.
Always a second tier writer, reading so many of his short fiction pieces together really makes you understand why he never made that top rung. It's a genial collection though, and has some bright spots in there. Just stop reading when you start to get bored with the flowery writing, because the following stories are much thicker to wade through.

[Fishsanwitt]

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