Clifford D. Simak (1904–1988) was an influential and unique US science fiction writer who studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin and worked for newspapers for most of his life. Widely acclaimed by fans and critics, Simak won three Hugo Awards, one Nebula Award (in 1980, for his story “Grotto of the Dancing Deer”), a Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master Award, and a Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement. In his best stories, his complex view of animals and his ability to convey the natural world and rural settings make his work unique. Although Simak started his career during the Golden Age of Science Fiction, and in pulp magazines, his psychological insight and unique point of view allowed him to make a successful transition to a new readership; his work has only become more relevant to modern-day readers.
Early stories include “The World of the Red Sun” for Wonder Stories (1931); “The Voice in the Void” (Wonder Stories Quarterly, 1932), about the desecration of a sacred tomb on Mars that possibly contains the relics of a messiah from Earth; and “Hellhounds of the Cosmos” (Astounding Science Fiction, 1932), in which defenders of Earth combine into a gestalt to fight a monster from another dimension. In 1938, inspired by John W. Campbell Jr.’s approach at Astounding Science Fiction, Simak began to produce more sophisticated stories, such as “Rule 18” (1938) and “Reunion on Ganymede” (1938). He swiftly followed with his first full-length novel, Cosmic Engineers (serialized in Astounding Science Fiction in 1939 and revised in 1950), a galaxy-spanning epic in the vein of E. E. Smith and Edmond Hamilton. Despite or because of working within Campbell’s constraints, Simak’s fiction gradually became identifiably “Simakian”: constrained, intensely emotional beneath a calm surface.
Typical of his best work, “Desertion” (1944) was one of the earliest stories to explore “pantropy” (human modification for space exploration, rather than environmental modification)—a term created by James Blish and used later in his own story cycle (including this volume’s “Surface Tension”). “Desertion” was incorporated into Simak’s mosaic novel City in 1952, which won the International Fantasy Award in 1953. Simak wrote in the reissue of the novel: “City was written out of disillusion…seeking after a fantasy world that would serve as a counterbalance to the brutality through which the world was passing.” City is Simak’s best-known book—a true classic and deserving of a much wider readership.