Dusty Zebra - (Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak) by Clifford D Simak (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Tales of science fiction and adventure from the Hugo Award-winning author of Way Station and City.

The long and prolific career of Clifford D. Simak cemented him as one of the formative voices of the science fiction and fantasy genre. The third writer to be named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, his literary legacy stands alongside those of Robert A. Heinlein and Ray Bradbury. This striking collection of nine tales showcases Simak's ability to take the everyday and turn it into something truly compelling, taking readers on a long journey in a very short time.

In "Dusty Zebra," Joe discovers a portal that allows him to exchange everyday objects with an entity he can neither see nor hear, and soon learns that one man's treasure may be another dimension's trash. In "Retrograde Evolution," an interplanetary trading vessel tries to figure out how to deal with a remote society that has suddenly decided to become far less civilized. And in "Project Mastodon," an unusual ambassador from an unheard-of country offers amazing opportunities in a place the modern world can never compete with: the past. Simak's mastery of the short form is on display in these and six other stories.

Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this book.

Review Quotes

Praise for Clifford D. Simak
"To read science fiction is to read Simak. A reader who does not like Simak stories does not like science fiction at all." --Robert A. Heinlein

"Like Olaf Stapledon and SF's later mystics, Simak could dream on a grand scale. . . . Thoreau or Wordsworth would feel at home in his isolated houses rooted in natural landscapes." --Locus

"Simak is the most underrated great science fiction writer alive, and has never written a bad book." --Theodore Sturgeon

"I read [Simak's] stories with particular attention, and I couldn't help but notice the simplicity and directness of the writing--the utter clarity of it. I made up my mind to imitate it, and I labored over the years to make my writing simpler, clearer, more uncluttered, to present my scenes on a bare stage." --Isaac Asimov

"Without Simak, science fiction would have been without its most humane element, its most humane spokesman for the wisdom of the ordinary person and the value of life lived close to the land." --James Gunn

About the Author

During his fifty-five-year career, CLIFFORD D. SIMAK produced some of the most iconic science fiction stories ever written. Born in 1904 on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin, Simak got a job at a small-town newspaper in 1929 and eventually became news editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, writing fiction in his spare time.
Simak was best known for the book City, a reaction to the horrors of World War II, and for his novel Way Station. In 1953 City was awarded the International Fantasy Award, and in following years, Simak won three Hugo Awards and a Nebula Award. In 1977 he became the third Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and before his death in 1988, he was named one of three inaugural winners of the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

DAVID W. WIXON was a close friend of Clifford D. Simak's. As Simak's health declined, Wixon, already familiar with science fiction publishing, began more and more to handle such things as his friend's business correspondence and contract matters. Named literary executor of the estate after Simak's death, Wixon began a long-term project to secure the rights to all of Simak's stories and find a way to make them available to readers who, given the fifty-five-year span of Simak's writing career, might never have gotten the chance to enjoy all of his short fiction. Along the way, Wixon also read the author's surviving journals and rejected manuscripts, which made him uniquely able to provide Simak's readers with interesting and thought-provoking commentary that sheds new light on the work and thought of a great writer.