The Clifford Simak Fan Site first went live around the summer of
1997 under a different URL. It's been run continuously since its
inception. Following is an update log since 1999.
September 25, 2005
You are now at the new location of the Simak Fan site:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~brams006/simak/. Rising cost of living relative to my earnings
forces me to discontinue the web space which previously hosted this site.
July 28, 2005
I've also added seven more images from contributors in the Cover Art:English Language
section.
In doing some research for Václav Petr
I came across what I believe to be Clifford Simak on the 1910 US Census. He's in the
small town of Patch Grove, not far from Millville, WI, and was only five years old at the time (line 31
on the form). Before clicking the link I should mention that the image is 813K.
Clifford Simak 1910 US Census.
February 12, 2005
I've long meant to make available a detailed listing of the Clifford Simak
manuscripts and letters held in the University of Minnesota Literary
Manuscripts collection, but have not been able to make time for it. I
discovered that a general finding aid is available here:
Clifford Donald Simak Papers.
December 29, 2004
Some new French scans added, and many of the Russian titles have been
identified with their English counterparts.
September 17, 2004
Ten German cover art scans added. Also, 21 new Millville images added from my
trip there in late August 2004.
September 7, 2004
More cover art added, including the upcoming City from Old Earth Books.
August 3, 2004
Today marks Clifford Simak's 100th birthday. Thanks to a visitor from Germany for pointing
this out. Happy Birthday Clifford!
July 17, 2004
Check out the upcoming reprinting of Way
Station
from Old Earth Books. It'll be released at Noreascon this fall.
Kudos to the publisher for this head's up! Also added another French scan of Visitors.
May 30, 2004
Several French and English language cover art scans added.
Also, I've been notified by a visitor to the site that Old Earth
Books has secured reprinting rights to City and
Waystation -- both classic award winning sci-fi.
I've got a number of Clifford Simak things in my private collection
which await to be scanned. Today I added two Western magazine covers
to the Magazine Covers
section. Both of them are Ace-High from 1945. Hard to imagine
Clifford writing Westerns, but he did.
April 25, 2004
Several Italian covers added. The contributor from Italy provided
the following about the artist Karel Thole (real name: Carolus Adrianus
Maria 1914-2000): He was a very popular Dutch painter, who painted the
covers for the very popular Italian SF series "Urania" from 1960 to
shortly before his death. His son, Ernst Thole, was a popular
TV artist, but died very young from AIDS - some 10-12 years ago.
February 15, 2004
Romanian covers added: Cosmic Engineers and Waystation.
February 1, 2004
This site received its first major facelift in about four years, utilizing
CSS and dropping the background image. It should appear much more
cleaner and modern. Also, approximately a dozen more cover art scans
added, including many from France.
August 26, 2003
I've recently visited Clifford Simak's grave site in Minneapolis. I originally
planned on including a photograph of it here, but decided that he might not
approve of the intrusion. If anyone is seriously interested in coming to
Minnesota and visiting his grave, send me an e-mail and I can supply you
with directions.
March 1, 2003
Several Czech, Portuguese, and Russian language cover art scans added.
January 18, 2003
Two French scans, and a couple English-language contributor scans added.
Interestingly, the French edition of Skirmish was done by Boris
Vallejo.
A note from a visitor to the site:
"That cover was originally done for another book (written by Janet E. Morris, if I'm not
mistaken). At a time, French publishers buy reproductions rigths of some
American/British artists (like Vallejo, Whelan or Tim White, for example)
and put them on French editions of various books, not at all related to
the original books they were done for (such as the Simak book you're
talking about)."
January 17, 2003
23 new cover art scans added to the general English language contributor
section. They keep coming in! I'm beginning to wonder whether I may
have to limit new submissions to non-English covers only, since I'm
approaching my web space limit.
September 20, 2002
I've had a backlog of cover art contributions. Over a dozen more scans
have been added. There are 128 different covers scanned, representing
several editions and languages.
August 23, 2002
More scans added, including several Dutch editions.
June 30, 2002
Thanks to a Ukrainian visitor, we now have seven scans of Russian cover art work in
the foreign/non-English sections.
November 3, 2001
This site has generated a fair amount of e-mail over the past few years, from several
countries. In response, I've created a discussion board.
[Note: 09/26/2005: the board has been taken down.]
In addition, I've completed going through 17 archival boxes of Clifford
Simak's manuscripts in the University of Minnesota's special collection.
Among the material included several original handwritten first drafts of
books: Trilobite, Dinosaur & Man, Way Station, All Flesh is Grass, and
others. Also included were dozens of correspondences: fan mail, other
authors, publishers and his agent. I'll be making an online finding aid
of his manuscripts by mid-December.
September 5, 2000
Check out Millville, Wisconsin, Clifford Simak's hometown and the setting
for many of his books. I have 20 thumbnailed images here
from a pilgrimage over Labor Day Weekend, 2000.
April 29, 1999
Millville photos will be trickling in as time permits. I took these in February,
so the colors aren't spectacular:
