A Death in the House : And Other Stories

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After five of his stories were published in 1931–32—the fifth being “The Asteroid of Gold” in the November 1932 issue of Wonder Stories—Clifford D. Simak largely vanished from the world of science fiction publishing for five years (only one of his stories would be published during that time: “The Creator” in the September 1935 issue of Marvel Tales, a forum more akin to a fan publication than to a professional magazine). However, when former rising star writer John W. Campbell Jr. was appointed to take over the editorship of Astounding Science Fiction in September of 1937, Cliff quickly returned to the field, publishing three stories in that magazine within five months.

Since that time, some historians of science fiction have argued that Cliff Simak had purposely withdrawn from the field; some even characterized “The Creator,” which was so iconoclastic that it might well have been rejected by other publications, as an impolite farewell gesture to the field. Those historians suggested that Cliff had become dissatisfied with the low pay, the low quality of the science fiction being published, and the low expectations of the editors in the field. Robert Silverberg would later say, with some truth, that Cliff “drifted away from writing fiction” because the magazines paid poorly and slowly and the editors “were often capricious and limited in their taste.”

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