The Creator and Other Stories

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This is the sixth collection of the short stories of Clifford D. Simak that I have had the privilege and pleasure of editing. The pleasure lies in being able to reveal the stories to the modern science fiction audience. Some of these tales have been included in collections assembled by Cliff himself or by others, but those collections (which I myself in my time eagerly bought) are now not available. Some tales are from my own library, some are mined from the magazines through the assistance of Joyce Day of the Science Fiction Foundation (to whom UK sf lovers should be grateful), and others have come from the considerable collection of a fellow-enthusiast here in Aberdeen. To him I owe a considerable debt.

The privilege lies in being able to work with the stories of one of my favourite authors. I well remember the trepidation with which I first wrote to CDS, the courtesy of his reply, and then meeting for breakfast in Hopkins House Motor Hotel in Minnetonka/Minneapolis in 1981. I was nervous and he was (I think) slightly anxious lest he had made a mistake in allowing access to this Scottish academic lawyer. But we got on well: our interests and enthusiasms meshed — so did our dislikes. He bore me off to his house and I still recall asking if the Way Station had anything to do with Andrew Wyeth's painting 'Christina's World' and the joy with which Cliff dug out from a pile of books on the coffee table in front of us an album of Wyeth's paintings. It was indeed so: Way Station is not unconnected with that weatherbeaten-grey slatted house on the rise above the meadow.

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