Polite Dissent

One of my favorite science-fiction authors has always been the late Clifford D. Simak who wrote a number of great stories and novels from the late thirties until his death in 1988. I have a pretty good collection of his books, often several editions of the same novel, but the ones published during the sixties and seventies are my favorite. First, they have that “old book smell” that I just associate with good science fiction, mostly thanks to spending a large portion of my teen years perusing used book stores. Second, they all have eye-catchingly surreal covers that just fascinate me. The covers have nothing to do with the actual novels inside, but they are so wonderfully bizarre, they trap the eye and I end up more interested in the book than I would be with standard scene-style covers.

Here are three of his books from that era: Time is the Simplest Thing, Destiny Doll, and my favorite, The Goblin Reservation

Time is the Simplest Thing Crest Books, 1964	Destiny Doll Berkley, November 1975	The Goblin Reservation Berkley, March 1969
All books by Clifford D. Simak, all covers by Richard M. Powers