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Do Cordwainer Smith Fans Read Clifford Simak?

Gnod.net is a website that is an “experiment in the field of artificial intelligence. It’s a self-adapting system, living on this server and ‘talking’ to everyone who comes along. It has a literature section, and you can see the Cordwainer Smith literary map here.

According to the fellow who created it, “The closer two writers are, the more likely someone will like both of them.”

When I was first there, Clifford D. Simak was the science fiction author closest to Cordwainer Smith. Other authors, a bit further away, were Brian Aldiss, Daniel Keys Moran, and James Tiptree, Jr.

Then later I went back and noticed that Aldiss was as close to Cordwainer Smith as Simak was. Hmm.

Well, I like Simak, but then I’m not all that objective about my father. Fans, do you like Simak? Aldiss?

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 13th, 2008 at 8:46 pm and is filed under science fiction authors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://myhgwellsblog.blogspot.com/ valdemar

    Oddly enough I read a great deal of Simak and Aldiss when I was also getting into CS. I also enjoyed J.G. Ballard, but I can’t quite see how he fits in. More ‘literary’ than pulp sf writers, perhaps?

    I admit that ‘James Tiptree, Jr’ (Alice Sheldon)seems a more logical choice. She wrote lots of short stories, often set them in extravagantly strange future worlds, and was a bold stylist with a wide-ranging intellect. These are ‘Smithian’ qualities.

  • David Doughan

    In the past I’ve read a fair bit of Simak, and generally enjoyed his stuff, but for me it’s just entertainment – albeit of good quality. The Cordwainer at his best is something more.

  • http://www.cordwainer-smith.com Cordwainersdaughter

    I agree. I read Simak to kick back. I could never say that of my father.

  • http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com Carl V.

    I have yet to read any Clifford Simak, but he has been on my radar for awhile now. I am more likely to read the rest of the Cordwainer Smith stories that I have yet to read before I consciously go out seeking any ‘similar’ authors. I’ll be interested in the comparison now, though, when I finally get around to reading Mr. Simak’s work.

    Carl V.’s last blog post..The Sci Fi Experience: Tuesday Travels…

  • http://www.oldearthbooks.com Michael Walsh

    Why yes, some do read both. But then, I reprinted “Way Station” and “City” and the name of my imprint is Old Earth Books, which is quite intentional. More amusing … I work at Johns Hopkins University.

    Everything is connected!

  • Chris Moseley

    I’ve read the short stories of both men and a few of Mr. Simak’s novels. There is at least one way in which they are similar, and that is how much they thought about what it means to be human.

    In other ways they are quite different, and no one would mistake a story by Simak as one of Cordwainer Smith’s.

    Some of Cordwainer Smith’s stories feel as if they are telling about a place that is in a far future and yet also in a very distant, legendary past. I am thinking in particular about “The Ballad of Lost C’Mell,” some of his other stories have this quality to a lesser degree. When I read of Lord Jestocost and C’Mell in Earthport, it was as if I were reading of a knight and lady in a vanished kingdom by the sea, long, long ago.