The Shipshape Miracle: And Other Stories

(Paperback)

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Nine tales of imagination and wonder from one of the formative voices of science fiction and fantasy, the author of Way Station and City.

Named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, Clifford D. Simak was a preeminent voice during the decades that established sci-fi as a genre to be reckoned with. Held in the same esteem as fellow luminaries Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury, his novels continue to enthrall todays readers. And his short fiction is still as gripping and surprising now as when it first entertained an entire generation of fans.

The title story is just one example of this. Cheviot Sherwood doesnt believe in miracles. They never seem to pay off. So when hes marooned on a planet with no plan for escape and no working radio, he takes it in stride and prepares for a long stay gathering food, making shelter, and collecting all the diamonds the world has to offer. But when a ship like none hes ever encountered lands, he sees his salvationand an opportunity to take the priceless craft for himself. Unfortunately, his rescuer has the same idea ...

This volume also includes the celebrated short works Eternity Lost, Shotgun Cure, and Paradise, among others.

Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook.

Reviews

Praise for Clifford D. Simak
To read science fiction is to read Simak. A reader who does not like Simak stories does not like science fiction at all. Robert A. Heinlein

Like Olaf Stapledon and SFs later mystics, Simak could dream on a grand scale.... Thoreau or Wordsworth would feel at home in his isolated houses rooted in natural landscapes. Locus

Simak is the most underrated great science fiction writer alive, and has never written a bad book. Theodore Sturgeon

I read [Simaks] stories with particular attention, and I couldnt help but notice the simplicity and directness of the writingthe utter clarity of it. I made up my mind to imitate it, and I labored over the years to make my writing simpler, clearer, more uncluttered, to present my scenes on a bare stage. Isaac Asimov

Without Simak, science fiction would have been without its most humane element, its most humane spokesman for the wisdom of the ordinary person and the value of life lived close to the land. James Gunn

Author Bio

During his fifty-five-year career, CLIFFORD D. SIMAK produced some of the most iconic science fiction stories ever written. Born in 1904 on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin, Simak got a job at a small-town newspaper in 1929 and eventually became news editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune,writing fiction in his spare time.

Simak was best known for the bookCity,a reaction to the horrors of World War II, and for his novelWay Station.In 1953Citywas awarded the International Fantasy Award, and in following years, Simak won three Hugo Awards and a Nebula Award. In 1977 he became the third Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and before his death in 1988, he was named one of three inaugural winners of the Horror Writers Associations Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

DAVID W. WIXON was a close friend of Clifford D. Simaks. As Simaks health declined, Wixon, already familiar with science fiction publishing, began more and more to handle such things as his friends business correspondence and contract matters. Named literary executor of the estate after Simaks death, Wixon began a long-term project to secure the rights to all of Simaks stories and find a way to make them available to readers who, given the fifty-five-year span of Simaks writing career, might never have gotten the chance to enjoy all of his short fiction. Along the way, Wixon also read the authors surviving journals and rejected manuscripts, which made him uniquely able to provide Simaks readers with interesting and thought-provoking commentary that sheds new light on the work and thought of a great writer.