While continuing to write steadily for Campbell, his work gradually became identifiably Simakian – constrained, intensely emotional beneath a calmly competent Genre SF surface tales deeply Pastoral in the sense that his idylls, his Edens, were almost inevitably supported by some superior civilization, sometimes urban (though his distaste for the City marred his efforts at verisimilitude), sometimes Alien. He swiftly followed with his first full-length novel, Cosmic Engineers (February-April 1939 Astounding rev 1950), a Galaxy-spanning epic in the vein of E E Smith and Edmond Hamilton. In 1938, inspired by John W Campbell Jr's editorial policy at Astounding Science-Fiction, Simak began to produce such stories as 'Rule 18' (July 1938 Astounding) and 'Reunion on Ganymede' (November 1938 Astounding).

Other early work of interest included 'The Voice in the Void' (Spring 1932 Wonder Stories Quarterly), about the desecration of a sacred tomb on Mars which possibly contains the relics of a Messiah from Earth 'Hellhounds of the Cosmos' (June 1932 Astounding), in which defenders of Earth who, in order to fight a Monster in another Dimension, combine into a gestalt and The Creator (March/April 1935 Marvel Tales 1946 chap exp with critical commentaries 1981 chap), in which humans and other races travel by Time Machine in order to combat the creator of the universe, who has become bored with his/her handiwork.

His first published stories, beginning with 'The World of the Red Sun' in Wonder Stories for December 1931, were less individual than his later work significantly, however, that first tale deals with Time Travel, which became his favourite sf device for the importation of Aliens into rural Wisconsin, always his favourite venue. (1904-1988) US author whose primary occupation 1929-1976 was newspaper work, and who worked full-time for the Minneapolis Star from 1939 until his retirement, when he became a full-time writer of sf, some years past his early prime.

City clifford simak