Clifford D. Simak

During his lifetime, Clifford D. Simak was one of the giants of the science fiction field. Beginning with the International Fantasy Award, which he won for City, his collection of linked short stories, he won every major award during his long career and was acclaimed a Grand Master in 1977 by the Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Four years later he won both the Hugo and the Nebula Award for his last major story, "The Grotto of the Dancing Deer."

Simak's first published story, "World of the Red Sun," appeared in 1931, in Hugo Gernsback's Wonder Stories. But it wasn't until the publication of "The Creator" in the March-April 1935 edition of the little-heralded Marvel Tales that Simak first began to attract attention. Written at a time when all the major markets were facing severe economic turmoil brought on by the Great Depression, "The Creator" was conceived by Simak as his last fling with science fiction, a story to be written for the sheer fun of doing so. In fact, he published nothing else between 1932 and 1938.