This award-winning science fiction classic explores a far-future world inhabited by intelligent canines who pass down the tales of their human forefathers. Thousands of years have passed since humankind abandoned the city—first for the countryside, then for the stars, and ultimately for oblivion—leaving their most loyal animal companions alone on Earth. Granted the power of speech centuries … speech centuries earlier by the revered Bruce Webster, the intelligent, pacifist dogs are the last keepers of human history, raising their pups with bedtime stories, passed down through generations, of the lost “websters” who gave them so much but will never return. With the aid of Jenkins, an ageless service robot, the dogs live in a world of harmony and peace. But they now face serious threats from their own and other dimensions, perhaps the most dangerous of all being the reawakened remnants of a warlike race called “Man.”
In the Golden Age of Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak’s writing blazed as brightly as anyone’s in the science fiction firmament. Winner of the International Fantasy Award, City is a magnificent literary metropolis filled with an astonishing array of interlinked stories and structures—at once dystopian, transcendent, compassionate, and visionary.
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This is an challenging review as I’m surprised I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I thought I would. Oh, I still enjoyed it, and certainly appreciated it. But it didn’t capture me as tightly as Way Station. I haven’t forgotten that it was written in the 1940’s and I think readers must consider that fact. I’m still excited to read more Simak, and this book works on many levels, but I failed to completely lose myself in it, as I do with my favorite reads.
However, Simak as an author continues to grow on me. He’s genuinely midwestern and writes calm, thoughtful science fiction. He has a strong connection to nature, and it shows in his prose. He’s a storyteller and I’d love to be able to share a whisky with him on his front porch while he spins a yarn. I’ve heard him referred to as naïve and even preachy and I think that’s at least partly true. But if an author asks more questions than provides answers, I’m ok with some overt themes. If you’re not trying to express yourself in your writing, what’s it for?
Anyway, on one level this is an expansive story that covers dramatic social change, robots, human mutants, animal uplift, planetary expansion, and even parallel dimensions. It’s a great deal to cover in a roughly 200-page book. Which incidentally is really a series of eight short stories and novellas with overarching notes that provide some context and tie the stories together. If your looking for hard sci-fi, look elsewhere. Much of the technology is never explained, and many parts of the story are disjointed and incomplete. This is, I believe, intentional, as the books is represented as fragmented historical archives that might, in fact, be fables or allegories told by generations of sentient dogs.
A second layer is the examination of family and human’s focus on home. He questions the necessity of cities and what would be both lost and gained if they were abandoned. Simak envisions warm fires in the hearth, a glass of fine whiskey, in a place that you can call home, a place with deep roots and a strong connection to a family linage. Much of the book is melancholy and subdued. Characters (including robots) often look back to the past with nostalgia.
Part of the issue with this book, is that to cover vast spans of time (thousands and thousands of years), much of the story rides above the characters and the action. We do get pulled into specific characters and events, but rarely long enough to become invested.
On another level, the framework of the story exists to allow Simak to explore his ideas around human nature and human destiny. While most sci-fi authors explore population explosions or overcrowding, Simak examines the opposite, a continuous decline of mankind’s numbers on the Earth. Along with the dwindling population, robots and other advancement eliminate the need for labor. This allows Simak to question humanities ability to persist without the struggle of toil and conquest to provide drive and motivation.
I’m sure this was an advanced novel for its time. I’m not claiming Simak established concepts such as robotics or mutants or animal uplift or radical social change over thousands of years, but certainly those areas were still relatively unexplored ground in the 1940’s.
A creative series of campfire stories told over generations by sentient dogs, about the decline of humanity. Four stars for this sprawling, yet strangely brief sequence of fables that serve to examine human nature and our potential destinies.
While this book is dated, its an interesting premise and I enjoyed the small surprises And in the end how it pulls at the stories together.
Any book by Clifford D. Simak is a good book. This one was incredibly interesting even though it was slow at times. The premise of Dogs talking and having robots be their hands is certainly new to me, and I thought I had read all of Mr. Simak’s books a long time ago.
This was a great book. I don’t usually enjoy collections of short stories, but these were really great reading. It helped that they were linked together by common themes and characters.
The chapters are very unrelated. Finally, the dog chapters start and that is the interesting part of the book.
One of my all-time favorites, with the step by step telling of the unraveling of the fall of humanity in a way that doesn’t involve the usual apocalyptic action but instead is more of a bittersweet story of a humanity that fades away and transforms and moves on, and what it leaves behind.
Just in writing that, the way the dogs see humanity as a legend (I read City first in a Norwegian translation with a title that translates to Englis as “The Legend of Man”, which is in many ways more descriptive of the book) – they’re not quite sure whether to believe in but are still fascinated by -, made me think of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias.
It evokes the same wonder of something lost that once saw itself as the greatest ever. Yet it’s *us* it’s talking about in those terms.
At the same time, it’s not at all clear in City that humanity made a bad choice. It’s an empire that has faded largely out of choice.
Different, very creative science fiction
Classic sci-fi.
Made it through the first couple of chapters and could not continue reading it because it had no plot or story line.
If I had read this book during my impressionable years (sometime in middle or high school), then this would absolutely be an all-time favorite of mine. My favorite book ever is ‘The Giver’, and while this story is about something entirely different, it made me FEEL the same way I felt when I read ‘The Giver’ for the first time back in 1995, and that’s only happened a few ties in the last 25 years.
This is the story of man’s downfall and the rise of the dogs and the robots. It’s not flashy and chaotic…there are no battles being fought and no one species is declaring dominance over another.
In fact, it’s the polar opposite.
It’s quiet and subtle and sad and scary and beautiful and I just loved it.
I won’t get into an in-depth synopsis of this book as it’s already been done here many times over, but this has become a very important book for me. I can’t believe it took me so long to find it, but I’m just grateful that I did.
I’m telling you, there’s nothing like a robot butler who lives for over twelve thousand years to make you feel so incredibly small and fragile. That in the full span of Earth’s history and future, we are just a minuscule little blip on the radar.
Really loved the idea of intelligent dogs being the “heirs of humanity.” The concept of “uplifting” preceded David Brin’s works, I believe. Very interesting and thought-provoking. And a thoughtful view of humanity’s possible future.
Unforgettable, unsettling, magnificent
Fairly boring.
Such a poor understanding of human nature. Super contradictory. Written like a western, by gosh Miss Kitty. No likable characters. No interesting characters.
Just finished reading and understand why it is one of Simak’s best. While the 9 stories cover 10,000’s of years of earth time, the ending is rather depressing. In the early stories, I think that Simak underestimates the innate human drive to have and protect one’s own family group. Further, the concept of a lying, manipulating, forever robot (Jenkins) tends to go against the grain of what science fiction has come to expect of these manmade creations. In the end man is gone, all Jenkins plans have failed and he leaves an empty, desolate earth, apparently never to return.
I expected this book to be somewhat “out of date” since it was written more than 60 years ago, but I was still disturbed by the exclusion of women from the plot. How did this author and others I read as a teen think that women and girls played no part in the lives of men or even, in this case, dogs? Very strange and short sighted.
This book has a concept that is completely unique. Definitely a must read for readers of science fiction.
I literally cried at some points. I was that moved by the writing.
Jenkins is one of the strongest character s O have encountered in a lone time.
Read years and on list to read again. Great read
I’ve read those stories as a kid a long time ago. And they stayed with me until now. The dreamers in Saturn (titles translated from the french) is one of the most amazing writing I’ve ever found ! If you haven’t read it yet, go and get it !
Very thought provoking. Sifi at its best!.