191 pages

English language

Published Dec. 30, 2003

ISBN:
978-0-7394-3526-7
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Goodreads:
2260871

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4 stars (1 review)

City is a 1952 science fiction fix-up novel by American writer Clifford D. Simak. The original version consists of eight linked short stories, all originally published in Astounding Science Fiction under the editorship of John W. Campbell between 1944 and 1951, along with brief "notes" on each of the stories. These notes were specially written for the book, and serve as a bridging story of their own. The book was reprinted as ACE #D-283 in 1958, cover illustration by Ed Valigursky. Simak published a ninth City tale in 1973 called "Epilog". Starting with the 1980 edition some (but not all) editions of City include "Epilog".

9 editions

Review of 'City' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Clifford Simak's City won the 1953 International Fantasy Award, which was awarded to a science fiction or fantasy book. This book is more the latter, despite its later inclusion in later collections such as the SF Masterworks, Easton Press Masterpieces of Science Fiction, and the Locus Best SF Novels of All-Time.

Yes, this book is science fiction, and contains references to space and dimensional travel. Despite one of the stories being set on Jupiter, these are only references. This book focuses more on human development over a very long scale. It was originally published as a series of short stories in Astounding Science Fiction magazine. These stories are collected with interspersed brief commentaries from scholars of a future dog civilization.

This far future civilization is fascinating for a number of reasons – the removal of violence, the collective of animals, and the complete loss of Man - even as an …