While most sci-fi authors explore population explosions or overcrowding, Simak examines the opposite, a continuous decline of mankind’s numbers on the Earth. On another level, the framework of the story exists to allow Simak to explore his ideas around human nature and human destiny. We do get pulled into specific characters and events, but rarely long enough to become invested. 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. Characters (including robots) often look back to the past with nostalgia. Much of the book is melancholy and subdued. 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. He questions the necessity of cities and what would be both lost and gained if they were abandoned. 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.Ī second layer is the examination of family and human’s focus on home. Much of the technology is never explained, and many parts of the story are disjointed and incomplete. If your looking for hard sci-fi, look elsewhere. Which incidentally is really a series of eight short stories and novellas with overarching notes that provide some context and tie the stories together. It’s a great deal to cover in a roughly 200-page book. If you’re not trying to express yourself in your writing, what’s it for?Īnyway, on one level this is an expansive story that covers dramatic social change, robots, human mutants, animal uplift, planetary expansion, and even parallel dimensions. But if an author asks more questions than provides answers, I’m ok with some overt themes. I’ve heard him referred to as naïve and even preachy and I think that’s at least partly true. 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. He has a strong connection to nature, and it shows in his prose. He’s genuinely midwestern and writes calm, thoughtful science fiction. However, Simak as an author continues to grow on me. 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. I haven’t forgotten that it was written in the 1940’s and I think readers must consider that fact. But it didn’t capture me as tightly as Way Station. Oh, I still enjoyed it, and certainly appreciated it. This is a challenging review as I'm surprised I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I thought I would. And if the twelve-year-old philosopher lives in you-as he still lives in me-you may find something to enjoy in Simak's City. Which is “wild,” man, it could “blow your top,” make you “flip your lid”-as my twelve year old self might say. Simak connects his eight stories with a series of introductory scholarly notes that summarize the opinions of Doggish critics through the centuries (with names like Rover, Tighe, and Towser), who analyze the significance of these fabulous ancient folktales and conjecture that humankind itself may be nothing but a canine myth. Such deficiences, however, are almost counterbalanced by the ingenious, self-referential framework of the novel. Worse, the world itself lacks credibility, evolving according to a child-like version of lamarckian inheritance: for example, some genius sets a glass dome over an anthill so the little dudes won't have to hibernate, and soon they are building little factories and pushing things around in tiny carts). The writing style is merely serviceable, and the characters are often thin, their motivations uncomplicated. Unfortunately, City, though broad in scope, lacks depth. Originally a series of eight short stories published from '44 tp '51, it stretches more than ten thousand years in the future, from the days when men abandoned the large industrial cities in fear of the atomic bomb, through the growing isolation and disappearance the human species, unable to come to grips with its own violence or feel comfortable in its own skin, to the new order established on earth by the talking dogs and their robot helpers, who now face the threat of a rising insect civilization. Although now it may look naïve, simplistic, perhaps even shallow, but at the time it seemed so imaginatively brave, so wide in scope, that it made you dizzy to contemplate it. I was twelve years old at the time, working at my parent's grocery, and I was suddenly forced to lean upon my push-broom to keep from falling headlong in a dizzy marvel of surprise. Remember when you-the naïve philosopher-struck by the similarities of molecule and solar system, imagined your body to be composed of billions of nano-planets and stars? I do.
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