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5.0étoiles sur 5
Highly original, thought-provoking science fiction, Jui 15 2006
City is great science fiction, a social commentary of sorts told in a unique and highly effective manner. The tales collected in this book are the myths that have been told by generation after generation of Dogs. Dog scholars debate their origin, and only Tige is so bold as to argue that Man ever truly existed. The majority argument makes sense--man was a highly illogical creature, too selfish and materialistic to ever survive long enough to form a lasting, advanced culture. These stories themselves basically tell the story of the Webster family, a remarkable family whose genealogical line was gifted with genius yet cursed with failures. As the story goes, humans abandoned the cities and sought a bucolic lifestyle, shedding the old tendencies to huddle together in cities for protection. They explored the solar system, and in time the majority of the population sought an alien bliss in the form of Jupiter's native life forms. One Webster had a vision of two civilizations, man and dog, working together to plot a new future--he utilized deft surgical means to enable dogs to speak, he designed special lenses to allow dogs to see as men do, and he designed robots to aid dogs by serving as their hands. Over the years, man's society continued to break down, and eventually a Webster manages to shut off man from the world at large, determined to let the dogs create a new earth free of man's dangerous ideas and influences. Jenkins, the faithful robot servant of the Websters, oversees the dogs' evolution. Unfortunately, the Dog world was not isolated from a handful of human beings after all, and eventually a man builds a bow and arrow and kills a fellow creature, thus upsetting the balance of life all over again. There are many more facets of the story than I have just mentioned, but one central point that seems to emerge from the stories is that man is inherently "bad." Jenkins had tried very hard to erase the memories of the straggling number of humans living in the era of the Dogs, and the fact that a man eventually killed a fellow creature means that man's troubles did not arise from our remote ancestors' taking a wrong path on the road to civilization but that in fact the fault lies in fact finds an inherent flaw in man's social makeup. Reading this rich, multi-layered tale, one can certainly understand why modern Dogs simply cannot believe that such a creature as Man ever existed.
I enjoyed this book tremendously. The ending did not provide a sense of closure, but such a work of fiction as this would be hard to wrap up tightly with no loose ends. Simak presents a valuable viewpoint on society and mankind in general, and the unique viewpoint offered through the eyes of the Dogs serves to highlight the points Simak makes. My favorite part of the book is the section of notes before each tale, wherein we learn about the debate among Dog scholars as to whether or not these stories have any basis in fact, with the stubborn Tige dissenting from the majority opinion of Bouncer, Rover, and others that these are just myths and legends with no basis in fact, that Man is effectively the anti-Dog and was created by ancient storytellers for satirical or educational purposes. From now on, when I hear someone say the world is going to the dogs, I will think to myself that such a happenstance would not really be that bad, all things considered.
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5.0étoiles sur 5
Great fantasy sci-fi, Nov. 8 2003
Par Un client
I read City back in the late 60's. I was captivated by the tale, or several tales actually, that make up the story. I realized that trying to explain it to someone unfamiliar with it just made it sound silly (talking dogs, lopers on Jupiter, robot butlers, etc.) so I would just recommend it to friends and let them discover the magic. Most did. Simak himself said he wrote the story to reassure himself, in the darkest days of the cold war, that there was a better world coming. And, in some ways the book is dated to that period. But in more important ways it's timeless. There is a poignancy to the stories that's difficult to describe, but which moves the reader more than at first realized. This is what keeps me coming back, these many years later, to re-read them. They seem to stimulate feelings associated with similar settings and activities in the reader's life, almost like prosaic haiku poetry. There is no hard science fiction here, and no high fantasy. There are wonderfully written, fanciful tales that will enchant and entertain readers of many different ages. I highly recommend City, now a fantasy sci-fi classic, and to this reader, Simak's best.
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