One of the great science fiction stories ( )

This is a book from an older era of Science Fiction. 1952. Sci-Fi up until maybe the seventies was less burdened than it is now. The crux of the matter is that the more science advances the faster it continues to advance. Which tends to put some limitations on sci-fi writers.
This book is written at a time free of many of those limitations but also having access to some of the most thought provoking ideas scientific thinkers had come up with. A pretty good combo.
He didn't have to worry about the fact that Jupiter is made of gas and has no ground to walk on. That mankind while advancing technologically wouldn't advance quite so fast as nearly all sci-fi writers of those bygone days thought it would. Like many of these writers he kept man with a 1950's mentality despite whatever advances were imagined.
Kind of charming in a way.
But man is only one of the players in this book.
This book is about the idea that there are different ways of thinking and interpreting and problem solving for different kinds of minds. That certain thoughts that could never be thought by a man, could be thought by a dog, or a martian, or a jovian, or a robot.
The story takes place over the course of many millenniums related in a series of legends passed down by the dogs. A story that charts the rise and fall and rise of cities, the disappearance of man, the off-shoot of the genius mutants of man, the 'wild' robots thinking in one way and the rise of dogs and their robot helpers thinking in another.
Each legend could be viewed as a short story, but there is a strong continuity running through them all, binding them into one novel. Even though there are only two characters that appear in more than one of the legends all of the characters are well developed, using an economy of words, but achieving deep personalities.
It is a wholly fascinating book, written elegantly. ( )

A wonderful book that explores what it means to be human. ( )

A collection of eight stories linked by faux canine literary archaeology talking about the provenance of the stories, etc. Desertion is definitely the highlight story, but taken all at once, this man goes into space and leaves the dogs and robots behind in general gets somewhat tedious.

City : City - Clifford D. Simak
City : Huddling Place - Clifford D. Simak
City : Census - Clifford D. Simak
City : Desertion - Clifford D. Simak
City : Paradise - Clifford D. Simak
City : Hobbies - Clifford D. Simak
City : Aesop - Clifford D. Simak
City : The Simple Way - Clifford D. Simak

Moving Gramps.

3 out of 5

Homebody scaredy-cats.

3.5 out of 5

Talking dog passing change.

3 out of 5

Altered man mission adds a mutt.

4.5 out of 5

Man came back, to mutants.

3.5 out of 5

Robots and dogs living together.

3 out of 5

Peter and the wolf and the bear and a new robot body.

3 out of 5

Renegade raccoon, wild robots, Hey Joe.

3 out of 5

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2008/12... ( )

I couldn't get over the bad pseudoscience in this book. Most people -- even in the 1940's -- knew that Lamarckian evolution isn't plausible. Yet the main premise of these stories is that a race of sentient dogs evolved when a man surgically altered a mother dog and her puppies were all born with the same alteration! I couldn't buy that a race of sentient dogs would force all creatures of the world to become vegetarians and the world would become this peaceful utopia, where preditor and prey could communicate and be friends with each other. Usually, I'm not such a curmudgeon about "real" science in science fiction, but for some reason, this collection of stories rubbed me the wrong way.

I did like the Ants story. The ants were pleasingly alien and made for the most interesting story in the book. ( )