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City Clifford D. Simak In Memory of Scootie, Who Was Nathaniel CONTENTS Introduction Editor’s Preface Notes on the First Tale I. City Notes on the Second Tale II. Huddling Place Notes on the Third Tale III. Census Notes on the Fourth Tale IV. Desertion Notes on the Fifth Tale V. Paradise Notes on the Sixth Tale VI. Hobbies Notes on the Seventh Tale VII. Aesop Notes on the Eighth Tale VIII. The Simple Way Notes on “Epilog” Epilog About the Authors INTRODUCTION Clifford D. Simak did not dedicate his books very often, but he dedicated this one—to his dog. He loved dogs, and he made them prominent features of a number of his stories —and in this case he made it clear that the dog in question, Scootie, was the model for Nathaniel, who can be found in “Census,” the third episode in this book, and who became legend to succeeding generations of dogs. Scootie was, yes, a Scottie—a black one (there is a photograph to prove it). And yet, although dogs and a robot dominate the memories of this book for generations of readers, no dog appears in its first episode, “City,” nor does any robot, unless you want to count an “automatic” lawn mower. This book, City, is undoubtedly one of the classics of the science fiction field; its images of talking dogs, of humans abandoning Earth, of a guardian robot, and of intelligent ants are iconic even today, more than sixty years after those concepts were created. But City (the book) was not created as most novels are; rather, it was written bit by bit, in the form of eight short stories seemingly intended only for magazine publications across a string of nearly nine years beginning in 1943. (A ninth story would be added to the canon twenty-one years after the book’s publication in 1952 and then only because the author felt himself to have no choice but to do so; see his comments preceding that last story, “Epilog.”) The book was created by stringing the separate stories in order and then inserting interstitial materials between them—materials crafted as “notes” written by doggish commentators long after the events in the stories had taken place. But few today realize that in doing so, the author altered some of the stories, particularly the earlier ones, from their magazine versions, which may be found in the collections of Simak short stories that will be published by Open Road Media. (Be not angry: The changes, which are here in this volume, were small, and did not affect the meanings of the stories.) Another thing that most readers do not realize about City is that the fourth story, “Desertion,” was actually the first of the stories to be written: Cliff Simak’s journals show that it was sent to John W. Campbell Jr.—the editor of Astounding—in July of 1943. But it would not be published until November 1944, by which time Simak had written, and Campbell had purchased and published, three other stories of the series (“City,” “Huddling Place,” and “Census”). And this raises the question of whether the concept of the entire book was in Simak’s head (or Campbell’s) early enough to explain why “Desertion” was held for later publication—for certainly “Desertion,” one of the greatest stories the field has ever produced, should have been published earlier. And since it contains in itself no hint that it had a place in any series, there would have been no reason to hold it up unless it was recognized, even before publication, that it provided the platform needed for its sequel, “Paradise.”
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