Sinai’s City is surprisingly timeless

When I was a teenager, I tried reading Clifford D. Simak. After all, the guy was awarded the third Grandmaster from Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, which is its big, lifetime achievement award. That’s the same guys who do the Nebula Awards. So clearly he was a big deal.

And, back then, I did not grok Simak. It just didn’t click for me. So, I decided, many years later, to try reading City, one of his major works. It turns out I just wasn’t old enough to appreciate Simak the first time.

City is about the end of the human race. Not the end of the world. Oh no, the world keeps on going. It is just humanity that goes away.

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City is a fixup novel, a collection of previously published short stories put together to form a larger narrative. City’s stories span several thousand years from almost contemporary times to long past humanity passing with the dogs and ants inheriting the Earth.

Two of the through lines that help make it a single story is the Webster family (whose influence goes long past the human race. Uplifting dogs will do that) and their robot Jenkins, a neigh immortal guide and observer. Jenkins, who starts off as a butler and ends up being the heart of the dog culture, is a great character.

I had read, in descriptions of the book, that it was about humanity simply fading away. I didn’t really find that to be the case. Instead, humanity’s true end is when anti-social mutants push humanity into transhumanism. Personally, I’m not convinced that being turned into creatures that can live on Jupiter actually means that people people stop being human.

Elements of the book are very dated, particularly the first story which is set in the 1990s. On the other hand, Simak explores transhumanism and uplifting in a way that feels timeless. City is melancholy but not bleak. 

Clifford D. Simak makes me think of a mashup of Ray Bradbury and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He romanticizes the pastoral life and definitely pushes the better nature of humanity. I can’t say I agree with many of his conclusions but I do appreciate them.

In a weird way, Clifford D. Simak also reminds me Alfred van Voigt. Both were major players in the golden age of science fiction. Both wrote fiction-up novels and focused on the softer side of science fiction. Both are overshadowed by Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke. And both are probably far more influential than they seem to be.

It has been said that good science fiction should ask you difficult questions. By that yard stick, City is good science fiction. The work asks questions about the human condition and doesn’t provide you with easy answers.