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Why is Clifford Simak virtually a forgotten writer?

"City" won the International Fantasy Award in 1952. Simak won a Hugo for his novella, "The Big Front Yard." He also won a Hugo for "Way Station" in 1964. Simak was a big wheel in the science fiction world back then.

So again, I ask. why is he forgotten? I have combed the shelves of used book shops, and Simak's books are tough to find. I don't know if this means that collectors tended to hoard Simak's books, or if it means that people commonly threw them out when they finished reading them.

"City" is a fascinating book. I'm sure that many readers today would find it lacking in interesting human characters; lacking in a compelling plot; lacking female characters; and disappointingly undramatic. It's certainly not a novel in the conventional sense. (But then, neither was Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles.")

Nevertheless, Simak's book is both quaint and brilliant. For example, the most consistent and memorable character throughout the book is a robot waiter called Jenkins, who, over many generations, serves whisky to a family of humans called the Websters. The overarching premise of the book is that humans eventually find a better life on Jupiter after an experimental team converts their bodies into another species. When the general population discovers that this paradisical life is available through such conversion, most of them abandon Earth. Earth is thus left in the hands of engineered dogs and robots, who begin to build their own pacifist cultures. Man (Simaks term; we'd say "humans" today, to put it in a sex-neutral way) becomes a forgotten species or a dimly remembered, mythical creature that adult dogs tell stories about to their pups before bed. Dogs sit around the fire and debate whether humans and cities ever dominated the earth in the remote past, as the myths relate.

A small band of survivalist humans remains at large. Before long, the dogs and robots discover that, despite their efforts to purge the band of their propensity for violence, human blood-lust is unstoppable. So the dogs and robots kindly export the humans to another world.

"City" was originally a loosely connected collection of stories, published at different times in Astounding Science fiction (mostly during the "Golden Age" of sf literature). Simak cemented these stories together with some interlinear commentary by dog scholars, in order to sell them as a single, book-length work. The interwoven doggish commentary is written in a mock-scholarly tone, which I found very amusing.

I have perused some of the reviews on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, and many people criticized "City" for painting an unrealistic picture of the future (especially on account of the unrealistic premise that humans could engineer dogs so that they might read and talk).

It irritates me when people judge science fiction based upon whether or not the author was able to predict the future. Also, it irritates me when people expect science fiction to be strictly "scientific."

For me, the point of science fiction is to explore what it means to be human. That exploration is accomplished by imagining a world that is quite different from the one we live in, or contains sentient beings with a non-human perspective. It shouldn't matter whether the author's world is completely believable or not. What should matter is whether or not the author uses that world and its beings to shed light on the human condition.

By putting humans in an other-worldly context, the writer is able to speculate about how humans would adapt or fail to adapt to that other world. The writer is thus able to expose aspects humanity that might not otherwise come to light, or advance a thesis on the nature of humanity.

In a way, I found "City" to be absurd. But by this I don't mean inferior. I mean absurd in the way Kafka's stories are absurd. And this is really how "City" should be read. Not as an attempt to predict the future, but more as an attempt to explore what it means to be human in a playful, non-serious,imaginative, and absurdist way. There is much beauty in Simak's writing, too. Despite his science fiction themes, he lovingly lingers on detailed, pastoral descriptions.

Whether or not you love this book, you won't ever read another one quite like it!