Preface Summary

City by Clifford D. Simak is the story of the decline of Cities, which creates a decrease in humanity due to isolationism in the country. Improvement in methods of space travel, especially to Jupiter, also reduces Earth's human population. This reduction in humanity gives the now genetically improved Dogs the chance to begin to develop as the master race when they are given the ability to speak and read. After tale five, they have almost exclusive control of North America. In tale seven, the few humans not in suspended animation are transported to another world. By tale eight, the Dogs are now the main intelligent civilization on Earth; however, the ants are taking over fast. Each of the eight tales has notes from the point of view of Dogs, speculating if the tales are stories or the history of man and dogs.

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