Reception
Groff Conklin described City as a "strange and fascinating program . . . completely enthralling." Boucher and McComas praised the volume as "a high-water mark in science fiction writing," adding "Here is a book that caused these reviewers to chuck objective detachment out the window and emit a loud, partisan 'Whee!'.". P. Schuyler Miller placed the novel among the best sf books of 1952, although he felt the newly added interstitial matter was inferior to the original stories. In his "Books" column for F&SF, Damon Knight selected City as one of the 10 best sf books of the 1950s.
The book was also an important influence on French Marxist Henri Lefebvre and members of the avant-garde group the Situationist International, who used it as a point of departure for discussing how humans would survive in a world without work.
Read more about this topic: City (novel)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)