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)
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