The Ghost of a Model T : And Other Stories

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In this, the third volume of Clifford D. Simak’s collected short fiction, you find the story “City,” reprinted in its original magazine version.

If there is a single work for which Clifford D. Simak is most known, it is the book City. Most people call City a novel, but it is actually a compilation of eight short stories laced together by interstitial materials to form a work that functions as a novel. And since those eight stories were all once published individually, they are included as such in this volume.

Simak fans of a purist disposition may be pleased to know, however, that this collection features the original magazine versions of the stories from City. Most of them were altered, to various extents, for the book, which was put together some years later. But this volume preserves the original versions, heretofore unavailable.

As it happens, the earlier stories were not projected to be part of any series. “Desertion,” which appears as the fourth episode in City, was actually written before any of the others: Cliff’s journals show that it had been sold to John W. Campbell Jr. (who would publish the story in Astounding), before “City” itself was sent to him. This lends credence to the theory that “Desertion” was inserted into the series after the fact to provide a basis for the following story, Paradise.

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