wraithlike creature called a "cobbly" appears, having traveled from another world on the time thread. Before it is driven away, Jenkins's new telepathic sense enables him to read the creature's mind to discover how it moves from world to world. Realizing that humanity cannot peacefully coexist with the Dogs and the other animals, Jenkins uses the knowledge to take his human charges to one of the other worlds. Eventually, the human race dies out on the new world. However, returning to the initial Earth in the final tale of the book, Jenkins finds the dogs dealing with the ever-growing Ant City, which is taking over the Earth. Jenkins travels to Geneva, where a last small group of humans sleep in suspended animation. He asks his former master, a Webster, how to deal with the ants. The answer is typically human – poisoned bait, enough to kill but not before the bait is taken back to the ant colony to kill widely there. Jenkins is saddened because he realizes the Dogs will never accept this solution. He tells the dogs that the "websters" had no answer. The Dogs leave Earth for one of the other worlds. The original eight stories were written and published during World War II and reflect the attitude that humans are unable to live at peace with their fellow beings. There is an underlying theme throughout the book that humans possess a fundamental aggressive flaw they will never be able to overcome. The Coda Simak wrote the ninth and last tale in the City saga in 1973, twenty-two years after he wrote the previous episode. Jenkins is on the original Earth, living at the old Webster home, surrounded on all sides by the Ant City. He comes to realize that the Ant City is dead, just as a spaceship returns to take him to the robot worlds. Breaking through the wall of the city, he sees nothing but infinitely repeated versions of a single sculpture; a human boot kicking over an anthill. 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 science fiction books of 1952, although