A couple or three years ago, after John Campbell died, Harry Harrison conceived the idea of putting out a memorial anthology for John. The idea was to pick some of the older writers that were writing back in the "Golden Age"--so called--which really wasn't the Golden Age at all. The Golden Age is right now. He wanted to put out what would stand as the final issue of the old Astounding. Harry wrote to me and said I want you in it, and would you possibly write a final City story. I was very reluctant to do that because as far as I was concerned the City sequence was finished. Done. There was nothing else I thought needed to be done with it. But, because it was Harry Harrison, because it was for John, and because I was rather flattered for being included, I said I'd try. So I wrote the final City story which, I don't think, is as good as it might be. At least it's in the spirit of the tradition that I created in the City stories.
Knowing that I hadn't read City for fifteen years or more--to try to get the hang, the spirit of the thing, the way I wrote back then--I went back and read the book in its entirety. And when I reread it I absolutely ached to go back and rewrite it. The writing is somewhat crude, and juvenile, and it shows the lack of technique and craftsmanship you pick up as you go along. I know that if I rewrote City that I could make a much better book out of it, craftsman-wise, but I would lose the spirit of it entirely. I just don't think the way now, as I did when I wrote City.
As a writer develops--and this is true of any writer--he's bound to change. His viewpoints shift, his ideas change, his values vary and are reassessed. That's what is important. What was important twenty years ago is not so important today. Something else becomes much more important.
