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Cities in Flight by James Blish
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Cities in Flight (1970)

by James Blish

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Showing 1-5 of 14 (next | show all)
Great concept (Cities. In. Space!), flawed execution. It has a genuinely epic scope, and it was quite fascinating to see which aspects of his vast future history the author chose to explore. Thumbs up also for including economics in this, and for intelligently considering some of the implications of humankind essentially conquering aging. Nevertheless, this is *extremely* didactic old-school science fiction, in which people stand around earnestly explaining political philosophy and scientific theories to each other. The characterisation is pretty thin at best, and I found the central character increasingly unsympathetic. I was also extremely aware that this is a future universe still ruled primarily by white heterosexual males; women have immensely restricted roles (even when the narrative obviously fancies that they're "emancipated") and I can recall only one person of colour at all who wasn't classed as a "savage". While this isn't uncommon for works produced in the 50s and 60s, I found it particularly grating here. Of all the books in the SF Masterworks series that I've read over the past year, this one has probably dated the most, and it ended up being quite a struggle to finish it (but seeing as it has been sitting on my shelf for nearly twelve years, waiting to be read… it had to be done!). ( )
1 vote salimbol | Jul 17, 2012 |
The English author born in 1921 has basically written a science fiction book about applying logical reasoning to solving many types of problems. The author obviously has obtained knowledge in a wide variety of areas. Unfortunately, his logic is often very faulty and he attempts to disguise this through vocabulary (much of which I believe he invented), long rambling sentences, and often just 'skips' away from the problem to a new scene. The 591 page book does manage to hold your interest for awhile, but you soon find yourself wishing for 'The End'. ( )
  Dadbrazelton | Sep 29, 2011 |
The writing quality of the four books that make up this collection varies but what does is the sense of wonder and excitement that underlies the entire series. For this reader the latter two books (Earthman, Come Home and The Triumph of Time) were, with Clake's Tales of the White Hart Inn, crucial in the development of an early and ongoing love of the entire field of science fiction. ( )
  mmyoung | Nov 30, 2010 |
This sucker is actually four novels collected into a single volume. The collection starts with They Shall Have Stars. The year is 2013 and humanity is out among the solar system while, back on Earth, a quiet struggle is going on between the West and the Soviets. It's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between the two, however, as the Western governments seek to impose more and more control on their populace. Amidst this all is a scheme of Alaskan senator Bliss Wagoner, which is playing out in a lab on Earth and a gigantic construction project in the atmosphere of Jupiter. They Shall Have Stars was entertaining enough. The 1957 story seemed dated in many ways, but in others it seemed eerily prescient.

A Life for the Stars is the second tale in the collection, set centuries after the first. Humanity has discovered the gravitronpolarity generator, or "spindizzy" and over the years, first factories, then entire cities have used this gravity cancelling device to leave Earth and propel themselves through interstellar space. Chris deFord gets press ganged onto the departing city of Scranton and begins a new life among the stars.

Story #3, Earthman Come Home, is the first (and best) of the tales to have been written. It's the saga of the city of New York, an "okie" city travelling the stars and looking for work. Mayor John Amalfi and City Manager Mark Hazelton guide the city through a series of adventures culminating in a... well, that would be telling, wouldn't it?

The Triumph of Time closes out the volume. Mayor Amalfi comes out of retirement to face a final challenge, one that will have significance for the entire universe. It was the least satisfying of the four stories. Overall, the book is good, classic science fiction. The concept of space faring cities is intriguing, though it failed to truly grab hold of my imagination. But it was enough to carry me through dozens of lunch breaks, so I can't really complain.
--J. ( )
1 vote Hamburgerclan | Jun 24, 2009 |
This is one of my all-time favorite books . I like Blish mostly because the science is sensible and maybe even possible someday, like the Spindizzy space drive which is based on the actual physics book Dirac Equation, postulating a way to use angular momentum of electrons to create a gravity field that the drive 'falls into' at greater than light speed (being a math nerd does come in handy sometimes!). In a not too distant future, humans use this drive to lift entire cities into space inside a spherical spindizzy bubble. With the addition of a logically developed, but fictional, set of anti-aging drugs, a rather grand history spanning thousands of years is presented for the enjoyment of readers. There are also interesting insights into how people learn and remember things, and how that might be different if people develop a way to live for thousands of years. As a side note, there is a lot about Communist Russia since these books (the novel actually is four joined shorter works adapted from serial magazine stories) were written in the late '50s/early '60s. In Blish's universe, the Russians indirectly won the cold war by default when the U.S. and its allies became so much like the Russians that they became indistinguishable from each other, excessive secrecy, government control of the people through media, rise of military caste, etc. It sounds weird but I'll bet it was a rather interesting conclusion to ponder in the 1960's. ( )
1 vote DirtPriest | May 27, 2009 |
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
James Blishprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Adams, MarcCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Harris, JohnCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Holland, BradCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
They Shall Have Stars
And death shall have no dominion
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot ...
Dylan Thomas
They Shall Have Stars
"...While Vegan civilization was undergoing this peculiar decline in influence, while at the height of its political and military power, the culture which was eventually to replace it was beginning to unfold. The reader should bear in mind that at the time nobody had ever heard of the Earth, and the planet's sun, Sol, was only known as an undistinguished type G0 in the Draco sector. It is possible -- although highly unlikely -- that Vega knew that the Earth had developed space flight some time before the events we have just reviewed here. It was, however, the only local interplanetary flight; up to this period, Earth had taken no part in Galactic history. It was inevitable, however, that Earth should make the two crucial discoveries which would bring it on to that starry stage. We may be very sure that Vega, had she known that Earth was to be her successor, would have exerted all her enormous might to prevent it. That Vega failed to do so is evidence enough that she had no real idea of what was happening on Earth at this time ..."
--Acref-Monales: The Milky Way: Five Cultural Portraits
The Triumph of Time
Bismillahi 'rrahmani 'rrahim
When the day that must come shall come suddenly,
None shall treat that sudden coming as a lie:
Day that shall abase! Day that shall exalt!
When the earth shall be taken with a shock,
And the mountains shall be crumbled with a crumbling,
And shall become scattered dust,
And itno three bands shall ye be divided ...
Before thee we have granted to a man a life that shall last forever:
If thou then die, shall they live forever?
Every soul shall taste of death: ...
But it shall come on them suddenly and shall confound them; and they shall not be able to put it back, neither shall they be respited.
--The Koran; Sura LVI, Sura XXI
Dedication
They Shall Have Stars
To Frederik Pohl
A Life for the Stars
To L. Sprague DeCamp
Earthman, Come Home
To John W. Campbell, Jr.
The Triumph of Time
To Lester and Evelyn del Rey
First words
They Shall Have Stars
The Shadows flickered on the walls to his left and right, just inside the edges of his vision, like shapes stepping quickly back into invisible doorways.
A Life for the Stars
From the embankment of the long-abandoned Erie-Lackawanna-Pennsylvania railroad, Chris sat silently watching the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, preparing to take off, and sucked meditatively upon the red and white clover around him.
Earthman, Come Home
Space flight got its start as a war weapon, amid the collapse of the great Western culture of Earth.
The Triumph of Time
... Thus we have seen that Earth, a planet like other civilized worlds, havng a score of myriads of years of manned local space-flight in approximately her own year 1960, did not achieve importance on a galactic scale until later in her own year 2019.
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Book description
Collects these novels
They Shall Have Stars
A Life for the Stars
Earthman, Come Home
The Triumph of Time
Haiku summary

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0380416166, Mass Market Paperback)

Omnibus edition of four novels, originally published separately: They Shall Have Stars, A Life for the Stars, Earthman, Come Home, and The Triumph of Time. The Triumph of Time was nominated for the 2007 British Science Fiction Award, BSFA Fiftieth Anniversary Award: Best Novel of 1958.

(retrieved from Amazon Sat, 05 Jan 2013 10:27:24 -0500)

(see all 4 descriptions)

"Spanning the far-distant future and the infinite reaches of space, Cities in Flight brings together the famed 'Okie' novels named after the migrant workers of America's Dust Bowl of science fiction master James Blish. Featuring flying cities roaming the galaxy looking for work and a sustainable way of life, the four volumes take us from the death of our universe to the birth of the next." -- Jacket.… (more)

» see all 2 descriptions

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