Cities in Flight (1970)

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!). ( )

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'. ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )