The City and the Stars

Published in 1956 this is another entry from Clarke in the Masterworks Science fiction series. Clarke concerns himself with the big picture in fact the biggest of pictures, a search for a superior intelligence that will oversee the cosmos: a guiding hand perhaps for humanity. In his 1953 novel Childhoods End it was the seemingly benevolent overlords who took human life to a further stage in their development. In the 1948 short story the Sentinel that was later opened out into 2001 A Space Odyssey in 1968: Clarke was again looking forward to man's relationship to the universe and searching perhaps for that all powerful being. The City and the Stars takes place much further in the future when man had conquered the galaxy, but his empire show more had collapsed and his descendants have taken refuge back on their home planet earth. Perhaps they never did find that omnipresent intelligence that was the subject of so many of their dreams, instead they came across the invaders who beat them back to earth where they have fabricated a city (Diaspar) controlled by machines and are content to live and revel in their immortality, but frightened to look up to the stars.

Clarke's search for that all knowing intelligence has nothing to do with religion. It is nothing that can be invented internally, one of his characters sums up what might be in Clarke's mind

“he (man) suffered from an incurable malady which, it seemed attacked only homo sapiens amongst all the intelligent races of the universe. That disease was religious mania. Throughout the earlier part of its history the human race had brought forth an endless succession of prophets, seers, sages, and evangelists who convinced themselves and their followers that to them alone were the secrets of the universe revealed."

Diaspar has not had a human newborn for ten million years, then along comes Alvin a unique event. There have been a few other "uniques" recorded in the history bank memories of the machines, but they have all disappeared. As Alvin approaches adulthood he feels the confines of the city and starts to look outside. His escape fuels the story and once again homo sapiens are reaching for the stars. Like other Clarke novels this is a story of a search for something else and readers have to go with the flow and allow themselves to be swept along by Clarke's vision, however opaque that maybe.

Arthur C Clarke was a fine writer and storyteller, he was able to put flesh onto the skeletons of his visions and so in this novel the futuristic city of Diaspar is lavishly described. He is able to place his readers into a world that he invents without resorting to pages of background material. He is largely free from the sexism and racism that can mar other writers of this period. One can still pick up his novels and feel the wonder even if the world of science fiction writing has now moved on from the sometimes naive writing of the period. I was hooked from the start and stayed with it till the end 4 stars. show less

I have neglected Sir Arthur C. Clarke for far too long. Way back when I started reading science fiction I tended to read more of other two authors from the group commonly known as "Big Three of science fiction", these other two being Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. I felt their works were somehow more flamboyant and entertaining. As for Sir Arthur I read may be three of his books as I found his writing a little too dry and his science was beyond my ken. Now decades later other sf readers are still going on about him and popular contemporary sf authors still cite him as an influence, clearly I must have made a mistake and shortchanged him (or myself) terribly.

While reading The City and the Stars I had a sort of epiphany, I realized show more that great science fiction does not need to have great character development if other aspects of the book is good enough to compensate for this shortage. This is probably not a universal truth but it works for me. Nobody on their right minds would say Clarke is a writer of beautiful lyrical prose but his writing has a clarity that much better suited for the hard SF stories he wanted to tell. The immensity of his imagination and the grandness of his vision compensate the reader aplenty for any shortcoming in the artistic department. Unless I am very much mistaken this book is highly influential for more recent titles which have also become classics in their own right. I am thinking of Iain M. Bank's Culture novels where the A.I. characters seem to have been inspired by this book, Richard K. Morgan's [b:Altered Carbon|40445|Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs, #1)|Richard K. Morgan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1387128955s/40445.jpg|2095852] which uses the concept of immortality through digitization of people , Neal Stephenson's [b:The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer|827|The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer|Neal Stephenson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388180931s/827.jpg|2181158] where machines can create furniture and object out of thin air (well, molecules), not to mention the epic scale of [a:Alastair Reynolds|51204|Alastair Reynolds|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1369753656p2/51204.jpg]'s works which seem to be a direct descendant of Clarke's epic galaxy spanning concept.

The story of The City and the Stars is almost a [b:A Tale of Two Cities|1953|A Tale of Two Cities|Charles Dickens|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344922523s/1953.jpg|2956372] or even [b:The City and the City|4703581|The City & the City|China Miéville|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320475957s/4703581.jpg|4767909] if not for the fact that it has nothing in common with these two books except that the main part of this novel is focused on two cities, Diaspar and Lys. The former is a post-scarcity super high-tech society where the citizens are immortal while the other is less reliant on technology and the citizens are all telepaths. The scale of the story expand very far beyond these two cities later in the book, but I am not in a synopsizing mood today so I will skip this part and get on with the review. Clarke's world-building talent and attention to details is seriously awe-inspiring, the only possible complaint is that the characters tend to be a little flat. There is a character called Khedron who is the official jester of Diaspar, his job is to cause little mischiefs to unstabilize the city just a little bit so it does not stagnate. Great idea except this Khedron does not seem to have a sense of humor and is even described as having an "astringent personality"! I can only recall one little humorous passage from the entire book, here is Sir Arthur describing a futuristic penis:

"It was merely that his equipment was now more neatly packaged when not required; internal stowage had vastly improved upon Nature’s original inelegant and indeed downright hazardous arrangements."

This is not to say that book is all doom and gloom, there is a feeling of lightheartedness and optimism to the proceeding in spite of the lack of actual jokes. The protagonist Alvin is also a little less flat than the other characters and is almost sympathetic and likable by the end of the book. The twist at the end is ingenious and I closed the book with satisfaction.

I feel like I am just scratching the surface here of Arthur C. Clarke's works, perhaps it is just as well I have neglected his books until now, give me a lot more to look forward to. show less

This book is profound, and I am not sure Arthur C Clarke intended to write a deep novel. It is possible he just intended to write a good yarn, and he achieved this aim.

Yet, if he had stopped there, maybe the book would not be great. Maybe, the book would just be good or very good. However, there are some interesting questions that keep cropping up when we read the book. One, for instance, is the question of where humanity is heading. With social media and the metaverse impinging on our consciousness, will we live in virtual worlds, and forget humanity?

Will we run from the fear of the unknown, or disease, to the point where we cut ourselves off from the universe and live in bubbles?

With science advancing the way it is, will we achieve show more some kind of bland immortality?

Will we lose touch with ourselves?

Read the book, pause and think. It may raise similar questions in your mind as well. show less

This is a beautiful novel of the far future. I much prefer this to my schoolboy memories of 2001: A Space Odyssey (though, to be fair, I ought to reread that to form an adult opinion). In this far future, humanity has withdrawn from its galactic empire and retreated to the safety of a mega city on Earth, Diaspar, for the last billion years. The inhabitants live a thousand years and their memories are preserved in an archive to be reborn in the future; thus there are no children, and a stagnant society wholly ignorant of the world outside the city walls. The central character, Alvin, is different and yearns to explore the city confines. When he finally manages to do so, he makes discoveries that will lead to seismic change for his home show more city and a confrontation with its lost distant past. This is beautifully and simply told and, especially in the first half, carries a real sense of wonder and otherworldliness that a lot of more recent SF lacks in my view. A wonderful read. show less

This is a book of ideas more than of characters or plot, although there certainly is a plot and a main character who keeps pushing it forward. The most challenging part of reading this book was trying to wrap my mind around the vast sweeps of time encompassed by the overall story—not the story of Alvin, Hillary, and Jeserac, but of humankind, the Empire, and the Galaxy.

Are fear of death and of space, both vast and mysterious, so dominant in our psyche? Would we turn our backs on the knowledge and experience of other intelligence in the galaxy? Is it basically curiosity that ultimately fuels us and drives progress? Is home a place or a feeling? These are the questions I pondered as I read this book, and after I finished it as well.

When Clarke passed away earlier this year, I decided to read a book of his I hadn't read before as a tribute. I chose "The City and the Stars". What is most remarkable about this book, is that it was published in 1955, and Diaspar still feels very much like a city of the future. Without giving away any fun surprises, I can assure the potential reader that they won't be encountering clunky examples of now defunct technology, and they will be treated to more than a few examples of technology that have you wondering if Clarke had himself a time machine hidden away in Sri Lanka for research expeditions to the future.

While the city of Diaspar and its inner workings are well developed, the characters are a bit underdeveloped, but adequte for show more the purpose. Clarke's novel is really a novel of ideas - reflections on culture, progress, and synergy. It's what Clarke does best, and he leaves the rounding out of the characters, even the city's most unique citizen Alvin, to the reader.

To get a sense of the far future from words penned over half a century ago is a testimony to Clarke's wonderful imagination. A most fitting tribute and highly recommended if you are in the mood for contemplating the passage of vast expanses of time. show less

Another classic science fiction story, this one from my dad's collection. Even though I have only read 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke before, he is already on my list of science fiction writers I like and want to read more from.
This is the story of Diaspar, a city on Earth a billion years into the future. The city is huge and completely self-containing, in fact, the rest of Earth is nothing but a desert. The people in Diaspar live completely reliant on the Central Computer. Everything in the city, including furniture and food is created on the fly by this computer from patterns stored in its vast memory-banks. The people live a thousand years, after which they are stored in the memory-banks to be reborn in the future. The show more people have an immense fear of outside Diaspar, because of the threat of the invaders which drove humanity into Diaspar, and leaves them alone on the condition they never venture out again. In this city, Alvin is "born". Alvin is unique, he has no previous lives, and no fear of the outside. His curiosity and refusal to accept things as they are mean big changes for the future of Diaspar.
Because Alvin is unique, we discover the city and the world along with him. He is close to us in his manners and way of thinking, which makes the story very accessible. Slowly we discover Earth, and the history of Earth, and the way forward for humankind. I loved the sense of mystery and discovery in this book, and the pace which is fast, even though there is not much action going on. A great what-if science fiction book, five out of five stars. show less