The City, Not Long After

Pat Murphy is so brilliant. Seriously, everything she's ever written is a joy to read.
This one takes place in and around San Francisco after a global plague has wiped out the majority of the population. The cast of characters who remain in the city consist of "Books" who keeps up the library; "The Machine" who makes crazy robot sculptures; Danny-boy, who wants to paint the whole Golden Gate blue; and others who are mostly focused on using the remnants of what's been left behind to create art or advance knowledge. Unfortunately, there are also survivors who want to amass power and 'save society'. An unbelievably repugnant man who calls himself General Fourstar has built himself a little army, mostly leads by fear, and has decided he's show more going to bring the City under his dominion. The citizens get really creative in an effort to fight back. show less

Several years after a plague has decimated the human population, a group of artists inhabit a mostly empty San Francisco, using the entire city as their blank canvas; then a woman without a name arrives to warn them of a planned invasion, and the artists must come up with a new way to wage war.

I thought this was a very interesting entry in the post-apocalyptic genre. Unlike other post-apocalyptic fiction, it rejects the notion that humans will regress to violence and savagery if civilization blinks out. In fact, this San Francisco is an anarchic utopia, marred only by elements from the outside. This is a different take on the well-worn themes of war and peace (although concluding that some violence and probably a lot of death is show more inevitable to avoid one and achieve the other). I appreciated the city as a major character in the book, actually intervening at certain points; these incidents of magical realism seemed appropriate for the tone and setting, and contributed some lovely images, such as blue butterflies painting the Golden Gate Bridge and golden flowers raining from the sky. A good read for post-apocalypse fans looking for something different. show less

Reading this for our book group. Wow, my heart is broken by this book - and the reality of the city of San Francisco being no longer a mecca for artists but a hugely overpriced center for tech bros bro'ing out. I have read a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction; this has similarities to (and is definitely in some sort of conversation across the years with) Earth Abides. Because the plague in the book was clearly started by monkeys, and because 1989 was nearing the peak of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. (and because HIV very, very roughly "comes from monkeys"), I think it's clear this is a response to the idea that most people would have died out, and reactions would have been varied. The book is also a response to theories of peace and war, show more how artists would fight, what books can do for people, etc. It's lovely and hard and intense. I loved Jax's character, and I enjoyed Ms. Migdol very much, but I felt that only Jax was truly given much depth despite several other close third-person POV chapters.

That said, I also felt that the book sets up weird differences, oppositions, between artists and farmers, between Buddhists and Christians, between San Francisco and Los Angeles (that's only hinted at, but it's there). I wonder how post-apocalyptic SF writers in SF and LA would write about those cities now. I also think @karlthefog on Twitter might have a few thoughts about his vital role in the resistance. show less

I really enjoyed this. It was kind of weird and quirky in a most delightful way. My only disappointment was that the ending didn't seem to match the rest of the book. More accurate, the very end did, but the few pages before as the "current time" action ended, just sort of ran out of steam without the delicacy of the rest of the book.

The characters were all delightful - and the descriptions of their art and their weapons, both variations on the same thing, were beautifully done.

Each person was well described, not only in who they were at the time of the story, but in how they came to be that way.

A lovely story, if not exactly straightforward, kind of like the title, which I love.

I have a thing for sentient in unexpected places, so I loved this book with its sentient city. I liked the way it protects its inhabitants and how the artist living there make a life for themselves. It was very interesting to see how they defend themselves when the city is under attack. I also liked that the defensive (and offensive) roles are played by men and women alike. I think I would have preferred a different ending, but I was ok with it.

Nope. It had its moments... but you've got to stomach that post-Plague San Francisco is the gentle city (or rather a village now) of artists and mystics, watched over by a guardian angel, and Oakland, that BAD place, is ruled by violent motorcycle gangs... and you realize just like Callenbach with his laughable description of Oakland as "Soul City" in Ecotopia, you're dealing with more silly elitist futurism. Sociologist Mike Davis called it on the post-apocalyptic genre, he said it was often used as a way to imaginatively cleanse a feared underclass population from a fictional landscape, and he is, unfortunately, quite right here.

I really enjoyed reading this book - the tone and concepts were just beautiful. It's a post-apocalyptic scenario infused with magical realism. After a plague spread (accidentally?) by peace-activist Buddhists, only a few survivors live amongst ruins. San Francisco has become a haven of artists, but a military cult based in Sacramento is set on forcefully establishing a new American empire. Pacifism faces down a philosophy of violent force... but primarily, this is the story of the orphaned Danny-boy and the wild girl Jax... and of the city itself, suffused with dreams and nightmares.
My only criticism is that while it's beautiful and poetic, the book paints both sides of the conflict with a broad brush, and avoids engaging some of the show more obvious questions (is there absolutely no crime or major conflict amongst the happy artists of San Francisco?).
Still, even though it may have limitations, it's still a lovely book. show less