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

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

Read for an IRL book group. A post-apocalyptic community of artists use their art to defend San Francisco (population 50) against an invading army (population 150) led by a self-styled General. Written in the late 80's but with a definite 70's sensibility,plus elements of magical realism, which worked for me 90% of the time. Most of the novel is about the post-apocalyptic life of the characters, rural and urban, and I liked it better than the final war, which strayed into YA territory. Interestingly for a book with an anti-war message, the apocalyptic plague was introduced by American peace activists who imported monkeys from a Buddhist monastery in Nepal into the US as a symbol of peace.

The story is about a post-apocalypse San Francisco, and although there are human characters, the city is the main character. A young woman comes to San Francisco after her mother's death, bringing a warning about a general who wants to take over the city. The crisis takes place in the last 60 pages of the book, and the "war" is largely symbolic, and I found its resolution not entirely satisfying. But the book makes its own rules and mostly follows them. If it really was the end of the world you could do much worse than living in San Francisco.