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A Year in the Linear City {novella}

by Paul Di Filippo

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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» See also 2 mentions

English (4)  French (1)  All languages (5)
Showing 4 of 4
The linear city is just two blocks wide but many blocks long, with Broadway running uptown and downtown in the middle. On one side, the city is bracketed by Tracks which run parallel to Broadway. Trains bring goods from far parts of the city. On the other side, ships cruise the River, likewise carrying trade. The sun rises uptown and sets downtown; a second sun moves at right angles to the first, invisible in the winter and high in the summer, bringing the city's four seasons. No one knows how far the city extends; protagonist Diego Patchen lives in the 10,394,850th block, but the numbering scheme is not understood by anyone. From beyond the river and tracks, humanoid creatures fly, cruising the skies, bearing away the recently dead.

Di Filippo uses his eerie setting for a Jack Vance homage, viewing events with Vance's sort of ironic detachment. Vancian name schemes are employed: Diego lives in the Gritsavage borough, and people are named Volusia Bittern, Milagra Eventyr, Jobo Copperknob, and the like.

Nothing of great import occurs. The principal irony is that Diego makes a living as a writer of Cosmogonic Fiction, a genre of stories wherein the writer speculates on the possibility of worlds differently configured from mundane reality - a reality which is, of course, quite fantastic by our standards. ( )
1 vote dukedom_enough | Jul 19, 2021 |
What will remian with me here is above all the spectacular setting itself: a city of mythological length (where the question if there really is an absolute centre, a block zero, is a philosophical one), but only two blocks wide, crammed between a river and a set of train tracks. Adding to the strange (yet clear) ambinence of this short story are also the "city beast", a huge subterranean monster on which's back the city rests and the avatars of death constantly circling in the sky, very literally carrying the dead away.

"A year in the linear city" has all the things I like about New Weird - a blend of sci fi and fantasy, a twist of strangeness presented as normality, and great detail in it's world building - and is considered a pioneer work of the genre. What keeps the rating down for me is a slight clumsiness in the writing, not quite letting me get to know the characters. Also, it's a bit on the short side for me. With such a richness in detail and imagination, it seems a bit of a waste that so many things are just hinted at. Nevertheless, a very memorable short story about a very memorable place. ( )
1 vote GingerbreadMan | Dec 22, 2009 |
I felt the plot took a while to get going but I was prepared to wait around for it. A superb and vivid setting on an apparently endless city which is two blocks wide, and where the afterlife visibly comes to get you when you die. The protagonist is a science fiction ("Cosmogonic Fiction") writer; his spectacular girlfriend, his other somewhat disreputable friends, his father, his editor, and the mayor make up a memorable cast. ( )
  nwhyte | Nov 13, 2005 |
I felt the plot took a while to get going but I was prepared to wait around for it. A superb and vivid setting on an apparently endless city which is two blocks wide, and where the afterlife visibly comes to get you when you die. The protagonist is a science fiction ("Cosmogonic Fiction") writer; his spectacular girlfriend, his other somewhat disreputable friends, his father, his editor, and the mayor make up a memorable cast. ( )
  nwhyte | Nov 13, 2005 |
Showing 4 of 4
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Di Filippo, Paulprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Bishop, MichaelIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Miller, EdwardCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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[C]ela venait de ce qu’ils voyaient l’Amérique […]
comme une monstrueuse piste de danse étirée d’une côte
à l’autre sous un toit de nuit sans étoile, où des groupes de
jazz propulsaient des milliers de couples solitaires avec une intensité frénétique digne d’un samedi soir.

John Clellon Holmes, Go, 1952
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On était en février, et son père qui ne parlait plus que de sa mort prochaine jurait à tort et à travers qu’il voyait des volées de Bouledogues se masser pour lui régler son compte, petites taches aux ailes loqueteuses, flottant tels des flocons de cendre dans les fumées fulgurantes des confins septentrionaux du monde.
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