Cities In Flight - Softcover

Blish, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1585676020 ISBN 13: 9781585676026

Publisher: Harry N Abrams Inc, 2005

Synopsis

Originally published in four volumes nearlyfifty years ago, Cities in Flight brings together the famed "Okie novels" of science fiction master James Blish. Named after the migrant workers of America's Dust Bowl, these novels convey Blish's "history of the future," a brilliant and bleak look at a world where cities roam the Galaxy looking for work and a sustainable way of life. In the first novel, They Shall Have Stars, man has thoroughly explored the Solar System, yet the dream of going even further seems to have died in all but one man. His battle to realize his dream results in two momentous discoveries anti-gravity and the secret of immortality. In A Life for the Stars, it is centuries later and antigravity generations have enabled whole cities to lift off the surface of the earth to become galactic wanderers. In Earthman, Come Home, the nomadic cities revert to barbarism and marauding rogue cities begin to pose a threat to all civilized worlds. In the final novel, The Triumph of Time, historyrepeats itself as the cities once again journey back in to space making a terrifying discovery which could destroy the entire Universe. A serious andhaunting vision of our world and its limits, Cities in Flight marks the return to print of one of science fiction's most inimitable writers. A Selection of the Science Fiction Book Club

About this title

Review:

One of the grandest, and certainly one of the best written, of wide-screen space operas, Blish's Cities in Flight takes us from the collapse of American civilisation at the moment of its greatest scientific success to its final transfiguration at a moment of cosmic disaster. New York, enclosed in a vast dome, and powered by anti-gravity and hyper- drive, wanders among the stars, a labourer for hire, and yet also the seed of humanity's brief ascendancy in a hostile galaxy. This is the story of people as well as vast historical moments-- of Wagoner, the Senator who gives his life and good name for humanity's future; Chris, the naive youngster to whom New York gives everything, and from whom it will take everything away; and above all John Amalfi, who starts as Mayor of New York and ends up as a sort of god. And along the way, we meet some of the strangest of the shapes human society takes among the stars. Crackling with ideas about the progress of history, and passionate in its evocation of the deep reaches of time and space, Blish's sequence is intelligent and visionary, a true classic of the genre. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

"A compelling future history, a tale of thistledown cities blown by the winds of time. This is one of sf's most original concepts, an exciting tale deepened and made utterly plausible by Blish s craft and his mature understanding of people and history. If you haven t read this yet, I envy you. Blish s cities will fly through your dreams." Stephen Baxter
"In a century that brimmed with human short-sightedness, James Blish was one of the very first genuine visionaries of a new millennium. If the universe doesn tturn out to be as bold and vivid and wonderful as he imagined, well . . . it ought to!" David Brin

About this edition

• Publisher: Harry N Abrams Inc
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1585676020
• ISBN 13: 9781585676026
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 591