Cities in Flight (Hardcover)

by James Blish (Author) "THE SHADOWS flickered on the walls to his left and right, just inside the edges of his vision, like shapes stepping quickly back into invisible..." (more)
Key Phrases: perimeter sergeant, bandit cities, orbital fort, Mayor Amalfi, New York, Colonel Russell (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Cities in Flight is an omnibus volume of four novels, originally published between 1955 and 1962, two of which are fix-ups of pieces that first appeared in various magazines in the early '50s. Despite having been conceived more than 50 years ago, and produced in episodic fashion, they stand head and shoulders above most SF available today.

In They Shall Have Stars, humankind's will to explore space is renewed with the advent of two discoveries: anti-gravity (the "spindizzy" machines) and the key to almost eternal life (anti-agathic drugs). By A Life for the Stars, centuries have passed and most of the major cities have built spindizzies into their bedrock and left earth, cruising the galaxy looking for work, much like the hobos of the Depression Era. Earthman, Come Home, told from the perspective of John Amalfi, the major of New York, was the first-written of the novels and--although not as tightly woven as the other segments--is still a masterly work. Blish gives the same weight and authority both to the sweeping cultural change wrought and suffered by the cities, and to the emotional growth of a man who is several hundred years old. We stay with Amalfi for the final episode, The Triumph of Time. New York is now planet-bound in the Greater Magellanic Cloud, but when Amalfi learns of the impending destruction of time itself, he is forced into space one more time, to take a last, desperate chance. The novel ends, literally, with a bang.

Despite the occasional, inevitable anachronism, such as vacuum tubes, Cities in Flight stands up remarkably well to modern reading. The novel's political and literary sophistication was unmatched in its time; there is very little to rival it even today. For most readers of a certain age, this was probably the first SF they encountered that was written from a mature standpoint and adult sensibility. The fact that Blish also manages to tell a fabulous, galaxy-spanning adventure tale makes this essential reading. --Luc Duplessis

From Library Journal
Blish's sf epic was originally published as four separate novels--They Shall Have Stars; A Life for the Stars; Earthman, Come Home; and The Triumph of Time--which became known over time collectively as the "Okie novels." The title of this edition is apt, as the thread of the story concerns entire cities that fly through space. All sf collections will want this.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 590 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover; Reissue edition (March 27, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585670081
• ISBN-13: 978-1585670086
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #634,036 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now that's an apt title!, November 5, 2004

By	Michael Battaglia - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Cities in Flight (Paperback)

Probably the only way Mr Blish could have made the title anymore self-explanatory would be to call it "Cities in Space" but that's not really as poetic. Mostly due to that teeming mass we fondly call pop culture, if you've heard of James Blish at all it's probably by way of his novelisations of Star Trek episodes, which is where I first heard of him (and they really aren't half bad, honestly) but as it turns out he was one of the smarter SF writers of the fifties. His SF reputation basically rests on two novels, A Case of Conscience (which is a decent examination of original sin from a SF perspective) and the collective groups of novels known as Cities in Flight, which we'll be talking about here. Over the course of time Blish wrote four average sized novels depicting over time man discovering the ability to launch entire cities into space and the culture that developed around them as the centuries wore on. The first novel "They Shall Have Stars" mostly serves as a really long prologue to the proceedings, showing how the technology was developed, as well as the secret to halting the aging process, indispensible to staying in space for a really long time. The story also functions as a political thriller on some level, showing the earth of the future as more narrowminded and religious (always an easy target, alas) and focused more upon itself, crumbling even as he moves forward. Still, it's really just prelude for what's to come. "A Life for the Stars" is next, and is basically a better introduction to the culture of the flying cities, as they weave their way through space, taking odd jobs. Blish does a decent job making a somehow plausible stab at what a wandering space culture would be like, although I do have to agree that he rarely gives you a sense of the massiveness of a city and all the people inside it, instead focusing only on a small handful (I mean they're on NYC, for pete's sake) which takes some of the epicness away from it, although the fact that it's a giant city rocketing through space helps. "Earthman Come Home" is probably my favorite of the group (and it's the longest) focusing on the mayor of NYC, John Amalfi (who was glimpsed in the last novel but takes center stage for this and the next one) as he deals with some crises over the course of a novel, showing the downsides of a wandering culture (what if there's no jobs?) and what drastic actions those people might take, it's the widest ranging examination and description of Blish's future history. The last novel "Truimph of Time" mostly ties things up, bringing the crew back one last time after centuries have past to deal with the one thing they'll never be able to deal with and wrapping up things nicely, on a real poetic note. Blish's novels are hugely readable and move at a good clip, the characterization isn't what it could be (a common complaint for fifties' SF, since putting the idea forward was more important) and since the novels were written so long ago some of the science is suspect (a lot is outdated and the rest is just babbling) . . . also, the novels sometimes act more like collections of short stories, as the city moves from one unrelated crisis to another. But in terms of ideas and scope, Blish was standing nearly alone and I have to admit I have a fondness for the type of SF that liked the idea of strapping giant engines onto things and sending them into space. Sure it's not as graceful but it's much for a better mental image. If you're looking for cutting edge, sophisticated SF for the new century, this probably isn't what you're looking for, but for those who like to see one man lay out wild ideas in a calm, level fashion, this is probably some of the best stories you can get from this era and well worth the look.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars may be a classic but I didn't like it, October 16, 2001

By	Justus Pendleton (Colorado Springs, CO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This omnibus was written over a period of about a decade and it shows; the writing tends to be uneven and there are numerous continuity errors. The first book, They Shall Have Stars, is really just an extended "idea" short story where Blish shows how eternal life (through drugs) and faster-than-light travel become realities in 2018. The future society he imagines shows that the story was written in the 50s. In Blish's 2018, America has become an authoritarian police state to cope with its ongoing cold war is the Soviet Union. Most of this short book (120 pages) is full of exposition as one character explains to another character what is going on. Not a very exciting book, especially since most of it is an explanation of a world that is hard to take seriously and science we now know to be patently false.

The second book, A Life for the Stars, is easily the weakest of the group and seems to have been written for no reason other than to sell a short story to the teenage market. The characterization of the main character is especially poor as he rarely seems like 17 year old boy. The conclusion is confusing more than relevatory as no explanation is given for why New York City needs a City Manager or what such a person would do.

The third book is a patchup of a couple of short stories Blish wrote in the early 50s. It is the earliest book of the four and this is where the problems really begin to show. The entire series is pure space opera and if you can lose yourself in the adventures then maybe the bad science and inconsistencies won't bother you. I couldn't get past all my niggling complaints, however. My suspension of disbelief came crashing down under the combined weight of the bad science, the bad economics, the inconsistent world, the arbitrary plot turns, and the boring 1950s characterizations.

For instance, the only female character in the book is Dee, with whom Amalfi falls in love with for no reason that we can see. Despite Amalfi being the sole point of view for the entire book, the reader is just as surprised as Dee is when the revelation is made. During the March to Earth numerous Okies drop out in order to work at lucrative planets along the way, yet Amalfi says they must leave the galaxy because there is no work to be found anywhere. How are they able to convince the City Fathers of the "all purpose city" to do what they say? Why does the bindlestiff Okie city care about capturing women? Why does Amalfi decide to land on an inhabited planet in the Magellan cloud with the intention of stealing it from them? Why does news of the economic collapse spread so fast but news of technological advancements waits until Okies can bring them around? Why does Amalfi say that Okies can't work on something for four or five years and then have his people spend several years outfitting a planet with spindizzy drives? Why did the city feel the collision when it hit the orbital fortress -- the spindizzy field is supposed to prevent that? If they've got the planet going so fast that it can't even be measured in multiples of the speed of light, how can other people be communicating with them using the ultraphone -- something that works at just 25% faster than the speed of light? Why is it that none of the other mayors of Okie cities have ever heard of Amalfi, despite the fact that he has been the only mayor of the most famous Okie city for over 500 years? Amalfi said he was going to resign when they make planetfall so why is he still giving orders a hundred years later? Just on and on and on there are things that make no sense to me.

One of the biggest problems, I think, is that Blish pushes the hobo metaphor way too far. The cities are supposed to wander around the galaxy doing work for hire. Yet New York supposedly has tens of thousands of residents. What do they do? The jobs that New York takes over the course of the book don't provide work for more than a few dozen people it seems. Why are there thousands on board? Blish constantly refers to New York as if it were a single monolithic entity, instead of a metropolis comprised of hundreds of thousands of people. How is spending time in a huge city flying through space for years on end between planet falls going to satisfy the wanderlust that these Okies supposedly have? If Okies are allegedly so a-social and standoffish why do they live in huge cities with thousands of other people?

Finally, how the heck does someone get "space tanned"? What is that supposed to mean? The spindizzy fields prevent radiation from entering.

At the end I just lost interest. The characterization was relatively weak. Amalfi is a character who is supposed to be hundreds of years old but he doesn't seem much different from any other character in fiction. He acts just like any other 50-something mayor of a big city has ever acted. Blish never has him deal with any of the potentially interesting questions that being effectively immortal raises. Instead we find the city of New York and its mayor go through a series of improbable and, frankly, not very interesting adventures.

Obviously, however, other people like the book. If you're going to give it a try I would recommend starting with the third book, Earthman, Come Home. If you end up liking that then you can read the others after that without any loss in understanding.

In the end I give it two stars because it has some interesting ideas. It just never goes anywhere with them.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic--in the true sense, May 2, 2000

By	Top Dragon (USA) - See all my reviews

Like many people, I first read this collection of four novels when I was in High School. Long out-of-print I was very happy to see them repackaged for a whole new generation. This is high-quality science fiction from the golden age. I was suprised that so little of the technology is out-of-date (vacuum tubes excepted) that it reads as fresh now as it did before.

But this is more than just the superficial sci-fi that we sometimes hear about. Much more than spaceships and aliens, these novels dig deep into our culture, our sensabilities, our fundamental attitudes. It is a story of the human condition, as told by one of the grand masters of science fiction. If you enjoy Heinlein, Asimov, and Bradbury, you'll like this one. If you aren't into sci-fi, I think you will still find a lot to like about Cities in Flight. Give it a try.