Customer Reviews

The City, Not Long After

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In "The City, Not Long After," Pat Murphy has written an engrossing tale of post-apocalyptic Northern California, where a plague has wiped out most of the population. Much of San Francisco has become a giant canvas on which artists have used the city's resources to create works of wonder. A military dictatorship in Sacramento, however, is working to "reunite the country" and threatens to use force to add the jewel of the Bay Area to its empire.

A young woman named Jax has been given the task by her dying mother to warn the citizens of the coming storm. She is somewhat distracted by her personal search for her mother, who had promised her daughter that she would be going ahead to San Francisco to prepare the way. Jax must learn some her mother's secrets in order to help the community of scholars and artists find a way to repel the invasion. Exactly how should artists respond to the menace of guns and bombs when such things are abhorrent to them?

Murphy's characters and their artistic creations seem so full of life - in my mind's eye I can almost envision them inhabiting the various neighborhoods of the City by the Bay. The story itself is sad at times (but not overly depressing), haunting and quite memorable.

The underlying message of the novel can be phrased as a question: How much of a price are people willing to pay for peace? Though written nearly 20 years ago, the novel's message seems particularly resonant today, in a time when many Americans are willing to sacrifice personal freedoms and human lives in the name of finding peace and security.

It's half a century after a goodwill gesture has spread plague around the world, and San Francisco's surviving residents populate a haunted city again at risk. This time it's power-hungry men who are invading, and Jax and Danny-boy lead the battle - using magic and the city's own underlying powers - to solve mysteries and gain power for the future. Highly recommended on its initial publication, the paperback of The City, Not Long After is a pick for any who missed this winner.

After a plague that killed most of the population, San Francisco has become an artists' colony. A young woman goes to San Francisco to find her mother and to warn the residents of the coming invasion. The artists must fight to defend their city, but they'd rather be painting the Golden Gate Bridge blue.

This is an entertaining, unusual, and well written post-apocalyptic story that gives new meaning to the phrase "the art of war." It includes magical elements that I could've done without, but all in all, I really enjoyed it.

Odd little story about a possible future, but also about human nature, with some wanting power and some wanting peace.

Very hard to get into....took quite some time. Once you DO get into it, it's a wonderful and different story. I agree with others that have reviwed this book that the "magical" aspects are a little offputting because you don't really know if events are actually happening or being imagined by the characters. The ending was a little odd, but all in all worth reading for those who like this genre.

I came across this book by accident, but am glad that I did. "The City, Not Long After" by Pat Murphy is the story of survivors of a plague that has killed most of the population. The residents of San Francisco are artists, while outside the city there is an army ready to invade the city. The protagonist is a young woman with no name who enters the city to warn them. It is easy to see that the theme of this book is to make art not war. I found the story intriguing, the characters appealing and the writing splendid.

As a fan of end-of-world/survival stories, I wasn't sure I was going to like this. I was delightfully surprised! Yes, it's definately different from many other EoW/SS I've read, but the book didn't bore me, not was it ever slow.
Unusual in that San Francisco became magical and mystical. (Having lived near The City for over 30 years, in reality I find SF neither magical nor mystical.) The writer created a 'living' city; a place of bricks and steel, streets and sewers, and turned it into an entity that uses different 'tricks' to keep out those elements it doesn't want.
The characters in the story are different, too, from most EoW books. Most are eccentric, but likeable, artists. The book should be part of anyone's EoW collection, just for the differences.

This is my favorite book and has been for about 10 years now. So happy to see it's back in print.