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Earthman, Come Home

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There are several ways that shorter fiction is converted into novel length fiction. Sometimes the author revisits a single shorter work and broadens it and gives it greater depth. Sometimes the author will take two or three shorter works and add on sections which strengthen the link between the shorter works as well as attempt to add some depth. The last method is that a very minimal amount of effort is put in to correct any inconsistencies and maybe provide a couple of links. Unfortunately, it was the last method which was used here. Don't get me wrong, Blish's Okie stories are well worth reading, but if you have read the original versions you aren't going to get much out of reading this novel.

"Earthman Come Home" by James Blish is a loose attempt at taking the four original Okie stories and putting them together to form a novel. The result is a novel which lacks real character depth or much character development, and serves pretty much as a collection more than as a novel. The original four stories are:

"Okie", a novelette length work which was first published in April of 1950 in "Astounding". This story jumps right into the middle of the Okie saga, and the reader learns about the main characters (Mayor John Amalfi, Mark Hazleton, and Dee from Utopia) quickly, as well as about the relationship the Okies have with the planets as well as the police, and the importance of technology and resources to he Okie cities. In this story the Okie city is entering a system with a serious, if not critical, need for resources only to find two inhabited planets who hate each other and each of whom are add odds with the Earth police who don't want the Okies around. The Okies are forced to play a dangerous game in pitting the different sides against each other in order to obtain what they need, and eventually are forced to flee adding to the list of violations for which the police want to fine them.

"Bindlestiff" is a novelette length work which was first published in December of 1950 in "Astounding". This story picks up with the Okies having fled into the Rift, a near starless area of space which is uninviting, but which may help them escape the pursuing Police. There they witness a Bindlestiff (an outlaw Okie city) destroying another city in an attempt to steal a key piece of technology, a fuelless drive. The Okies try to find some of the survivors who may hold the key to the technology on a planet which is part of an isolated star system which is passing through the Rift. There the race is on to find the survivors before the Bindlestiff arrives, and the resulting conflict forces some desperate measures to fulfill a contract they make with the natives, wipe out the Bindlestiff city, and escape to the far side of the Rift.

"Sargasso of Lost Cities" is a novella length story which was originally published in "Two Complete Science-Adventure Books" in the spring of 1953. In this story the Okies escape the Rift only to find a very large "jungle" of Okie cities desperately trying to survive as the Acolyte system exploits them after an economic collapse has rendered the Okie resources almost valueless. In this story we learn about the politics between the Okies as well as one of the Okie legends which may well threaten Earth. We see how Mayor Amalfi carefully pulls strings to manipulate the police, the other Okie cities, and Mark Hazleton to try to save his dying city as well as all of Earth, and still manage to keep free from the police.

"Earthman, Come Home" is a novelette length story which was originally published in "Astounding" in November of 1953. In this story the Okies head to the Greater Magellanic cloud to avoid the police, just as the most notorious city of all had done so long ago after their incredible crime on Thor Five. This will be the last landing of the Okie city, as age and lack of repair have finally taken their toll on their old city from Earth. Here they look to find, and then find a way to destroy the criminals from Thor Five without suffering the same fate.

These are wonderful stories, but this effort at novelization simply does not work. The small amount of added material cannot make up for the essential writing differences between a novel length piece of fiction and four shorter fictional works. Treat this book as an anthology, and it will be easy to do as the jumps occur between some of the chapters and are easily spotted.

"Earthman, come home" is the third in James Blish's classic "Cities in Flight" Space Opera quartet, written about fifty years ago, which consists of

1) They Shall Have Stars (Cities in flight / James Blish)
2) A Life for the Stars
3) This book, "Earthman, Come Home"
4) A clash of cymbals

This series tells a "future history" epic, covering 2,000 years, in which machines called "Spindizzies" could lift not just starships, but entire cities, through space. Escaping the "Bureaucratic State" a totalitarian world state which had followed the West's gradual loss of the cold war, Earth's cities left the planet behind one by one, and sought a new freedom in the stars. These city spaceships became known as "Okie" cities: their inhabitants living long, almost immortal lives because anti-aging drugs have largely abolished death from natural death.

"Earthman, Come Home" is set some 1,700 years from now, and begins aboard the Okie city of New York, which had been the last of Earth's major citites to leave Earth in 3111 AD. The central character is John Amalfi, who has been Mayor of New York since shortly before the city left earth - in other words, he has been in office for about 600 years.

As the story begins, New York is arriving at the yellow dwarf star with two inhabited planets. The city is hoping to trade use of it's enormous industrial capacity for raw materials, and stop long enough to clear out an infection in the hydroponic tanks which provide the citizens with food.

Unfortunately the two planets have been at war for a century. Their struggle had continued for decades without anyone else noticing, but Earth's police have just become aware of it, and order New York to leave the area. Which, because of the city's urgent needs, John Amalfi has no intention of doing ...

"Cities in Flight" is a classic SF series for good reason: both the series and this book are strongly recommended.