Cities in Flight

Rating:
Summary: For 12-year-olds
Review: I read _A Life for the Stars_ when I was 12 years old. At that time thought it was great. I reread it when I was 21, and realized how bad it was. At the same time I read _Life_ I also
read the rest of the _Cities in Flight_ novels. These novels
are really more for those in their early teens; after that you
realize just how amateurish they are. Entire cities, covered by
forcefields, that fly through space? Sure, the idea is wonderful if you've never run across it before. But with a little thought you'll find just how hard it is to suspend your disbelief over the concept. And what do the cities do? Instead of landing on a
planet and staying there, they move from planet to planet looking work. It's just too ludicrous to believe. That's why I
suggest you read these novels when you're 12. You can enjoy them at that age. Wait too long, though, and you probably won't be
able to find any pleasure in them.

Rating:
Summary: Cities in Flight
Review: I think I have the Trilogy of Cities in Flight. I have re-read it at least 3 times and still consider it one of the top ten Science Fiction books of all time. I rank it at least equal to the Foundation Series if not greater in execution of the advancement speicies, including the experience of the end of time!

Rating:
Summary: An amusing prediction of NYC's future
Review: Imagine Earth's cities ripping themselves free of the Earth, flying through interstellar space like bees, pollenating distant planets with new technology. Interesting that our current science is developing rejuvinating therapies to extend lifetimes as we speak. Cities in Flight predicted this event. Wide scope, with charming soundrels for leaders; much like NYC today. I would like to be a citizen of a city with a motto like, "Mow your lawn, Lady?"

Rating:
Summary: Cities in Flight
Review: It's over 30 years since I have read the "Cities" series, originally 4 novels, and it has not lost any of my pleasant memories. James Blish created a masterpiece which has not been tarnished in anyway, true technology has advanced, this is still plausable. As a author I rate him along the big names of Science Fiction such as Assimov, Heinlien, E E Smith and many overs. If you have nothing to do one day and it is raining outside then pass a few hours away reading Cities in Flight. You will not be disapointed, it's a very relaxing read worthy of space on any bookshelf.

Should this ever happen, then all I have to say is "I want on".

Rating:
Summary: Not a very good book....
Review: It's very easy to see just how old this book really is and just how narrow Mr. Blish's views are. He dreamed too small. Cities in flight? Why cities? I can't imagine a group of people who when suddenly given the ability to go anywhere in the galaxy (and outside it for that matter) would collectively say "Let's take our cities with us!" The politics at the begriming of the story are strongly anti-communist and at the time it was written may have spurred patriotism in the reader but in the present time it adds nothing to the book.

Anachronisms abound in this book. People can't remember being children but still use 'gone the way of the dodo' to represent extinction. Are we really supposed to believe that in (from the time of the writing) over two THOUSAND years people will still remember a small, flightless bird that died out? Vacuum tubes are still in use in computers? None but the 'most powerful' computers can speak? People in 4004 facing the end of existence as we know it still use slide rules?

When people packed up their cities and decided to move from planet to planet to find work they also seem to have forgotten to bring cars, planes or other modes of transportation that will work outside the cities. They brought no livestock. They farmed no crops. They have no arts.

The characters of the book are, for the most part, flat and one dimensional. No one expresses any interest in anything outside of the story line. No one apparently even listens to music or enjoys ANY form of entertainment.

The stories have a rather juvenile feeling to them as if they were written for younger readers, Except for the pages and pages of incomprehensible mathematics and scientific ideas that make little or no sense.

The ending of the book has a very 'hurry up and get it over with feeling'. "Here come the bad guys!", "Oh, they're defeated, Hurrah!"

I found this book in a 'Top 50 science fiction & fantasy books' list and still can't understand how it got there. It just wasn't that good a read and ends very disappointingly.

Rating:
Summary: A Classic--in the true sense
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Now that's an apt title!
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: a Cold War mentality
Review: These stories were written by Blish in the bleakness of the Cold War. When it seemed to many that the free world could not prevail in the protracted struggle against Soviet Communism. The political backdrop envisioned in the book is that the US would gradually acquire the characteristics of the Soviets, under the stultifying conformism and militarism needed to try to hold them off. The character Senator MacHinery is a shoo-in for Joseph Macarthy, updated to the early 21st century.

Unfortunately, this collection lacks the future history timeline that Blish supplied in the original novels. Those were a few pages, but a cogent summary of the trends in his stories. The editor should have reprinted the timeline. The narrative loses some force without it.

For you, looking back on the stories after the successful end of the Cold War, you might choose to regard them in part as a commentary on the times from which Blish wrote. Cf. "When the Kissing Had to Stop" by Constantine FitzGibbon for a similar, contemporaneous take. Or perhaps look at Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium series.

Rating:
Summary: Top Rated Science Fiction Novels
Review: This four book series divided into two volumes is one of the finest science fiction tales ever told. I read book two A Life For The Stars in high school. It was ten years before I had a chance to read the other three. I found a volume that contained all four books and read it many times before it fell apart. Some day I hope to find a copy of the four book set again.

Rating:
Summary: may be a classic but I didn't like it
Review: 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.