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CITIES_IN_FLIGHT
March 25, 2003
"Cities in Flight" January 3, 2006
by James Blish: March 22, 2009
A single volume,
containing a series
of four books BLISH
describing the same
"future history".
The central premise of the early stories: the
economic situation of the planet earth falls
apart, and in desperation the cities of earth
exploit a new technology to transform
themselves into space ships, to split apart
from the earth and go wandering, looking for
opportunities elsewhere. And that is the central image
of the series: the cities of
Hobos. Bindlestiff cities. earth surrounding themselves
with spherical force fields,
floating off into space as
though stuck inside of soap
bubbles.
The force fields are called
a "spindizzy field". The
name is supposed to reflect
what the field is doing to
electrons-- but there are
also descriptions of what a
city looks like when it
"spins" that has them gradually
begin rotating before slowly
lifting off from the ground.
This series is
essentially a Much like the
patch job. "Foundation"
series RETCON
The fun stuff is in the "third"
volume, which was written
first, originally as short That's "Earthman, Come Home", book
stories published in Astounding. publication 1955, from stories
published earlier, beginning with
I guess industry jargon "Bindlestiff" in December 1950,
is a "fixup novel": a closing with "Sargasso of Lost Cities"
larger work pieced from Spring of 1953.
together from smaller
works-- possibly, works
originally written without
any intention of doing BENFORD
something larger.
The other volumes
accumulated around
the third in an odd
order, reflecting
Blish's thinking There's supposed to
at the time. be an undercurrent Oswald Spengler, as I
of "Spenglerism" to understand it, claimed
"They Shall Have the series. to have come up with a
Stars" (1956) taxonomy of cultures
is the first I don't know and rules for their
volume -- written enough about evolution.
second, beginning the doctrine to
with the short perceive whether Much like Freudianism,
story "The Bridge" the series gets this is one of those
published in the more or less things that some
February 1952 Spenglered. people took this very
issue of seriously for awhile,
"Astounding". before everyone
suddenly went "Hey,
Here, Blish was dealing wait a minute..."
with the fear that the
cold war would balkanize
science, that you'd end I_AM_CURIOUS
up with a situation
where no one really knew
what was going on.
The second volume --
published last, in 1962 --
"A Life for the Stars"
focuses on the life of one
of the "little people" a
young kid that barely A friend likes this
manages to sneak into one the best because of
Scranton, PA before it this focus on the
"spins" into space, and underbelly... Most of
then starts scrambling his the series is in effect
way through life, and up a literature of kings
the ladder. ("A Life For without much attention And there was,
The Stars") paid to the serfs. perhaps, a tendency
towards fascism
I would guess this is in Blish's social
Blishes attempt at ideas...
doing something
like one of Heinlein's
"juveniles".
And then there's the fourth,
about the inevitable winding
down of everything, as A character detail Blish
immortality palls and the uses to suggest the
universe itself comes to a halt: onset of decadent decline:
the "Triumph of Time" (1958).
The wife of the second
banana hero hits on
There's this gosh-wow space the first banana.
opera stuff at the core of the
series, and yet it leads up to He turns her down
this incredibly bleak finish: a in disgust.
battle to secure the "center of
the universe" for somewhat Pretty racey stuff for
obscure reasons. the pulply, juvenile
world of SF, but in
The right to commit retrospect it seems
suicide under certain pretty laughable.
conditions...?
How many centuries
So that your soul has a did it take her to
chance at surviving the get around to this?
end of the universe?
(And he turns
her down?
Really?)
It really isn't all that
clear how the economy of So what you've got here is
the city is supposed to someone starting with an Note the
work. imaginative, dream-like 1949 story
premise, and then later "The Box"
I guess when Blish was trying to firm it up and has NYC
writing, there was still use it for more serious imprisoned
some heavy industry purposes. in spherical
inside of Manhattan force field
itself, but even then (a "standing
anyone who really thought wave").
about it would know that
the New York tri-state
area is really one linked
industrial region... the Blish -- in his identity
idea that Manhattan would as the critic Atheling --
be worth anything once complained about how
separated from New Jersey Modern SF had become much
and Brooklyn is pretty less imaginative when it
ridiculous. became more serious.
He's got Manhattan The pulp fiction
competing and winning of his youth was
against Scranton on full of all
Scranton's turf. sorts of strange
earthquake rays,
(Part of the idea: they atomic reduction
carry knowledge, beams, and so on.
expertise, not just
equipment. But still: In comparison,
Manhattan's know how what life is
would be largely in there in a
fields like selling mere laser?
soap...)
"Cities in Flight"
is clearly a
notion coming
out of that
older school,
HARD for all the
talk of spinning
electrons
and name dropping
of Dirac.
THORNE
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