Cities in Flight

Cities in Flight

first omnibus edition, 1970
Author	James Blish
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Science-Fiction, Adventure novel
Publication date	1955 to 1962
Media type	Print

Cities in Flight is a four-volume series of science fiction stories written by James Blish, originally published between 1950 and 1962, which were first known collectively as the 'Okie' novels. The series features entire cities that are able to fly through space using an anti-gravity device, the spindizzy. The stories cover roughly two thousand years, from their very near future to the end of the universe. One story, "Earthman, Come Home" won a Retro Hugo Award in 2004 for Best Novelette.^[1] Since 1970, the primary edition has been the omnibus volume first published in paperback by Avon Books.^[2]

The Cities in Flight Books

They Shall Have Stars

They Shall Have Stars (1956) (also published under the title Year 2018!), incorporating the stories "Bridge" and "At Death's End",^[3] is set in the near future (the book begins in 2013). In this future, the Soviet Union still exists and the Cold War is still ongoing. As a result, in the West, civil liberties have been eroded more and more, until society eventually resembles the Soviet model. Alaska's Senator Bliss Wagoner, head of the Joint Congressional Committee on Space Flight, is determined to do something about it.

Scientific research has stagnated, mainly because knowledge has become restricted. On the advice of scientist Dr. Corsi, Wagoner concentrates his attention on fringe science theories. One project he has funded is the building of a "bridge" made of Ice IV on the surface of Jupiter to make measurements. This leads to one of two major discoveries which make interstellar space travel feasible: gravity manipulation (nicknamed the "spindizzy"), which leads to both a faster-than-light travel and effective shielding. Another project yields an 'anti-agathic' drug, which stops aging. Wagoner is eventually convicted of treason by an oppressive regime, but not before he has sent out expeditions (in a later book, it is revealed that they succeed in establishing thriving colonies). Politically, the book clearly expresses a strong opposition to McCarthyism, at its peak during the time of writing.

Reviewing a later edition, the Hartford Courant described the novel as "a skillful mixture of human reality and technological fantasy."^[4]

A Life for the Stars

In the period in between the first and second parts, the Cold War ended with the peaceful merging of the East and West blocks into a single, planet-wide Soviet-ruled dictatorship - which hardly made any perceptible change, as the West's political system had already become virtually identical with the Soviet one. However, this dictatorial power was broken by the spindizzy drive which works for very large objects, so that dissidents and malcontents have an easy way of escaping and going off into space. First factories, then eventually whole cities migrate from the economically depressed Earth in search of work.

A Life for the Stars (1962) is a bildungsroman describing the adventures of sixteen-year-old Chris deFord, born when the above process of migration had already been going on for a considerable time. When Chris goes to watch the imminent departure of Scranton, Pennsylvania, he is unaware that the law requires that anybody found nearby must be taken along.

After several adventures, Chris is fortunate to be transferred to the much more prosperous New York (or at least the Manhattan portion of it), a major "Okie" city under Mayor John Amalfi. Scranton is run by the city manager rather than its figurehead mayor. When the two cities meet again and come into conflict over Scranton's bungling of a job, Chris is able to convince an influential friend in his old city to depose the city manager and end the conflict. Impressed, Amalfi elevates him to the newly created position of city manager of New York and gives him the status of resident rather than passenger (and thus entitled to anti-agathic drugs).

Earthman, Come Home

Earthman, Come Home (1955, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York), compiling the stories "Okie", "Bindlestiff", "Sargasso of Lost Cities" and "Earthman, Come Home",^[5] is the longest book in the series. It describes the many adventures of New York under Amalfi, amongst a galaxy which has planets settled at different periods of history under loose control by Earth. New York eventually ends up in an 'Okie Jungle' created by an economic collapse. Amalfi realises that the 'Vegan Orbital Fort,' a semi-mythical city-like remnant of the previously dominant alien civilisation, is likely to emerge in such chaos to take its revenge on Earth. His plan includes forcing the Okies to 'march' on Earth, attracting the Vegans to join in the 'march,' and culminates in the installation of a spindizzy drive system on a small planet and using it to defend the Earth against the Vegan attack. Eventually, New York is installed on this planet, which is projected out of the Milky Way galaxy, then leaves it and flies towards the Greater Magellanic Cloud. New York's spindizzies are irreparably damaged; Amalfi convinces the New Yorkers that they must find a planet to call home from now on. On their chosen planet, New York encounters a city of renegades, calling itself IMT (Interstellar Master Traders), whose sacking of the planet Thor 5 damaged the reputation of the cities in general, and who have enslaved the local human population. In typical fashion, Amalfi swindles the IMT residents and leaves them to be dealt with by the Earth Police, who think they have eliminated New York. Although Blish rarely defines how much time passes during each adventure, a late chapter implies that over three hundred years pass in the course of the novel. Reviewer Groff Conklin praised it as "a real, honest, pure, gee-whiz space opera."^[6]

A Clash of Cymbals/The Triumph of Time

A Clash of Cymbals (published in the US as The Triumph of Time) (1959) follows the passage of Amalfi and the planet 'He' undertaking the first intergalactic transit. In the less relativistically-distorted space between the two galaxies, evidence of a collision between two universes is detected by the 'Hevians': a matter-antimatter collision which reveals the cyclic nature of reality. An alien culture is also investigating this phenomenon, which will shortly accelerate to engulf all galactic space; in other words, the colliding universes will end in a transition in between the Big Bang and Big Crunch. It will be possible to modify the future development of the fresh universes which will emerge from this singularity, and Amalfi directs the 'New Earth' residents to compete with the alien culture (the Web of Hercules) in order to prevent their manipulation of the future of the universe.

As with the other books, a detailed description of the technologies used is provided, including cosmological calculus. While there are some continuity slips, the series presents a unified story of humanity's expansion across the galaxy, and the birth of a new universe.

Frederik Pohl praised the novel as "science fiction which deals with tomorrow on its own terms", citing Blish's "triumph of inventions, great and small", but concluded that despite the "brilliance" of the author's conceptions, Triumph suffered from its inadequate story.^[7]

References in other works

The spindizzy was used in at least two novels by Jesse Franklin Bone, The Lani People and Confederation Matador and appears as the nickname for fictional Heim Theory devices in Ken Macleod's The Execution Channel.

References