Cities in Flight

Last updated
Cities in Flight
Cities in Flight.jpg
Cover of the first omnibus edition, 1970.
Author James Blish
CountryUnited States
Language English
Genre Science fiction, Adventure fiction
Publication date
1955 to 1962
Media typePrint
The novella "Sargasso of Lost Cities", Blish's third "Cities in Flight" story, was originally published in Two Complete Science-Adventure Books in 1953. Two complete science adventure books 1953spr n8.jpg
The novella "Sargasso of Lost Cities", Blish's third "Cities in Flight" story, was originally published in Two Complete Science-Adventure Books in 1953.

Cities in Flight is a four-volume series of science fiction novels and short stories by American writer 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 the 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] Over the years James Blish made many changes to these stories in response to points raised in letters from readers.

Contents

The 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 then 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, Western 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. 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. The main antagonist is Francis X. MacHinery, hereditary Director of the FBI, which has become a de facto secret police agency. In the final chapter he is heard to say "Bliss Wagoner is dead", with the narrative noting that "as usual, he was wrong", as Wagoner's legacy will endure.

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 Eastern and Western blocs 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 becomes more efficient as more mass is affected, 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; these space-wandering cities are called Okies.

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 kidnapped and brought with it.

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), combining 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 the loose control by Earth. After an economic collapse causes a galactic depression, New York ends up in a "Jungle", where Okie cities orbit a dying red giant star while waiting for work. Amalfi realises that the "Vegan Orbital Fort", a semi-mythical remnant of the previously dominant alien civilisation, is hiding among the Okies. His plan to stop the Vegans involves forcing the Okies to "march" on Earth, attracting the Vegan fort to join in the "march", and culminates in installing a spindizzy drive system on a small planet and using it to lead the march. When the march reaches Earth, a big fleet of armed Earth police ships appears from invisibility and summarily vaporises all the marchers, with at least one loss in the police fleet, because it is recorded that the flying city Buda-Pesht destroyed a police monitor. A mention of the "Battle of the Jungle" may mean that the Earth Police cleanup fleet then goes to the "Jungle" and destroys all that it finds there. Amalfi takes advantage of the vastly higher speed and size of the flying planet to destroy the fort, then flies New York away before the Earth Police can catch them.

Eventually, the city is projected out of the Milky Way galaxy, towards the Greater Magellanic Cloud. With some of New York's spindizzies irreparably damaged, Amalfi convinces the New Yorkers that they must find a planet to call home. On their chosen planet, New York encounters the Interstellar Master Traders (IMT), a rogue city whose sacking of the planet Thor 5 damaged the reputation of Okies in general, and who have enslaved the local human population. In typical fashion, Amalfi swindles the IMT residents and sets their spindizzy engineers to fly the city off the planet, where they are destroyed by an Earth Police ship. 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 U.S. 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 that 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]

Fictional technology

Spindizzy

The Dillon-Wagoner Graviton Polarity Generator, known colloquially as the spindizzy, is a fictitious anti-gravity device imagined by Blish in Cities in Flight. This device grows more efficient with the amount of mass being lifted, which was used as the hook for the stories—it was more effective to lift an entire city than it was to lift something smaller, such as a classic spaceship. This is taken to extremes in the final stories, where an entire planet is used to cross the galaxy in a matter of hours using the spindizzy drive.

According to the stories, the spindizzy is based on the Blackett effect—principles contained in an equation coined by British physicist P.M.S. Blackett. Several other Blish stories involving novel space drives contain the same assertion. Blackett's original formula was an attempt to correlate the known magnetic fields of large rotating bodies, such as the Sun, Earth, and a star in Cygnus whose field had been measured indirectly. [8] It was unusual in that it attempted to relate the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field, the one governing forces between masses, the other governing forces between electric charges. However, it was never accepted, and was disproved by new discoveries such as magnetic field reversals on Earth and the Sun, and the lack of a magnetic field on bodies such as Mars, despite its rotation being similar to Earth's.

Blish's extrapolation was that if rotation combined with mass produces magnetism via gravity, then rotation and magnetism could produce anti-gravity. The field created by a spindizzy is described as altering the magnetic moment of any atom within its influence.

The spindizzy was also 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 .

Cities

In the year 2010 omnibus edition, these flying Okie cities are named (but many more are mentioned):

And one city which is not described as flying:

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 .

Cities in Flight is also a song by Test Shot Starfish.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Blish</span> American science fiction and fantasy author (1921–1975)

James Benjamin Blish was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is best known for his Cities in Flight novels and his series of Star Trek novelizations written with his wife, J. A. Lawrence. His novel A Case of Conscience won the Hugo Award. He is credited with creating the term "gas giant" to refer to large planetary bodies.

Known Space is the fictional setting of about a dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories by American writer Larry Niven. It has also become a shared universe in the spin-off Man-Kzin Wars anthologies. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) catalogs all works set in the fictional universe that includes Known Space under the series name Tales of Known Space, which was the title of a 1975 collection of Niven's short stories. The first-published work in the series, which was Niven's first published piece, was "The Coldest Place", in the December 1964 issue of If magazine, edited by Frederik Pohl. This was the first-published work in the 1975 collection.

<i>Ringworld</i> 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven

Ringworld is a 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe and considered a classic of science fiction literature. Ringworld tells the story of Louis Wu and his companions on a mission to the Ringworld, a rotating wheel artificial world, an alien construct in space 186 million miles in diameter. Niven later added three sequel novels and then cowrote, with Edward M. Lerner, four prequels and a final sequel; the five latter novels constitute the Fleet of Worlds series. All the novels in the Ringworld series tie into numerous other books set in Known Space. Ringworld won the Nebula Award in 1970, as well as both the Hugo Award and Locus Award in 1971.

Superluminal communication is a hypothetical process in which information is conveyed at faster-than-light speeds. The current scientific consensus is that faster-than-light communication is not possible, and to date it has not been achieved in any experiment.

The interstellar space opera epic Star Wars uses science and technology in its settings and storylines. The series has showcased many technological concepts, both in the movies and in the expanded universe of novels, comics and other forms of media. The Star Wars movies' primary objective is to build upon drama, philosophy, political science and less on scientific knowledge. Many of the on-screen technologies created or borrowed for the Star Wars universe were used mainly as plot devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Okie</span> Ethnic group in the United States, pejorative term referring to an Oklahoman

An Okie is a person identified with the state of Oklahoma, or their descendants. This connection may be residential, historical or cultural. For most Okies, several of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Oklahoman. While not an official demographic used or recognized by the United States Census Bureau, Okies, due to various factors, have developed their own distinct culture within larger social groupings both akin to and separate from Midwestern and Southern influences. Included are their own dialect, music, and Indigenous-derived folklore.

<i>The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy</i> (novel) 1979 book by Douglas Adams

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction "trilogy of five books" by Douglas Adams, with a sixth book written by Eoin Colfer. The novel is an adaptation of the first four parts of Adams's radio series of the same name, centering on the adventures of the only man to survive the destruction of Earth; while roaming outer space, he comes to learn the truth behind Earth's existence. The novel was first published in London on 12 October 1979. It sold 250,000 copies in the first three months.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Megastructure</span> Very large artificial object

A megastructure is a very large artificial object, although the limits of precisely how large vary considerably. Some apply the term to any especially large or tall building. Some sources define a megastructure as an enormous self-supporting artificial construct. The products of megascale engineering or astroengineering are megastructures. The lower bound of megastructural engineering might be considered any structure that has any single dimension 1 megameter (1000 km) in length.

<i>A Case of Conscience</i> 1958 novel by James Blish

A Case of Conscience is a science fiction novel by American writer James Blish, first published in 1958. It is the story of a Jesuit who investigates an alien race that has no religion yet has a perfect, innate sense of morality, a situation which conflicts with Catholic teaching. The story was originally published as a novella in 1953, and later extended to novel-length, of which the first part is the original novella. The novel is the first part of Blish's thematic After Such Knowledge trilogy and was followed by Doctor Mirabilis and both Black Easter and The Day After Judgment.

<i>World of Ptavvs</i> 1966 novel by Larry Niven

World of Ptavvs is a science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven, first published in 1966 and set in his Known Space universe. It was Niven's first published novel and is based on a 1965 magazine story of the same name.

Galaxy novels, sometimes titled Galaxy Science Fiction Novels, were a series of mostly reprint American science fiction novels published between 1950 and 1961.

<i>The Quincunx of Time</i> 1973 novel by James Blish

The Quincunx of Time is a short science fiction novel by American writer James Blish. It is an extended version of a short story entitled "Beep", published by Galaxy Science Fiction magazine in 1954. The novel form was first published in 1973.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tachyons in fiction</span> Hypothetical particle

The hypothetical particles tachyons have inspired many occurrences of in fiction. The use of the word in science fiction dates back at least to 1970 when James Blish's Star Trek novel Spock Must Die! incorporated tachyons into an ill-fated transporter experiment.

The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in many works of the science fiction genre.

The Blackett effect, also called gravitational magnetism, is the hypothetical generation of a magnetic field by an uncharged, rotating body. This effect has never been observed.

"Surface Tension" is a science fiction short story by American writer James Blish, originally published in the August 1952 of Galaxy Science Fiction. As collected in Blish's The Seedling Stars, it was revised to incorporate material from his earlier story "Sunken Universe", published in Super Science Stories in 1942.

"Bigger Than Worlds" is an essay by the American science fiction writer Larry Niven. It was first published in March 1974 in Analog magazine, and has been anthologized in A Hole in Space (1974) and in Playgrounds of the Mind (1991). It reviews a number of proposals, not inconsistent with the known laws of physics, which have been made for habitable artificial astronomical megastructures.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the planet Earth:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space travel in science fiction</span> Fictional methods, e.g. antigravity, hyperdrive

Space travel, or space flight is a classic science-fiction theme that has captivated the public and is almost archetypal for science fiction. Space travel, interplanetary or interstellar, is usually performed in space ships, and spacecraft propulsion in various works ranges from the scientifically plausible to the totally fictitious.

References

  1. "Hugo Award Winners from the 2000s". Archived from the original on 2008-05-11. Retrieved 2008-06-21.
  2. ISFDB publishing history
  3. "Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections". Archived from the original on 2015-08-02. Retrieved 2014-10-11.
  4. "Pick of the Pockets". Hartford Courant , January 21, 1968, p.G15
  5. "Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections". Archived from the original on 2021-01-25. Retrieved 2014-10-11.
  6. "Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf", Galaxy Science Fiction , May 1955, p. 115.
  7. "In the Balance", If , July 1959, pp. 96-98
  8. Blackett, P.M.S. (1947-05-17). "The Magnetic Field of Massive Rotating Bodies". Nature . 4 Crinan Street, London, United Kingdom: Nature Publishing Group. 159 (4046): 658–666. Bibcode:1947Natur.159..658B. doi:10.1038/159658a0. ISSN   0028-0836. PMID   20239729. S2CID   4133416.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: location (link)