Cities in Flight by James Blish: A Book Retelling Series
So I just finished reading Cities in Flight by James Blish, and I have thoughts. A lot of thoughts. Enough that I’m going to retell this whole thing as a blog series.
What Is Cities in Flight?
It’s actually four novels packed into one big book. James Blish wrote them between 1950 and 1962, and they got collected together in 1970. The whole thing is classified as SF Masterworks Volume 3, which tells you something about how well-regarded this series is.
Here’s the basic idea: sometime in the future, humanity figures out two things that change everything. First, antigravity engines called spindizzies that can lift entire cities off Earth and send them flying through space. Second, anti-agathic drugs that basically stop aging. Put those two together and you get cities full of immortal people roaming the galaxy looking for work. They call them Okies, like the migrant workers from the Dust Bowl era.
The four novels are:
They Shall Have Stars - How it all started. Set in a near-future where the Cold War never really ended, and scientists are making discoveries that will change human civilization forever.
A Life for the Stars - A teenager gets accidentally swept up when his city takes off from Earth. Coming-of-age story set against flying cities and interstellar politics.
Earthman, Come Home - The big one. Mayor Amalfi runs New York City through centuries of space travel, dealing with corrupt cops, dying civilizations, and interstellar economics.
The Triumph of Time - The universe is ending. Literally. And our characters have to figure out what to do about it.
Why Retell It?
Blish was writing big ideas before big ideas in sci-fi were cool. He built an entire future history based on Oswald Spengler’s philosophy about how civilizations rise and fall. The whole thing spans from roughly our near future to the literal end of the universe.
But the writing style is dense. It’s 1950s-60s prose, and Blish doesn’t hold your hand. So I figured I’d walk through it chapter by chapter, pull out the interesting bits, and explain what’s going on in a way that’s easier to follow.
How This Series Works
I’ll post one entry per day covering a chunk of the book. Sometimes that’s a single chapter, sometimes it’s a few grouped together. The series runs from today through the end of February.
Here’s the roadmap:
- Feb 6-9: They Shall Have Stars (4 posts)
- Feb 10-13: A Life for the Stars (4 posts)
- Feb 14-21: Earthman, Come Home (8 posts)
- Feb 22-26: The Triumph of Time (5 posts)
- Feb 27: The Afterword and Spengler connection
- Feb 28: Final thoughts and wrap-up
Book Details
- Title: Cities in Flight
- Author: James Blish
- Originally published: 1950-1962 (omnibus edition 1970)
- Series: SF Masterworks Volume 3
- Genre: Science fiction, space opera, future history
Let’s get into it. Tomorrow we start with They Shall Have Stars, where everything begins with political paranoia in Washington and a crazy experiment on Jupiter.
Next post: They Shall Have Stars - Part 1: The Bridge and the Drug