Remember James Blish's Cities in Flight?

[westwords2020]

The flying city of Atlantis in the series finale reminded me of the classic tales of another flying city from the 1950's Cities in Flight short stories that were compiled in an omibus paperback circa 1970 to form four novels.
Anyone remember it?

In any case, the stories centered on New York City which left Earth because an economic depression forced cities to fit the Spindizy space drive/FTL drive/spherical shield system ala Atlantis and take their chances among the stars, looking for work among the many Earth colonies planted centuries before and willing to pay for the industrialization and other services. Their was even 'bindelstiffs cities' that raided colonies and other city ships and a heavily armed Earth Police that provided law and order among the stars while the cities lived a hobo type existence, moving from colony to colony competing against each other for the their services.

 

[stj]

Still have the paperback!

For a little more detail---one of the "novels" was in fact a linked collection of short stories, featuring Mayor Amalfi of New York (stictly speaking, Manhattan. Whether Brooklyn, Queens etc. were floating around was left untold.) Another was a true novel, where Amalfi witnesses the end of the universe as we know it. Another was a prequel story about the invention of the spindizzy. And the last was a juvenile (albeit a good one) about a character mentioned in one of the short stories.

The juvie told how he came aboard the city as a youngster and became city manager. The passing reference in the short story (chronologically later, although published earlier) was to the guy's execution! Yes. In one part of the book, a character is the hero. And then in another part of the book, we find out the guy was put to death. If that seems to reflect a bleak outlooks on life, well, maybe it does. Or maybe it's just an adult view. Read and decide?

The Cities in Flight sequence is a Future History a la Heinlein. The interesting thing is that it's modeled on Oswald Spengler. Spengler is something of a crackpot, a sort of would be Hegel who managed rather to become a Velikovsky. It's an open question whether Blish really believed it or just thought it was an interesting speculation. The universe ends in 4004 AD, mirroring Archbishop Ussher's date of 4004 BC for the beginning and Blish surely didn't believe that.

Never fear---the philosophy is there but so is story, and character.

Blish is currently forgotten for all but Star Trek adaptations but he was one of the greatest SF writers ever. I think The God Thing will back me up on that.

 

[SGCSG1]

'What City has two names twice'? Yeah, I read this as a kid. It's a shame James Blish is not more popular these days.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Blish is currently forgotten for all but Star Trek adaptations but he was one of the greatest SF writers ever. I think The God Thing will back me up on that.

James Blish? Who is that?

TGT

 

[Klaus]

I enjoyed them greatly as a kid when I read them... and I channeled them a bit in art last year:

 

[Starbreaker]

I just bought the book last month. Haven't read it yet, though!

 

[Christopher]

I keep meaning to read these but never get around to it, shame on me.

Anyway, I'm surprised nobody's made a film or show based on these. It'd be easy to pull off, since you can just shoot on location in a real city and matte a dome and starscape into the sky in the wide shots. Or you could do what they did in Power Rangers Lost Galaxy and assume the dome projects a hologram of an Earthly sky.

 

[JNG]

Read 'em, loved 'em. Still enjoy saying the word "spindizzy," but was never exactly sure how to pronounce "anti-agathics." I encourage anyone who hasn't read these books to check them out.