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They Shall Have Stars
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They Shall Have Stars (Cities in Flight #1)
by
Blish James
Rok 2013. Eksploracja kosmosu zostaje nagle przerwana - żaden z polityków nie zna prawdziwych powodów takiej decyzji. Tymczasem w miastach cywilizacji Zachodu narasta potężny ruch religijy, którego przywódcy głoszą rychłe nadejście totalnej zagłady. Do Nowego Jorku przybywa z poufną misją pułkownik Paige Russel, astronauta z bazy "Tytan". Wrodzony sceptycyzm nie pozwala mu...more
Published
(first published 1956)
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I'm currently reading through the omnibus Cities in Flight, which contains all four books in Blish's series. But I couldn't contain myself to one review for the omnibus, each book deserves its own personal review, so hopefully I may be forgiven for shelving all four books and the omnibus. It's not done to drive up my 2012 book challenge, honest!
'They Shall Have Stars' was slightly difficult to get into, not only is the style of writing slightly different to the modern sci-fi and fantasy that I'm...more
'They Shall Have Stars' was slightly difficult to get into, not only is the style of writing slightly different to the modern sci-fi and fantasy that I'm...more
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They Shall Have Stars is the first novel of the quartet that forms James Blish’s Cities in Flight series, also referred to as his “Okie” novels.
TSHS definitely reads like a set-up for a larger work. The dual story lines—the discovery of an anti-ageing drug that will bring about pharmaceutical-induced immortality, and the construction of a massive bridge on Jupiter that leads to the discovery of anti-gravity, allowing cheap, easy space travel—serve to bring about the technological advances that...more
TSHS definitely reads like a set-up for a larger work. The dual story lines—the discovery of an anti-ageing drug that will bring about pharmaceutical-induced immortality, and the construction of a massive bridge on Jupiter that leads to the discovery of anti-gravity, allowing cheap, easy space travel—serve to bring about the technological advances that...more
They Shall Have Stars, the first of the Cities in Flight series by James Blish, is a sophisticated, high tech science fiction novel. Stars is a story set in the near future, in which the world is still split as it was in the 1950's— the USSR never fell. The long years of political stagnation and cold war propaganda have turned the west into a soviet-esque totalitarian government. As a result of this all mainstream scientific growth is censored and classified, which has limited mankind's explorat...more
Proloog tot de 'Cities in flight'-serie. Rustige en lekker ouderwetse Science Fiction met drie hoofdpersonen, die draait om de uitvinding van antizwaartekracht (middels het bouwen van een enorme brug van ijs op Jupiter) en een middel tegen sterfelijkheid. De roman speelt in 2018 en is een prettige mengeling van achterhaalde science en originele fiction (de sovjet-unie bestaat nog steeds, DNA is onbekend, de 10e planeet Proserpina is ontdekt, er is intelligent leven geweest op mars).
In zijn weten...more
In zijn weten...more
While this novel is an excellent prologue, it is clearly a prologue that is solely designed to set up the rest of Cities in Flight. This novel does a solid job of providing the setting; it presents the scientific and political milieu for the year 2018, which sets up the rest of the Cities in Flight storyarc.
A commentator, "Manny", has made the interesting point that the novel is a treatment of Christianity. His is a cogent, clever, and perhaps correct analysis. Nevertheless, I found the book boring and the characters flat. Reading the other three novels of the cycle is going to be a chore. I'm disappointed.
This series is nearly great. It's nearly classic science fiction at it's best. An elegant stripped down sort of prose is now and again marred by a juvenile fiction sort of tone. It's rather unfortunate, but I find this substantially undermines my enjoyment of the stories.
Nice little story nothing to mind blowing.
Zeros in on the central character leaving the spectacle of flying cities pretty much unexplored.
Spends quite a lot of time building up the detail of the culture on the cities.
A very plesant read.
Zeros in on the central character leaving the spectacle of flying cities pretty much unexplored.
Spends quite a lot of time building up the detail of the culture on the cities.
A very plesant read.
Lots of very cool ideas and decent writing but as a story, it faltered in various places and never really took hold of me. I'm hoping that after this set-up, the rest of the tetralogy will be able to focus a little more on storytelling than worldbuilding.
As it said at the start of the book, this is not one of James Blish's best works, its a tedious read and moves slowly. I've reached book two and I'm waiting to be "enthralled".
From "Cities In Flight"; Four Novels in One; Part 1 of 4
Zzzzzzz
Mar 31, 2012
Alexander Case
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction
The book is okay. It does a decent job of setting up its characters, and establishing the technologies that will appear in future books in the series. However, always skates on the edge of turning into the Exciting Adventures Of Nothing Happening.
The best sci-fi I've read: now hardboiled, now comic, now lyrical, the novel is both a very complex indictment of fanaticism and a visionary ode to our abilities to dream.
An interesting story of politics and science and the collapse of civilization. Nothing more than a prologue really though...
The reputation of Blish's Cities in Flight far exceeds the actual books. This, the first one, was insufferably boring.
May 20, 2013
Biju Bhaskar
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction
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