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TCity Trilogy #1
Interface
FIRST Ace Printing PAPERBACK, Aug.1977. binding tight,cover has small damage,edgewear,pages tan(.sf)
- GenresScience FictionFiction
191 pages, Hardcover
First published December 31, 1971
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 2, 2014
You'll need an encyclopedia handy to get all the references in this book. I looked up 139 words and references during reading (yes I keep a record). Everything from steel manufacturing processes, to Wagner's "Gotterdammerung", to the history of gastronomy is discussed by the unlikable but ridiculously well educated characters with their artificially enhanced memory. Nothing in Western History and Culture is off limits to these characters. I can't help but think this has turned off many potential readers.
The main focus of this volume is the uber-realistic and rigorously extrapolated Science Fiction setting: T-City itself. Massively overpopulated yet maintaing high standards of living for its bored population--the setting is neither dystopia nor utopia.
Unfortunately, the plot doesn't get going until the book is nearly over.
I will have to find out what happens in the next volume: Volteface.
The main focus of this volume is the uber-realistic and rigorously extrapolated Science Fiction setting: T-City itself. Massively overpopulated yet maintaing high standards of living for its bored population--the setting is neither dystopia nor utopia.
Unfortunately, the plot doesn't get going until the book is nearly over.
I will have to find out what happens in the next volume: Volteface.
January 20, 2024
INTERFACE
They say monotony is a sign of sincerity. If that is true, then this writer is a very sincere guy.
“Boring“ doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about this book. The words “tedious”, tiresome”, “repetitive”, “derivative” and “unoriginal” also come to mind.
WORLD BUILDING
The writer pretty much gives us a copycat version of “Brave New World”, just not as interesting. The world building goes something like this:
• From the 17th century on, industry progressed from a multitude of craftsmen plying their trade, to 19th century industry based on steam and steel, through 20th century fossil fuel technology and plastics, culminating in the 22nd century, where a single industry producing a single product replaced all other materials. “Stahlex” is a kind of malleable plastic/metal that can be made to replicate the look and feel of wood, string, cloth, metal, and just about anything else you can imagine.
• Culture and the arts in the time of Shakespeare went hand-in-hand with industry, but by the time of the industrial revolution, the poets turned away from the steelworks and factories to write about daffodils, knights, and fairies. By the 22nd century, people have lost the ability to produce arts and culture altogether.
• The single, unitary, homogenous “utopia” Stahlex has produced is utterly rational and functional. Its workings are almost completely automated. Only a small group of technocratic elites is required to make the whole machine run efficiently. The millions upon millions of citizens of this utopia are superfluous. They are a faceless, personality-less mass of human atoms whose only purpose in life is to have fun and indulge their sexual fantasies with the “aphrodollies”, a class of free-of-charge prostitutes available to everyone which the “aphro-colleges” produce in head spinning quantities.
The writer, being an overly educated but minimally original British prude, can only manage to produce scenes with these aphrodollies that aren’t anywhere near as interesting, sexy, or raunchy as they should’ve been.
The novel was written in 1971. The author would have been close to 40. Too old to be very impressed with the societal changes going on all around him. He seems to believe that society was progressing towards a highly productive equilibrium where most of humankind wouldn’t have very much to do. All the while, he’s observing that the culture all around him is degrading into mindless, stupid hedonism.
I can’t exactly say that I disagree with any of that, except that this is the same point we get in other novels (We, Brave New World, Logan‘s Run, The Machine Stops), except every one of those novels presents it’s ideas in a much more interesting way.
For about 180 pages of this 218 page book what we get is a prolonged, interminable information dump explaining everything I have described above. We follow the tedious routine of Jan Caspol, an executive in the Stahlex production corporation. He is vaguely unhappy and disaffected, and can’t quite figure out why. He has interminable conversations with other characters and robots about the relationship between art, culture and industry, democracy versus technocratic autocracy and on, and on and on.
I’m sure the writer was absolutely fascinated with his peculiar analysis of the social situation in late 1960s Great Britain… But personally I don’t find it particularly interesting or insightful. Like I said, Brave New World did it first and did it better. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis did it first and did it better. Mr. Adlard might’ve benefited from actually listening to what was going on all around him rather than try to force his own pre-fabricated notions on his environment, so as to fit his preconceived conclusions.
PLOT
The “plot”, if you can call it that, is basically a rehashing of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We or Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, but done in a slapdash, “thought of in the last minute“ sort of way, with minimal effort put into it. It’s as if the writer was so mesmerized with his own ideas, so absorbed in his world building, that he didn’t even bother to think of a plot, and threw something together, in order to make this a novel rather than some philosophical diatribe pamphlet.
In short, a revolutionary movement emerges out of nowhere and violently overthrows the entire society in an afternoon, just like that. The whole thing is too threadbare to bother getting into.
The MESSAGE
It’s kind of hard to pinpoint what exactly the author is trying to say with this novel, other than “I wish I had been alive back when people used to do things with their hands!”. He’s got this harebrained notion that the more efficient society gets at producing stuff, the less we are able to produce art, literature, and culture.
Maybe there is something interesting to say about this topic, but this author certainly didn’t manage to say it.
The entire novel is absolutely shot through with references to art and literature. Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Wagner, fine wine, Edwardian furniture, and on, and on and on. I can’t quite figure out if the writer is trying to show off how cultured he is, or if he’s trying to make a point that these feckless elites are indulging in when they consider to be “high culture” in the same way the masses are indulging in low brow culture. In any case, it’s absolutely tedious and pointless, because he doesn’t have anything interesting to say on the topic.
As I understand it, this is the first in a trilogy of novels. I cannot imagine, putting myself through the effort of reading the next one.
They say monotony is a sign of sincerity. If that is true, then this writer is a very sincere guy.
“Boring“ doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about this book. The words “tedious”, tiresome”, “repetitive”, “derivative” and “unoriginal” also come to mind.
WORLD BUILDING
The writer pretty much gives us a copycat version of “Brave New World”, just not as interesting. The world building goes something like this:
• From the 17th century on, industry progressed from a multitude of craftsmen plying their trade, to 19th century industry based on steam and steel, through 20th century fossil fuel technology and plastics, culminating in the 22nd century, where a single industry producing a single product replaced all other materials. “Stahlex” is a kind of malleable plastic/metal that can be made to replicate the look and feel of wood, string, cloth, metal, and just about anything else you can imagine.
• Culture and the arts in the time of Shakespeare went hand-in-hand with industry, but by the time of the industrial revolution, the poets turned away from the steelworks and factories to write about daffodils, knights, and fairies. By the 22nd century, people have lost the ability to produce arts and culture altogether.
• The single, unitary, homogenous “utopia” Stahlex has produced is utterly rational and functional. Its workings are almost completely automated. Only a small group of technocratic elites is required to make the whole machine run efficiently. The millions upon millions of citizens of this utopia are superfluous. They are a faceless, personality-less mass of human atoms whose only purpose in life is to have fun and indulge their sexual fantasies with the “aphrodollies”, a class of free-of-charge prostitutes available to everyone which the “aphro-colleges” produce in head spinning quantities.
The writer, being an overly educated but minimally original British prude, can only manage to produce scenes with these aphrodollies that aren’t anywhere near as interesting, sexy, or raunchy as they should’ve been.
The novel was written in 1971. The author would have been close to 40. Too old to be very impressed with the societal changes going on all around him. He seems to believe that society was progressing towards a highly productive equilibrium where most of humankind wouldn’t have very much to do. All the while, he’s observing that the culture all around him is degrading into mindless, stupid hedonism.
I can’t exactly say that I disagree with any of that, except that this is the same point we get in other novels (We, Brave New World, Logan‘s Run, The Machine Stops), except every one of those novels presents it’s ideas in a much more interesting way.
For about 180 pages of this 218 page book what we get is a prolonged, interminable information dump explaining everything I have described above. We follow the tedious routine of Jan Caspol, an executive in the Stahlex production corporation. He is vaguely unhappy and disaffected, and can’t quite figure out why. He has interminable conversations with other characters and robots about the relationship between art, culture and industry, democracy versus technocratic autocracy and on, and on and on.
I’m sure the writer was absolutely fascinated with his peculiar analysis of the social situation in late 1960s Great Britain… But personally I don’t find it particularly interesting or insightful. Like I said, Brave New World did it first and did it better. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis did it first and did it better. Mr. Adlard might’ve benefited from actually listening to what was going on all around him rather than try to force his own pre-fabricated notions on his environment, so as to fit his preconceived conclusions.
PLOT
The “plot”, if you can call it that, is basically a rehashing of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We or Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, but done in a slapdash, “thought of in the last minute“ sort of way, with minimal effort put into it. It’s as if the writer was so mesmerized with his own ideas, so absorbed in his world building, that he didn’t even bother to think of a plot, and threw something together, in order to make this a novel rather than some philosophical diatribe pamphlet.
In short, a revolutionary movement emerges out of nowhere and violently overthrows the entire society in an afternoon, just like that. The whole thing is too threadbare to bother getting into.
The MESSAGE
It’s kind of hard to pinpoint what exactly the author is trying to say with this novel, other than “I wish I had been alive back when people used to do things with their hands!”. He’s got this harebrained notion that the more efficient society gets at producing stuff, the less we are able to produce art, literature, and culture.
Maybe there is something interesting to say about this topic, but this author certainly didn’t manage to say it.
The entire novel is absolutely shot through with references to art and literature. Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Wagner, fine wine, Edwardian furniture, and on, and on and on. I can’t quite figure out if the writer is trying to show off how cultured he is, or if he’s trying to make a point that these feckless elites are indulging in when they consider to be “high culture” in the same way the masses are indulging in low brow culture. In any case, it’s absolutely tedious and pointless, because he doesn’t have anything interesting to say on the topic.
As I understand it, this is the first in a trilogy of novels. I cannot imagine, putting myself through the effort of reading the next one.
September 4, 2025
I love how the reviewers of this book criticise it for being too full of difficult words. You want difficult, go read "Shadow of the Torturer" by Gene Wolfe and then come back to me.
We're now at the beginning of an AI revolution (or, at least, the CEOs think we are) and people are already losing their jobs to the coming wave. This book didn't see that coming, but it does posit a future where very few real jobs exist. The authorities try to give the people distractions to keep them occupied, but the frustration of just existing day to day with nothing to do threatens to spill over into a chaotic rage.
The two books that follow (Volteface and Multiface) document the saga of this domed city, set in post-industrial England in the 22nd century.
Get past the adjectives (really?) and you should finish the trilogy fairly quickly; I re-read them every ten years or so, I think they're due another spin.
We're now at the beginning of an AI revolution (or, at least, the CEOs think we are) and people are already losing their jobs to the coming wave. This book didn't see that coming, but it does posit a future where very few real jobs exist. The authorities try to give the people distractions to keep them occupied, but the frustration of just existing day to day with nothing to do threatens to spill over into a chaotic rage.
The two books that follow (Volteface and Multiface) document the saga of this domed city, set in post-industrial England in the 22nd century.
Get past the adjectives (really?) and you should finish the trilogy fairly quickly; I re-read them every ten years or so, I think they're due another spin.
January 25, 2020
“Stahlex! Stahlex!
I want it thick!
I want it quick!
I want something that’ll do the trick!
Use Stahlex! Use Stahlex!
A benevo-o-olent monopo-o-oly” (160).
Mark Adlard’s SF output consisted primarily of the Tcity trilogy: Interface (1971), Volteface (1972), and Multiface (1975). The domed (and doomed) city is a powerful scenario [...]
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
I want it thick!
I want it quick!
I want something that’ll do the trick!
Use Stahlex! Use Stahlex!
A benevo-o-olent monopo-o-oly” (160).
Mark Adlard’s SF output consisted primarily of the Tcity trilogy: Interface (1971), Volteface (1972), and Multiface (1975). The domed (and doomed) city is a powerful scenario [...]
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
May 27, 2017
3.5 stars.
An intriguing book, probably very much of its time. The female characters were awful, and there were so many similes that it sometimes jarred the reading experience. Also, nothing much happened until the last 30 pages.
Having said that, I was left wanting to read Volteface to find out what happens next.
An intriguing book, probably very much of its time. The female characters were awful, and there were so many similes that it sometimes jarred the reading experience. Also, nothing much happened until the last 30 pages.
Having said that, I was left wanting to read Volteface to find out what happens next.
May 12, 2025
From the start this book has too many adjectives. The detailed descriptions of everything became irritating, as did the slow pace of the story, which never seemed to turn into anything recognisable. Set in a future of arcologies and super materials, the story seems to revolve about a revolution to 'free' the people. For me it didn't work, hence 2 stars.
June 25, 2025
Comments from when I read it in 1972:
The author has spread an uncertain facade of reasonable writing over a rather carelessly thought-out plot. Neither the scenario nor the main event of the plot are credible if you pause to think, and the ending is unnecessarily grisly.
The author has spread an uncertain facade of reasonable writing over a rather carelessly thought-out plot. Neither the scenario nor the main event of the plot are credible if you pause to think, and the ending is unnecessarily grisly.
August 11, 2023
Pretty good extremely abrupt ending though
November 23, 2012
It was entertaining though it seemed to be all buildup and background to the inevitable and not enough of the consequences.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews