City of a Thousand Suns

The Fall of the Towers #3

by Samuel R. Delany

City of a Thousand Suns is a 1965 sf novel by Samuel R. Delany, the final novel in the "Fall of the Towers" trilogy.
"This final novel of Samuel R. Delany's trilogy about mankind facing a potential enemy from another galaxy is better than the previous two novels. Delany grew enormously as a writer over the course of this series, producing prose that is frequently poetic. The Lord of the Flames is a truly fascinating alien being. His book, however, becomes unfocused and loses dramatic tension as he becomes more interested in concluding his big statements on the nature of Man without attending adequately to the nuts and bolts of anchoring them in a compelling narrative with a satisfying climax."--David Bonesteel

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Samuel Ray Delany, also known as "Chip," is an award-winning American science fiction author. He was born to a prominent black family on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem. His mother, Margaret Carey Boyd Delany, was a library clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany, Senior, ran a successful Harlem undertaking establishment, Levy & Delany Funeral Home, on 7th Avenue, between 1938 and his death in 1960. The family lived in the top two floors of the three-story private house between five- and six-story Harlem apartment buildings. Delany's aunts were Sadie and Bessie Delany; Delany used some of their adventures as the basis for the adventures of his characters Elsie and Corry in the opening novella Atlantis: Model 1924 in his book of largely autobiographical stories Atlantis: Three Tales.

Delany attended the Dalton School and the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Delany and poet Marilyn Hacker met in high school, and were married in 1961. Their marriage lasted nineteen years. They had a daughter, Iva Hacker-Delany (b. 1974), who spent a decade working in theater in New York City.

Delany was a published science fiction author by the age of 20. He published nine well-regarded science fiction novels between 1962 and 1968, as well as several prize-winning short stories (collected in Driftglass [1971] and more recently in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories [2002]). His eleventh and most popular novel, Dhalgren, was published in 1975. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was the Return to Nevèrÿon series, the overall title of the four volumes and also the title of the fourth and final book.

Delany has published several autobiographical/semi-autobiographical accounts of his life as a black, gay, and highly dyslexic writer, including his Hugo award winning autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water.

Since 1988, Delany has been a professor at several universities. This includes eleven years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo. He then moved to the English Department of Temple University in 2001, where he has been teaching since. He has had several visiting guest professorships before and during these same years. He has also published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. In one of his non-fiction books, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), he draws on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men, gay and straight, in New York City.

In 2007, Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. The film debuted on April 25 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

City of a Thousand Suns is the concluding volume of Delany's Fall of the Towers trilogy. (No connection to Tolkien; you knew that.) The books were first published a year apart, and it does seem to me that in places that he was more poetic in his imagery and lyrical with his dialog in this book than in the first, Captives of the Flame. It's a nice conclusion to the overall story, which is a fairly standard galactic invasion space opera at its core, but this one could be appreciated on its own without having read the previous ones, I think. (They were soon after published in one volume, which would have been the way to go.) It's a very richly imagined post-disaster setting, with interestingly depicted changing characters, and a cosmic sweep and detailed descriptions that reminded me of both Jack Vance and A.E. van Vogt.

[Joe Santoro · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think my favorite part of this book is the cover. While there is a plot, its mostly just a box in which to put some (IMO) dated philosphy in... the main plot doesn't really go very far, and ends in a sudden and unsatisfying way.

While Delany does turn a few cool phrases, and there's one particular exchange between Jon (the main character) and an old solider that was really profound, most of it was alot of hot air. Granted, this is apparently the 3rd of three books, but the lack of having read the other two definitely wasn't an issue. Other than vague mentions of a 'war', there was really no connection.

The intro states that Delany was 22 when this was written, so perhaps he gets more coherent later, but this one is an easy pass.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I vaguely remember not especially liking the ending when I first read this book in 2004, but I couldn't recall why. Now I do. It's not so much the introduction of poetry or the pointlessness of the so-called war (that's the point, isn't it?). Instead, it's how devastating it is in its process.

The characters I found myself liking the most were those who were able to join in different or new social circles naturally - characters like Tel and Petra; not so much Alter. Of course, those are the characters that Delany chooses to kill off. For me, that was unsatisfying.

But that's not why it's a devastating ending to me. The Triple Being that brought the main characters together in the previous two books felt like more of a gimmick in this book; almost as if it wasn't integrated into the story as seamlessly as it was before. I found myself wishing it would intervene as it did before. That was a minor shame.

And the very end of this volume could have been less explained-away and more explained-ashown; I mean about The Lord of the Flames simply giving up and walking away. But I suppose such an ending is, in a way, true to life: some wars begin just as arbitrarily as they end.

This volume is just too short to do what it needed to do. Nonetheless, I absolutely enjoyed it as I did the previous two volumes.

[James Proctor · Rating 5 out of 5]

These early Delany novels are excellent. City is third of a three-parter and the peak of a satisfying saga. His character focus and attention to telling details in any given scene transcend genre. I often forgot I was reading stories of a far-flung future Earth. The author's linguistic-philosophic concerns are here in their nascency -these books were written in the early 60's- lending poetry to sections that might fall prey to being merely plot progression in a different writer's voice. Samuel Delany is singularly distinctive and can write of palatals and labials in a propaganda shibboleth without breaking either a sweat or the rhythm of the prose.

[David B · Rating 3 out of 5]

This final novel of Samuel R. Delany's trilogy about mankind facing a potential enemy from another galaxy is better than the previous two novels. Delany grew enormously as a writer over the course of this series, producing prose that is frequently poetic. The Lord of the Flames is a truly fascinating alien being. His book, however, becomes unfocused and loses dramatic tension as he becomes more interested in concluding his big statements on the nature of Man without attending adequately to the nuts and bolts of anchoring them in a compelling narrative with a satisfying climax.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A poet is wounded into speech, and he examines these wounds meticulously, to discover how to heal them. The bad poet harangues at the pain and yowls at the weapons that lacerate him; the great poet explores the inflamed lips of ruined flesh with ice-covered fingers, glittering and precise; but ultimately their poem is the echoing, dual voice reporting the damage” – Vol Nonik

“They were very lucid, very clear—and put wild and dispersed matter into a verberating order that came very close to me” (126-7). Clea on Vol’s poems.

Kocik, Robert
“When words mean only what they say, we die” (293)

An antagonist receding over three books // First glimpse at SD's utopian imagination in the operations of the new city // A war machine disarticulating itself from a nation, doing violence for its self preservation // I feel asleep at least 40 times reading this book not the book these fucking allergy meds

[Zemmiphobe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fantastically written. I have once again done that thing where I read a book from a series without realizing there were others I should have read first. My only issue with the book was that it wasn't so clear about what was going on in the overal plot sometimes (like I wasn't quite sure what the council from the other galaxy had to do with the whole story.) I suspect though that this is because I missed the first two books, which probably provided an explanation. That being said, my main reason for liking this book so much is the eloquence of the prose. This was a level of poetic writing most people can only hope to achieve and is almost entirely lost in contemporary writing. I'm glad I have a few more books of his waiting to be read on my shelves.

[Xabi1990 · Rating 1 out of 5]

1/10. Media de los 11 libros leídos del autor: 3/10
Hasta 11 libros llegué a leerme de Delany...Eran los tiempos en que de chaval no tienes un duro y lees todo lo que cae en tus manos de CF...y de restos de ediciones. Y ya veis que el resultado fue bastante deplorable, pero si juntas mi ilusión desmedida -en esa época- por el género + no tener un duro + comprar todo lo que pillaba de CF a precio de saldo, pues dio para tragarme muchos tostones que hoy no leería ni de coña.

Con esta nota dudo de que llegase a acabarlo en su día

[Mason Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read the first two volumes in this trilogy, but this one didn't seem to require any previous knowledge and was self-contained. And fun. A future Earth, an abstract sort of galactic war being waged in which a group of people living in the last city on Earth will play a part, and even an early example of AI-driven warfare -- in a book from 1965! It's a quick read, with good characters and intriguing ideas (as might be expected from Delany). And reading it in a 1965 Ace pocketbook edition with brilliant cover art felt appropriate.

[Nathaniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

“You are trapped in that bright moment where you learned your doom.”

*

“Free to build or destroy they, too, approached the City of a Thousand Suns, to be struck by blue smoke, dispersed by sudden lightning, dropped from a web of silver fire...the red of polished carbuncle...the green of beetles’ wings...”

[Lisajean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The meaning of life according to Samuel Delany: to strive to become an “ideal reader” for the works of a mathematician, a poet, and a sociologist/historian and to come together with others as much as possible in order to better cope with the aloneness inside of us. Not bad...

[Kathryn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read the three in this series, kept hoping it would get better more interesting. But no, just as hard and disjointed as the first two. I do not like this type of writing. Will not read anymore of his books.

[Ralph Carlson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. I really enjoyed it.

[Man Vs Pixels · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short and well written. The ending lost me though. Not sure what to make of it but enjoyed the reading experience.

[Sadie Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the other 2 books in this trilogy, there's solid gold in this, but its a lumpy mix. Excited to move ob to Delany's more acclaimed later work now.

[David Bonesteel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This final novel of Samuel R. Delany's trilogy about mankind facing a potential enemy from another galaxy is better than the previous two novels. Delany grew enormously as a writer over the course of this series, producing prose that is frequently poetic. The Lord of the Flames is a truly fascinating alien being. His book, however, becomes unfocused and loses dramatic tension as he becomes more interested in concluding his big statements on the nature of Man without attending adequately to the nuts and bolts of anchoring them in a compelling narrative with a satisfying climax.

[Gary Ellingson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Samuel Delany City of a Thousand Suns

Initially, I found the concepts in City of a Thousand Suns difficult to grasp. However, once that obstacle was over, I became thoroughly enthralled in the story telling. Delany is a genius of imagery.

[Elysa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this story very entertaining, and I loved Delany's simple yet elegant writing style. I read it in one sitting because it just kept pulling me through to the end. I highly recommend it.

https://elysathebiblioblogger.wordpre...

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't get much out of this, but then I hadn't known of or read the preceding volumes--the publishers not making a point of this.

[Freek]

N/A

[Michael Frasca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delaney's allegory about war and the economy drags a bit, but you can see flashes of brilliance that would flower with subsequent works. By the third book in the trilogy, you can tell that Delaney has really honed his chops.

Pairs well with

- Martin Luther King's April 4, 1967 speech given at Riverside Church, entitled "Beyond Vietnam:
A Time to Break the Silence" which can be found in A Time to Break Silence: The Essential Works of Martin Luther King, Jr., for Students

- President Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation - January 17, 1961

- Drift: the unmooring of American military power