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David's Reviews > They Shall Have Stars
They Shall Have Stars (Cities in Flight, #1)
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To be honest, I thought the iconic Boston album cover was inspired by the Cities in Flight series, of which They Shall Have Stars is the first in the series. But I can find no evidence of that.
For old science fiction, this one had some elements to it that were surprisingly not dated. There were female characters—one major, one minor—that held technical jobs. Both were described as being rather plain instead of being made to uphold the era's standard of beauty. One woman's Latin name was just that, a name, as "such once-valid tickets no longer meant anything among the West's uniformly mixed-race population." Blish was apparently downright progressive for his time.
While paper is still a thing, robots can be operated remotely via VR gear. "Believer" terrorists spray gasses at people to induce feelings of euphoria or shame. Fireworks can be designed to bring sparkling messages to the sky.
Published in 1956, Blish was living in an America deep in the Cold War and infected by McCarthyism. So he took that fear and paranoia and ran with it. Domestic spying is rampant, and everyone, including Congressmen, has to watch what they say and do lest they be tossed in prison. But there's one senator that's determined to restore freedom to his fellow Americans.
But Big Science is still a thing. There's a "bridge to nowhere" down in the depths of Jupiter being used for scientific study and experiments. Remote workers on Jupiter's moons use VR to control robots on the bridge to affect repairs in the gas giant's tumultuous atmosphere. The experience can be off-putting and tends to stress out the workers.
And some astronaut has retrieved soil samples for a pharmaceutical company in hopes of discovering something useful to aid mankind. He's miffed that no one at the company is dropping everything to attend to him. While waiting he gets suspicious that there's something going on at the company. Impatient with waiting, he gets downright mean with a receptionist, and it takes a while for him to stop being an ass.
These three plotlines take nearly the entire length of this short novel (novella by today's standards) to bear fruit. I couldn't figure out where any of them were leading or how they were connected until the big reveal. The astronaut's work with the pharmaceutical company offered some clues, but the disgruntled bridge worker's story was just so much angst. If the individual storylines did more, then I would've liked it more.
For old science fiction, this one had some elements to it that were surprisingly not dated. There were female characters—one major, one minor—that held technical jobs. Both were described as being rather plain instead of being made to uphold the era's standard of beauty. One woman's Latin name was just that, a name, as "such once-valid tickets no longer meant anything among the West's uniformly mixed-race population." Blish was apparently downright progressive for his time.
While paper is still a thing, robots can be operated remotely via VR gear. "Believer" terrorists spray gasses at people to induce feelings of euphoria or shame. Fireworks can be designed to bring sparkling messages to the sky.
Published in 1956, Blish was living in an America deep in the Cold War and infected by McCarthyism. So he took that fear and paranoia and ran with it. Domestic spying is rampant, and everyone, including Congressmen, has to watch what they say and do lest they be tossed in prison. But there's one senator that's determined to restore freedom to his fellow Americans.
But Big Science is still a thing. There's a "bridge to nowhere" down in the depths of Jupiter being used for scientific study and experiments. Remote workers on Jupiter's moons use VR to control robots on the bridge to affect repairs in the gas giant's tumultuous atmosphere. The experience can be off-putting and tends to stress out the workers.
And some astronaut has retrieved soil samples for a pharmaceutical company in hopes of discovering something useful to aid mankind. He's miffed that no one at the company is dropping everything to attend to him. While waiting he gets suspicious that there's something going on at the company. Impatient with waiting, he gets downright mean with a receptionist, and it takes a while for him to stop being an ass.
These three plotlines take nearly the entire length of this short novel (novella by today's standards) to bear fruit. I couldn't figure out where any of them were leading or how they were connected until the big reveal. The astronaut's work with the pharmaceutical company offered some clues, but the disgruntled bridge worker's story was just so much angst. If the individual storylines did more, then I would've liked it more.
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