Science Fiction Aficionados discussion

The winner this month is Arthur Clarkes The City and the Stars.
I amreally looking forward to this one.

It really is great. I read it as a teenager and have revisited it multiple times; it still holds up. Having also read the original novella Against the Fall of Night, Clarke's rewrite and minor expansion definitely helped. There's a section - which I shan't discuss now because Spoilers - that was the inspiration for recurring scary/awesome dreams back when I first read it.

I am in.

I am still waiting for my book to arrive...very anxiously! In checking the tracking, it is currently in Ohio :(

I bought mine ten years ago and have not read it yet. I removed it from my bookshelf to my night stand.

I've been wanting to read this for a while. I am in. :D

This is definitely an idea book. Lots of 'What if's'.

I'm in and I have my book. I am excited because this is my first shared group read. The City and the Stars

Excellent read. BIG ideas. An automated computer process of REcreating humans thru the millenia of space and time...wow. Long live ACC!

my book still didn't arrive, even though it says its out on the truck in my town here....:(

I got a hold of From The Ocean From The Stars An Omnibus Containing The Complete Novels The Deep Range And The City And The Stars And Twenty Four Short Stories which has the City and the Stars along with other Clarke goodness. :D

Just started reading, I ordered the SF Masterworks edition.
Considering the age of the novel, the described technologies don't feel outdated: No ridiculous computers or similar. Clarke simply doesn't use them. Instead, I find samples of MMORPGs called "adventures", cloning, living rooms, etc.

First 10% are a huge info dump, homeopathic dosage of dialogues, zero action. Let's see how it develops :)

I went into this a bit wary (around 20% in) of the age of the book. Looked it up:
Against the Fall of Night, 1948
city and the stars 1956

Think the presentation of the rooms (and a bunch of other aspects - like the walkways) is well done. So far only thrown by the repeated reference to "thousand million years" - he has (I think) said 'billion' at least once.

I was intrigued by the blatant outreach to DIaspar's culture being gender neutral in perspective. Referring (not a spoiler) to when ALvin gives up his coat when it is cold to the woman he is with. Clarke goes out of his way to say this is NOT gallantry... An interesting point to stress in late 1940s

Actually as I write this I realize that he is doing a good job of presenting things as "this is how we live" - in acceptance as the norm, especially since been that way for thousand million years!!

Halfway through.
There are a bit more dialogues and action, but the novel tends to stay on the descriptive side. Nothing poetic, mainly infodumps. I don't know if I should call this narration style "dated" - Clarke surely knows how to work differently.

I could live without the repetitive mentioning of thousands of million years.
When you contrast Diaspar and Lys, I see where that long time span is believable for Diaspar. But speaking of Lys, I don't see how they could "survive" that enormous time span.
Character development is homeopathic. Alvin's friendship with this Lys guy (don't remember his name) seems a bit unmotivated.

Hmm. I like the descriptor homeopathic in the above comment. Its one of those that makes me laugh. Thank you. As to the content of the statement: I think that is part of the point. The society and the individuals within it are static. And, I believe that modern sensibilities are also in play. We live in a society that is awash in the psychological and that is reflected in the literature written these days. I am sure someone has a better grasp of the historical dimension of science fiction than do I, but I am under the impression that ideas were more predominant in earlier years and now the personal may be. I welcome any comments.

A bit quiet here, hm? :)
Just finished it, here are my further takeaways (complete review is here).

First half is description heavy - nearly no action or dialogues at all, reflecting the insular conversatism and setting the atmosphere of Diaspar in a very good way. In the second half, Alvin's quest is narrated through a bit more action and dialogues, and he even gets a somewhat shallow sidekick from Lys. I'd say it reads far more pulpish than the first half which I found better.

Clarke explores isolationism of neighboring cultures and how to break them up, which you'll find very modern. He touches utopian versions of perilous growth versus survival.
On the negative side, I didn't like the notions of telepathy, disembodied intelligence - I generally don't need them included in SF. Additionally, I didn't need the mentioning of "1000 of million years" nearly every odd page and the accompanying gigantomanism.

I liked the novel but wouldn't consider it as his best work.

I just finished it as well - and I was somewhat disappointed. Especially since I have fine memories from whenever I last read it. Yes, still interesting and a worthwhile read - but not great.
Too many quick superficial solutions popped up too fast and conveniently in the second half to get to quick and not very deep conclusion. So this dual culture existed for a billion years (right - a billion!!) - and in a week is totally changed in historical and future looking perspective. With the help of an FTL ship, disembodied intelligence that remembers the last billion years, planets with clues.

I wonder if once again I remember the short story (Against the fall of night) - will have to go see if I can find it; I in particular wonder how the endings compare.

Andreas wrote: "A bit quiet here, hm? :)
Just finished it, here are my further takeaways (complete review is here).

First half is description heavy - nearly no action or dialogues at all, reflecting the insular ..."

IIRC, that "far more pulpish" second half comprises nearly the entirety of the earlier novella Against the Fall of Night, which is pretty damn' pulpish if memory serves (I read The City and the Stars first and ...Fall of Night much later). I'll post the cover of the magazine where it first ran so that we may all revel in its pulp-tacular qualities.

No, not his best...but very imaginitive. IMO, his best early, mid, and late work were Childhood's End, Rondezvous With Rama, and The Songs of Distant Earth, respectively. He was a master of the genre.

I finally received it ad hope to start it tonight...

I thought this was pretty good -- held my interest and did not feel dated. I was particularly struck by the policy of isolationism demonstrated by both Diaspar and Lys. That seems to be a political issue that never goes away, just ebbs and flows.

None of the characters are developed deeply, even Alvin, but they do present the types of people that exist. I thought Hilvar provided a good foil for Alvin and loved the concept that Hilvar "adopted" Alvin as a friend for the same reason he adopted some very strange animals as pets!

I liked the reality that was discovered about the human race and its development. Interesting that humans created a non-material intelligence that turned out to be evil and then went back to the drawing board to create another non-material intellignece that was friendly and, presumably, will be grown up and able to deal with the evil one when the time comes.

I am about halfway through, and though I am finding it a bit 'dry', it is keeping my interest...

I am 3/4 through the book and I like it allot. It does not seem too much out of date. It is the contrast of the characters that I find interesting.

Like Alvin does not fit in because of youth and Hilvar does not fit in because he is ugly and of course lonely people have pets (as I have a little yorkie). Alvin adopted a robot and Hilvar has a winged something. Also everyone is beautiful in Diaspar which Alvin thinks nothing about. Adding both have adventurous minds.

However, I still have more to read. Just look for the contrast. The lifestyles, the lives and their environments. So far I like it.

I finished the book on the last day. The book was a good read, I cannot say it was a fantastic read that was mind blowing.

The writing was good and the Pages flowed from page to page without struggle. I liked the character development of Alvin. The storyline was a good one and I felt a bit imaginative as well.
(view spoiler)[
I also liked the contrast between the characters and the world build. Like a big city in the desert vs small villages in a jungle. One land could read minds the other not. One had robots the other had none.

I did feel like there were holes in the story also. Such an advanced race that could create artificial suns and worlds and yet could not stop the deserts from spreading. In Diaspar the city had ramps for the robotsso they could navigate better and not use stairs and yet later in the book they had flying robots? Like robots could not walk?

Still I liked the concept of an everlasting city where people could live on and try on a new life with a new beginning.
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Sorry I'm (a day) late to the party, guys! But I just finished.

I enjoyed it immensely! Sure, it was short (typical for the era, right?) and as a result just sprinted through idea after idea after idea, but I thought it actually holds up really well after 60 years and a lot of the ideas were fascinating.

Clearly, everything was shortcuts instead of developments right? Instead of really developing characters, everyone simply has a foil: Diaspar/Lys, Alvin/Hilvar, Jeserac/Khedron, etc etc

It was all excellent, but now I get to the end and the one thing I really want is nowhere to be found! (view spoiler)[GIVE ME VANAMONDE VS THE MAD MIND AND GIVE IT TO ME NOW!!! What are the chances we can convince Peter F Hamilton to write a 5000 page 'Empire Era' saga that develops the existence and eventual battle of the incorporeal intelligences!?!? (hide spoiler)]

I liked the book quite a bit. Here are a few comments/questions I have.

1. Diaspar is the city's name. I immediately thought of diaspora. Perhaps this is an oblique reference to the reveal of much of humankind leaving the galaxy?

2. It was quaint to me the notion that millions of years would not result in stupendous shifts in language, if not outright physical evolution. Clarke waves this away by pointing to audio recordings. I wonder if he actually believed this?

3. What is the deal with sleep? At first it is said Diasporans never sleep, but when Alvin leaves the city he sleeps regularly. I assumed at first it was something genetically engineered out of humans, but then Alvin started sleeping. I guess we're supposed to appreciate how far out of his comfort zone Alvin is, and that he's pushing the limits of his body for the first time in his life, but that isn't a sufficient explanation for me. It feels weird and out of place.

4. When Alvin and Hilvar are talking, Hilvar says "A truly intelligent race is not likely to be unfriendly" though he gives no reason for this. I can't help but point out the difference between this and the Dark Forest philosophy of Cixin Liu's Three-Body Problem series.

5. Later in the book, it is said that "Man was about leave his Universe, as long ago he had left his world. And not only Man, but the thousand other races..." In other places, it is said they were going to leave the galaxy. Is the use of the word Universe an error? I suppose with the level of technology in this book, and how little we know about why mankind was leaving, it doesn't matter.

6. At the very end of the book, the future conflict between Vanamonde and his kin vs. the Mad Mind is said to be fated to happen at the end of time, the end of the universe. "Yet it was a conflict that had nothing to do with Man, and whose outcome he would never know..." Does this imply that mankind will escape the universe, or that he will die anyway so that it doesn't matter?