The City Among the Stars
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
First English translation of the celebrated Golden Age Science Fiction Classic.
"This stunning classic stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov, and Heinlein." – New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear
Tankar Holroy, Lieutenant in the Stellar Guard of earth’s Empire, floats in space after his spaceship is sabotaged. Rescued by an enormous, unknown ship, he awakes to discover himself saved by the People of the Stars who are born and live in space with minimal contact with planets and their occupants whom they call, with contempt, planetaries.
The chilly welcome he receives from the ship’s leader, the Teknor, is followed by overt hostility from the other inhabitants of the Tilsin. Only a woman named Orena reaches out to him.
Tankar soon realizes that he was rescued for his knowledge of tracers, the technology that allows Empire ships to track others through hyperspace, a technology the People of the Stars lack. Out of spite, he refuses to deliver the one piece of knowledge that can protect the people who saved but now spurn him - and the consequences will be catastrophic.
FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The first English translation of Carsac's 1962 space opera offers a thematically rich, but jarringly dated, vision of the future. When Stellar Guard Tankar Holroy's spaceship is sabotaged, the People of the Stars rescue him. The descendants of religious fanatics who fled Earth and now roam the galaxy on massive city-state spaceships, the People of the Stars hope that Tankar will share the technology that allows Earth's oppressive, war-mongering Empire to track them through hyperspace. Carsac examines the interplay between politics and personal freedom as Tankar struggles to adapt to life aboard the Tilsin, finding it impossible to assimilate into a people who disdain all those born on planets instead of in space crafts. Despite the People of the Stars' biases, Tankar's resolve to withhold the information on tracers from his rescuers reads as pure spite and leads him to ruin. Readers might be able to accept Tankar's overt misogyny as a similar character flaw, if it weren't insidiously mirrored in the romantic subplots, wherein stereotypical vixens Orena and Anaena fight for Tankar's affections. Devotees of classic sci-fi will appreciate this translation, but more casual readers will find the sexual politics difficult to stomach.
