City Under the Stars
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3.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
City Under the Stars completes a journey undertaken by Gardner Dozois and Michael Swanwick 25 years ago, when they published the novella The City of God. Over two decades later, the two realized there was more to the story, and began the work of expanding it. Now, after Gardner Dozois' tragic passing, the story can be told in full.
God was in his Heaven—which was fifteen miles away, due east.
Far in Earth's future, in a post-utopian hell-hole, Hanson works ten solid back-breaking hours a day, shoveling endless mountains of coal, within sight of the iridescent wall that separates what’s left of humanity from their gods.
One day, after a tragedy of his own making, Hanson leaves the city, not knowing what he will do, or how he will survive in the wilderness without work. He finds himself drawn to the wall, to the elusive promise of God. And when the impossible happens, he steps through, into the city beyond.
The impossible was only the beginning.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dazois (When the Great Days Come) and Swanwick (the Iron Dragon series) expand on their 1995 novella City of God to explore humanity's relationship with technology and religion in this uneven sci-fi tale set on a far-future Earth. When ageing Carl Hanson is laid off from his coal-mining job, he makes an impulsive decision and flees his hometown for the walled-off City of God. The walls miraculously open for him, and once inside he discovers the city's alien rulers have vanished; only their ultra-advanced technology, capable of granting godlike powers, remains. Seeing an opportunity to give humanity a fresh start, Hanson opens the gates of this utopia to the world, but then must scramble to stop the tech from falling into the wrong hands. Meanwhile the city, which isn't as abandoned as it first appears, has plans of its own. The authors' hodgepodge of styles including frontier-inspired realism, futuristic sci-fi, hallucinatory fantasy, and gory horror never coalesce into a cohesive whole. Though the authors raise intriguing questions, they don't allow enough space for them to play out, making the sweeping themes feel sketchy. This is strictly for Dazois and Swanwick completists.
