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A review by chrismacilzeg
Earthman, Come Home by James Blish
3.0
Although I bought an omnibus edition of the stories, this, the first written (although chronologically the third book), is somewhat of a standout. It details a cross-galaxy romp with the city of New York, now converted into a giant ship of sorts.
It must be stated this is a very sci-fi book, and as such has more pertinent information about the way this new system works, socially, economically and, most baffling, scientifically than it actually has narrative. For those that can stomach this a nice balance is reached-the story is never lost track of, but at times it is not the focus.
A lot of the plot that does take place are heavily convoluted xantaos gambits, so whilst having to keep track of all of the thick world building, the plot is very hard to follow. Not necessarily a bad thing-I just sat back and assumed everything would be explained, letting events surprise me. The prose does suffer from this, and gets a bit thick at times. Not a book to get for the writing style.
Characters do have depth, but this is not something executed very well. Tensions do brood, but they do so subtly that when they reach a peak it almost feels as if it comes out of nowhere.
In the end it depends if you can put up with endless amounts of information and how much the concept grabs you. The rest of the Cities in Flight sequence does not quite live up to this novel however.
It must be stated this is a very sci-fi book, and as such has more pertinent information about the way this new system works, socially, economically and, most baffling, scientifically than it actually has narrative. For those that can stomach this a nice balance is reached-the story is never lost track of, but at times it is not the focus.
A lot of the plot that does take place are heavily convoluted xantaos gambits, so whilst having to keep track of all of the thick world building, the plot is very hard to follow. Not necessarily a bad thing-I just sat back and assumed everything would be explained, letting events surprise me. The prose does suffer from this, and gets a bit thick at times. Not a book to get for the writing style.
Characters do have depth, but this is not something executed very well. Tensions do brood, but they do so subtly that when they reach a peak it almost feels as if it comes out of nowhere.
In the end it depends if you can put up with endless amounts of information and how much the concept grabs you. The rest of the Cities in Flight sequence does not quite live up to this novel however.