The City and the Stars (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Arthur C. Clarke
- First Published: 1956
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—superbeing
- Time of Work: The far future
- Setting: The Earth cities of Diaspar, Lys, and Shalmirane, and the system of the Seven Suns
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction
- Subjects: Future, Other worlds, Space flight or travel, Superman or superbeings
- Locales: Space, Earth, alternate versions of
The Plot
Alvin is a Unique in Diaspar, freshly created rather than revived from the city’s Memory Banks. He is one of only fifteen new creations in a billion-year history. He knows he is not like others because he has never feared the open spaces in the seemingly dead world beyond the city’s towering walls. He finds a vantage point from which to view the endless sands, the night sky, and the fading stars, but no one in Diaspar is willing or able to bear the vistas he yearns to explore. He begins a systematic attempt to escape from the city’s perfect enclosure.
By...
[The entire page is 924 words long]
