Cities in Flight

Cities in Flight is a four-volume series of science fiction novels and short stories by American writer James Blish, originally published between 1950 and 1962, which were first known collectively as the "Okie" novels. The series features entire cities that are able to fly through space using an anti-gravity device, the spindizzy. The stories cover roughly two thousand years, from the very near future to the end of the universe. One story, "Earthman, Come Home", won a Retro Hugo Award in 2004 for Best Novelette. Since 1970, the primary edition has been the omnibus volume first published in paperback by Avon Books. Over the years James Blish made many changes to these stories in response to points raised in letters from readers.

They Shall Have Stars (1956) (also published under the title Year 2018!), incorporating the stories "Bridge" and "At Death's End", is set in the then near future (the book begins in 2013). In this future, the Soviet Union still exists and the Cold War is still ongoing. As a result, Western civil liberties have been eroded more and more, until society eventually resembles the Soviet model. Alaska's Senator Bliss Wagoner, head of the Joint Congressional Committee on Space Flight, is determined to do something about it.

Scientific research has stagnated, mainly because knowledge has become restricted. On the advice of scientist Dr. Corsi, Wagoner concentrates his attention on fringe science theories. One project he has funded is the building of a "bridge" made of Ice IV on the surface of Jupiter. This leads to one of two major discoveries which make interstellar space travel feasible: gravity manipulation (nicknamed the "spindizzy"), which leads to both a faster-than-light travel and effective shielding. Another project yields an "anti-agathic" drug, which stops aging. Wagoner is eventually convicted of treason by an oppressive regime, but not before he has sent out expeditions (in a later book, it is revealed that they succeed in establishing thriving colonies). Politically, the book clearly expresses a strong opposition to McCarthyism, at its peak during the time of writing. The main antagonist is Francis X. MacHinery, hereditary Director of the FBI, which has become a de facto secret police agency. In the final chapter he is heard to say "Bliss Wagoner is dead", with the narrative noting that "as usual, he was wrong", as Wagoner's legacy will endure.

Reviewing a later edition, the Hartford Courant described the novel as "a skillful mixture of human reality and technological fantasy".

In the period in between the first and second parts, the Cold War ended with the peaceful merging of the Eastern and Western blocs into a single, planet-wide Soviet-ruled dictatorship, which hardly made any perceptible change, as the West's political system had already become virtually identical with the Soviet one. However, this dictatorial power was broken by the spindizzy drive which becomes more efficient as more mass is affected, so that dissidents and malcontents have an easy way of escaping and going off into space. First factories, then eventually whole cities migrate from the economically depressed Earth in search of work; these space-wandering cities are called Okies.

A Life for the Stars (1962) is a bildungsroman describing the adventures of sixteen-year-old Chris deFord, born when the above process of migration had already been going on for a considerable time. When Chris goes to watch the imminent departure of Scranton, Pennsylvania, he is kidnapped and brought with it.

After several adventures, Chris is fortunate to be transferred to the much more prosperous New York (or at least the Manhattan portion of it), a major "Okie" city under Mayor John Amalfi. Scranton is run by the city manager rather than its figurehead mayor. When the two cities meet again and come into conflict over Scranton's bungling of a job, Chris is able to convince an influential friend in his old city to depose the city manager and end the conflict. Impressed, Amalfi elevates him to the newly created position of city manager of New York and gives him the status of resident rather than passenger (and thus entitled to anti-agathic drugs).

Earthman, Come Home (1955, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York), combining the stories "Okie", "Bindlestiff", "Sargasso of Lost Cities" and "Earthman, Come Home", is the longest book in the series. It describes the many adventures of New York under Amalfi, amongst a galaxy which has planets settled, at different periods of history, under loose control by Earth. After an economic collapse causes a galactic depression, New York ends up in a "Jungle", where Okie cities orbit a dying red giant star while waiting for work. Amalfi realises that the "Vegan Orbital Fort", a semi-mythical remnant of the previously dominant alien civilisation, is hiding among the Okies. His plan to stop the Vegans involves forcing the Okies to "march" on Earth, attracting the Vegan fort to join in the "march", and culminates in installing a spindizzy drive system on a small planet and using it to lead the march. When the march reaches Earth, a big fleet of armed Earth police ships appears from invisibility and summarily vaporises the marchers, with at least one loss in the police fleet, because it is recorded that the flying city Buda-Pesht destroyed a police monitor. A mention of the "Battle of the Jungle" may mean that the Earth Police cleanup fleet then goes to the "Jungle" and destroys all that it finds there. Amalfi takes advantage of the vastly higher speed and size of the flying planet to destroy the Vegan Orbital Fort, then flies New York away before the Earth Police can catch them.