Město, nedlouho poté

by Pat Murphy, Jakub Němeček (translator), Torgeir Fjereide (cover artist)

Po celosvětové epidemii obývá San Francisco jen hrstka malířů, sochařů a básníků. Když proti nim vytáhne mocichtivý generál pokoušející se obnovit „jeden národ“, rozhodnou se bránit tím, co umějí nejlépe – uměním. Důležitou roli v této válce sehraje dívka beze jména, která skvěle zachází s lukem a šípy a do města ji přivedl mechanický anděl…

Pozoruhodně vystavěný román oceňované autorky se podobá jen máločemu. Lze jej číst jako post-apo sci-fi s prvky fantasy, jako vyprávění v duchu magického realismu s prvky surrealismu, jako průzračně poetický příběh o lásce a smrti v kulisách legendárního města, ve kterém sama autorka trvale žije.

Genres: Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Fiction, Fantasy, Dystopia, Speculative Fiction, Magical Realism

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Pat Murphy’s latest short story collection is called "Women Up to No Good," a title that describes Pat’s attitude in general. Pat writes about strong women who are not afraid of making trouble.

Pat's fiction has won multiple awards for her science fiction and fantasy works, including the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Philip K Dick Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, and the Christopher Award. Her latest novel, "The Adventures of Mary Darling," is a historic fantasy -- a subversive take on Peter Pan (with a side helping of Sherlock Holmes). It will be out in May 2025 from Tachyon Publications.

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is about San Francisco, in the years following a plague that reduces the world's population to a tiny fraction of its former self. Unlike other books with similar premises, there is very little attention paid to the inevitable violence and disruption of such an occurrence. Instead, the focus is on the ways people successfully organize themselves to live meaningful lives. In SF, the character of this shared life is organized around spontaneous artistic expression. Perhaps the most appealing feature of the novel is the many descriptions of the whimsical ways in which the city’s inhabitants perform their art on its raw material.

Although the character of the writing is very different – this book has a large element of fantasy and sometimes feels like a fairy tale – it bears comparison with Station Eleven in that both are concerned with the role of art in the post-apocalyptic context.

[George K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Το βιβλίο το αγόρασα από το καθιερωμένο παζάρι βιβλίου πριν από σχεδόν εννιά χρόνια, αλλά να που φέτος ήρθε επιτέλους η ώρα του να το διαβάσω, στα πλαίσια των αναγνωστικών μου στόχων, ανάμεσα στους οποίους είναι να διαβάσω πολλά βιβλία του ευρύτερου Φανταστικού, αλλά και όσες περισσότερες γυναίκες συγγραφείς μπορώ (ανεξαρτήτου είδους).

Λοιπόν, τούτο το βιβλίο έπρεπε να το διαβάσω από καιρό, γιατί πραγματικά μου άρεσε πολύ. Βέβαια, ίσως καλύτερα που το διάβασα τώρα που είμαι πιο ώριμος σαν άνθρωπος και σαν αναγνώστης, και που πλέον δεν κοιτάω μονάχα την πλοκή και τη δράση, αλλά στιλ γραφής, τρόπο σκέψης, φιλοσοφικές και υπαρξιακές αναφορές, και πάει λέγοντας. Ουσιαστικά πρόκειται για ένα... χίπικο μετά-αποκαλυπτικό μυθιστόρημα, στο οποίο κυριαρχεί η ελπίδα, το χρώμα και η μαγεία. Βεβαίως, η ιστορία διαδραματίζεται πολλά χρόνια μετά από μια τρομακτική επιδημία που σκότωσε εκατομμύρια ανθρώπους και που έστειλε τον ανθρώπινο πολιτισμό αρκετά πίσω, στο επίκεντρο όμως είναι άνθρωποι με καλλιτεχνική φύση, που δεν έχουν χάσει την πίστη τους στο μέλλον και κάνουν ό,τι μπορούν για να απολαύσουν τη ζωή, έστω και σε έναν μετά-αποκαλυπτικό κόσμο γεμάτο στερήσεις και κινδύνους. Φυσικά, δεν λείπει η κακιά συνήθεια του ανθρώπου για πόλεμο και κόντρα, μιας και υπάρχει και η αντίθετη όψη του νομίσματος: Ένας πολεμοχαρής "στρατηγός" που ονειρεύεται μια ενωμένη Αμερική.

Εγώ γενικά τα μετά-αποκαλυπτικά μυθιστορήματα τα θέλω σκοτεινά και βίαια, όμως να που τελικά μπορώ να απολαύσω και κάποια πιο... χίπικα και καλλιτεχνικά, που έχουν μεταξύ άλλων και στοιχεία μαγικού ρεαλισμού και φαντασίας, αλλά και μια νότα αισιοδοξίας. Και, βέβαια, όταν η γραφή είναι τόσο ωραία, οξυδερκής και ευκολοδιάβαστη, με κάποιες πολύ όμορφες και μαγικές περιγραφές, τότε θα ήταν παράλογο να μην μείνω ευχαριστημένος.

[El · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following a plague brought on by a gesture of peace (aka monkeys), the survivors of San Francisco turn the city into an artists' colony of sorts. The fate of the city is put in the hands of a young woman, Jax, and other teenagers she meets along the course of her journey who work together to protect San Francisco from an army led by a power-hungry general.

This is a different sort of post-apocalyptic world. In other books falling in the same category there is often a lot of sparse descriptions of landscape or characters who have lost all hope for the future. This story is full of hope, full of color and magic. Certainly more fantasy than science fiction, Murphy envisions a San Francisco being rebuilt in an entirely new way by a group of visionaries who continue to believe that peace is still possible. Maybe Murphy was just a big hippie when she wrote this, but if so, she was definitely on the happy drugs. And I mean that in a good way.

[Althea Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book - the tone and concepts were just beautiful. It's a post-apocalyptic scenario infused with magical realism. After a plague spread (accidentally?) by peace-activist Buddhists, only a few survivors live amongst ruins. San Francisco has become a haven of artists, but a military cult based in Sacramento is set on forcefully establishing a new American empire. Pacifism faces down a philosophy of violent force... but primarily, this is the story of the orphaned Danny-boy and the wild girl Jax... and of the city itself, suffused with dreams and nightmares.
My only criticism is that while it's beautiful and poetic, the book paints both sides of the conflict with a broad brush, and avoids engaging some of the obvious questions (is there absolutely no crime or major conflict amongst the happy artists of San Francisco?).
Still, even though it may have limitations, it's still a lovely book.

[Cookie M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite the end of the world. Just the end of war. Peace. Are we sure it is worth the price?

[Josef Komensky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I left my heart in San Francisco !

Beautiful and poetic story with many deeper layers . An crossover between many genres.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the spiritual predecessor to Station Eleven, but with magic. Even better, it actually engages with humanity's propensity toward violence - a dystopian standby - without making it super bleak. If you ever wanted to read about what a (pre-tech boom) San Francisco would be like if it was left to the artists and freaks, I highly recommend you pick this book up.

Originally published in 1989, this book follows Jax and Danny-Boy, two young people living their lives about 16-ish years after a plague wipes out most of humanity. Jax was born the year everyone died, and Danny-Boy a few years before, and either way, Murphy gets to develop two characters unburdened by knowledge of the politics and complexities of the modern U.S.

Danny-Boy is a born artist and fits in easily among the creative types who have chosen to stay in a mostly emptied-out San Francisco. Jax must make her way to the city while experiencing more of the hardships we'd expect in a post-apocalyptic world. Behind her comes the inevitable dude and his followers: "Fourstar," a general who wants to reunite communities of people under the banner of the United States again. Whether or not they want to.

This seems like most of the book will be about this conflict, but in fact it's only the last third to quarter of it or so. The rest is given to exploring how Danny-Boy and Jax spend their time, including exploring Jax's relationship with her mother. I really enjoyed reading about how the artists "decorate" San Francisco - truly anticipating the Burning Man art installation vibe, back when Burning Man was just setting fire to an effigy on a beach.

In an afterward written by Murphy, she says she "wasn't really setting out to write about grand themes." And yet the book has a very central message about the nature of war and peace. The end leans into the symbolism a bit more than I'd like, but it's a message worth exploring, especially as the community of San Francisco sets out to "do war differently" - aided by the magic of their city.

Ultimately, this is an imaginative, contemplative book - well worth reading, especially by anyone who reads a lot of post-apocalyptic or dystopian fiction. It brings what is usually presented as a time of hugely dramatic conflict and circumstances back down to human size.

[Santiago L. Moreno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pat Murphy tiene un buen número de premios importantes (Nebula, Dick, Locus, Fantasy Award, Sturgeon...), además de ser la cofundadora del James Tiptree Jr., el gran premio de género de la cf (sobre cuyo nombre y actualidad, creo, no hay que explicar nada a estas alturas). Es autora, también, de este sorprendente y maravilloso libro. Que no haya sido reivindicada aún por ciertos sectores del fandom me resulta extraño.
La propia concepción de la novela ya es remarcable. En 1989, cuando el ciberpunk había anegado todo el lustro y se abría una década por la que asomaban la space opera y el new weird, Pat Murphy se aventuró con este postapocalíptico retro, contracorriente, netamente hippie. "La ciudad, poco después" se expresa desde la coralidad, construyendo a través de ella un canto al pacifismo y, en particular, al arte. Personajes inolvidables, descripciones coloristas y una forma de narrar que integra la historia en los campos hollados mucho antes por escritores como Simak o Bradbury, e incluso más allá, dentro del realismo mágico. Ciencia ficción de los 50 con alma de los 60 escrita al final de los 80. Una preciosidad, una maravilla de novela especialmente indicada para quienes aún conserven la capacidad de abrir su corazón.

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rereading. Original review below.

========

Never has a tale of post-apocalyptic America been so gently told. It was surprising and unusual and I'm surprised I never heard of Pat Murphy before my mother urged me to try this book.

After The Plague decimates the country, the cities are all cut off from each other. San Francisco is populated largely by artists whose whims are transforming the city into something otherworldly. When they get word that they are the next target for a military cult, they decide they will fight the war their way — with art.

This had a dreamy, fantastic quality that I really liked. I especially liked Murphy's imaginings of how artists would shape the raw material of an abandoned city to show their vision. And it is an unusual book which made me delight in the way the war was fought. Some of the attacks which repelled the conventional soldiers actually made me laugh out loud. Creative and diabolical, while still somehow remaining essentially peaceful.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Entre lo postapocalíptico se esconde el realismo mágico.-

Género. Ciencia-Ficción.

Lo que nos cuenta. En un mundo arrasado por una epidemia, San Francisco se ha convertido en refugio de personas con diferentes inquietudes artísticas y en sus solitarias calles, plagadas de obras de vanguardia, pasan cosas extrañas y fascinantes con mucha frecuencia. Una muchachita sin nombre llegará a la ciudad huyendo de un totalitarismo floreciente no muy lejos de allí y, además de encontrar un nombre para ella, Jax, descubrirá en la ciudad muchas otras cosas que no conocía mediante la interacción con sus peculiares habitantes, que tendrán que afrontar la amenaza exterior pero lo harán a su manera.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

La humanidad ha sido diezmada por una epidemia que ha acabado con uno de cada mil habitantes. Los pocos supervivientes subsisten con apenas medios tecnológicos. Y es que la humanidad ha retrocedido al siglo XIX. En la ciudad de San Francisco, un grupo de artistas e intelectuales viven felices. Hasta que un estado militarista, que pretende volver a unir a los antiguos Estados Unidos, decide hacerse con la ciudad.

‘La ciudad, poco después’ (The City, Not Long After, 1989), de la escritora Pat Murphy, es una alegato antimilitarista, con tintes de ciencia ficción post apocalíptica y realismo mágico, y algún toque de New Weird. No se trata de una novela de acción, la historia transcurre con un ritmo pausado. El principio es interesante con la protagonista y su madre alejadas del núcleo urbano. Pero cuando la trama se centra en San Francisco, todo se vuelve un tanto extraño, con situaciones intensas y emotivas, pero con una cierta falta de profundidad. No me ha gustado que la historia abandone el género para convertirse más en mainstream. En resumen, una buena novela.

[kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I'm a cynic, but this story of a post-apocalyptic SF populated by artists -- in which the artists must USE ART to fight off an invading force -- was just a little too fluffy for me. I picked it up to pass the time and it was pleasant enough, and I have to admit it did have a sort of charm, but on the whole nothing about it was especially deep or interesting -- especially given the liberal use of deus ex machina in the form of "the city dreaming" or "the city defending itself" etc. Good airplane read.

[Susan Tunis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd read this book years ago and liked it a lot. After recommending it to a friend recently, I felt the need for a nostalgic revisit. There was certainly less tension upon reread, but I was definitely reminded why I liked it in the first place. It was the depiction of my home, San Francisco, as a refuge for artists, utopians, and kooks--even after an apocalypse.

There are subtle elements of, I'd guess you'd call them magical realism, and they're used sparingly and well. (Because, if something just a bit magical was going to happen anywhere, it would totally be San Francisco.)

This novel was originally published in 1989, but with the largely post-technologic, post-pandemic setting, it doesn't really feel that dated. I don't think the prose is particularly sophisticated, but there's some lovely imagery and nice world-building. And for anyone who knows Northern California, pitting SF against Sacramento is just so hilariously on brand.

I think it's obvious that a great deal of my pleasure in this book is the San Francisco setting. The City and it's oddball citizens are depicted with such love and affection! So, do keep in mind, if you haven't left your heart in San Francisco, your mileage may vary.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pat Murphy’s novel, The City, Not Long After, is a puzzling piece of work. With generous helpings of fantasy, it doesn’t quite qualify as science fiction. Sometimes the book is categorized as a dystopian novel. Since the near-future American society Murphy depicts is in shambles because of a pandemic that took place 16 years earlier, it fits the general description of dystopian fiction. But the manner in which the pandemic occurred is fanciful in the extreme. And many of the characters find it difficult to distinguish between reality and fantasy: the future San Francisco of the novel seems to have a larger population of ghosts than of living human beings.

Here, more or less, is what happened . . .

San Francisco peace activists led by a Buddhist named Mary Laurenson launch a campaign to secure a large number of monkeys from a Tibetan monastery high in the Himalayas. These are very special monkeys—”peace monkeys.” As the prophecy goes, the monkeys will bring peace, but in an unexpected way. And so it comes to pass. The activists distribute small colonies of monkeys to major cities throughout the world: New York, Washington, Tokyo, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, and so forth. Everywhere “people welcomed them as harbingers of peace.” Unfortunately, fleas living on the monkeys transmit a deadly virus known as “the Plague” to the human population. The virus spreads worldwide, killing nearly everyone in its wake.

As the pandemic breaks out, Laurenson gives birth to a daughter. Though she learns to read and gain some understanding of human affairs from her mother, the girl grows up essentially wild. She roams free all over the countryside around Woodland, a small community near Sacramento. She learns to hunt with a crossbow, becoming a deadly shot, and to break into abandoned houses to find salvageable canned goods. Meanwhile, all around them, society is disintegrating. Small numbers of people have gathered in towns and cities. Others drift about the Earth, hostile to everyone who approaches. Somehow, a large number of soldiers—about 150, we learn later—have survived. Under the command of a self-styled general named Alexander Miles, known to most as Fourstar, they are invading the towns in Northern California as part of his plan to reconstitute “America.”

At the age of 16, Laurenson’s daughter accompanies her on a trek to San Francisco. Along the way they are stopped by one of Fourstar’s patrols. The young woman—still nameless—is released after a time, but her mother is kept for longer. The young woman finally manages to gain her mother’s release, but Laurenson has become extremely ill in captivity and soon dies. The young woman heads off alone to San Francisco, urged on by her mother shortly before her death. At the army camp, they have learned that Fourstar intends to invade the city. The young woman’s mission is to warn them.

San Francisco is a disorienting experience for the nameless young woman. She is frightened by the sheer size of the buildings and put off by the people she meets. The city’s population totals about 100, leaving her to roam unmolested virtually everywhere. In one abandoned home, she finds an old Scrabble game laid out on its board. Three letters stand out: J-A-X. She immediately resolves to take Jax as her name.

Jax finds the people of the city unconcerned about Fourstar’s planned invasion. Most of them are artists of one sort or another. Danny-boy is a painter whose canvas is the city itself: the big project he soon undertakes is to paint the Golden Gate Bridge blue and invite graffiti artists including Snake, Mercedes, and others to express themselves on the bridge’s pillars and cables—but only in shades of blue. The Machine is a young man, the son of a deceased robotics engineer, who believes he himself is a machine created by his father. The boy is a mechanical genius and spends his time scavenging for materials to construct solar-powered metallic insects and other robotic creatures as well as a robocopter he flies all around the city. Ms. Migsdale is a former school librarian who had lived along before the Plague. She publishes the city’s occasional newspaper, the New City News, and tosses cryptic and mysterious messages in bottles into the Pacific in hopes of getting a response. Ms. Migsdale spends a lot of time with an obsessive man named Books, a former senior research librarian at the San Francisco Library. Though slow to warm to these people, Jax eventually becomes friendly with many of them, especially with Danny-boy. At length, she moves in with him in the St. Francis Hotel suite Danny-boy has claimed as his own.

When it becomes clear that Fourstar’s invasion is imminent, Jax is unable to persuade Danny-boy and the others to defend themselves by meeting the army in combat. They insist on doing things their own way, as artists. When the invasion actually occurs, she reluctantly agrees to their plan. Now, with astonishing creativity, the people of San Francisco baffle and frustrate the soldiers and their leader by refusing to exchange shots with them, even though they have ample arms in the city. Instead,they adopt a plan Jax has devised: one by one, sneaking up on individual sentries and members of patrols, they anesthetize the troops and paint the word “DEAD” on each of their foreheads, autographing the work on the soldiers’ cheeks. Meanwhile, others have built barricades and mazes, and The Machine has used his robocopter to bomb the army with stink bombs and other annoyances.

Eventually, once more than a third of the soldiers are marked “dead,” it becomes clear that someone will have to label the general himself—or kill him outright, as Jax wants to do. Sneaking behind the army’s lines through tunnels and storm drains, Jax succeeds in getting into the room where Fourstar is sleeping. Against her better judgment, she simply uses ether to immobilize him and mark him “dead” like the others. When escaping, however, she is seen by an army patrol. She manages to elude capture only because The Machine, flying overhead, crashes into the soldiers in a suicide mission to save her. Undone by the death of her friend, Jax wanders unthinkingly all over the city. Eventually, she is captured by troops and taken to the general, who orders her death by hanging.

On the gallows the following morning, with the noose around her neck and Fourstar by her side, a shot rings out from a nearby rooftop. The general collapses, dead. But the shooter, who turns out to be Danny-boy, acting entirely against his pacifist principles, is himself shot dead by troops near the gallows. Jax, freed from the noose, manages to persuade the troops to end the war. Some will join the people of the city, and others will simply leave.

Life goes on in the city, and Jax lives to an old age.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rereading this sweet post-plague story in San Francisco, where the book is set, rings strange and ironic. Would that a colony of artists could defend the city from invaders (the contemporary version would be the deranged rightwing protests to 'open the city' i.e. force other workers to put themselves at risk to accommodate them).

While that comparison be not be spot-on, others are. The various characters make art out of a sort of spontaneous inspiration (contemporary version: the numerous murals painted on boarded-up storefronts and the dozens of local online fundraisers for artists and arts nonprofits).

The story is part magical, part practical. Ghosts haunt the empty homes and office buildings. How do the few various survivors get on, and get along? How do they counter an inane fascist horde? Butterflies, paint, solar-powered robots and peaceful community-built empathy work for the characters in this book. Murphy's realistic and combined metaphoric story has become, in a way, quite prescient.

For the most part (excluding the real-life dopes still gathering in public without face masks) that's true here and now in San Francisco... except for the robots, which would be a nice addition.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

rec'd as optimistic post-apoc.
*Potentially the best of the early returns on the request!
----
Listening, about five hours in. Lots of cliched writing that an editor should have caught. Lots of reliance on mashing up tropes. But some original and interesting ideas, too. I guess I'll go ahead and continue, as I see it's not too much longer....

edit: just noticed that it's from 1989... maybe this was actually the origin of a few of the tropes... :shrug:
----
Finished. I often forget to write reviews of audiobooks promptly because I listen to them on the road and don't have the book itself to remind me, so I def. forget some details of this. I do think of it often, though, and have recommended a few specific times. It did get better edited, and much more interesting... and the climax is special. I recommend it to you if you're interested in something just a little bit different.... Btw, it does not feel dated at all, imo.

[Vít · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're going to San Francisco,
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
If you're going to San Francisco,
You're gonna meet some gentle people there...

Potěšilo mě, že "flower power" pořád žije a má svoje místo i v dystopických knížkách. Moc se mi to líbilo, je to krásná poetická knížka o tom, že pero (a trocha té marihuany) opravdu tu a tam může být mocnější meče, byť samozřejmě každé vítězství něco stojí. Krásně se to čte, je to zajímavé a originální, postavy jsou živé a každá z nich je osobnost. Možná jsou všichni mírně ujetí, ale jsou sví. Takový Stroj mě svým příběhem naprosto dostal, ten byl pro mě asi nejzajímavější z obránců San Francisca. Úplně ho vidím, s tou jeho třetí rukou a kovovými dětmi kolem sebe...

[Fantasy boy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The City, Not Long After is a book has post apocalyptic background. The story barely has Sci Fi Elements, using Apocalyptic setting to tell a world finally had peace after the plague spread. However, the General Miles, Fourstars had different ideas about peace, and he accused San Francisco is guilty for the plague. So that he declared the war and invaded the city San Francisco to fight with the people who has been living there since the plague happened. The protagonist, Jax who was looking for her mother in San Francisco also delivered the messages to the people In San Francisco that the war is coming.

I like the book describe an artist city after the plague, life living in a post apocalyptic world. The writing is brilliantly depict nature without the demolishment by human’s hand. People tried to rebuilt or innovate new things to adapt to the new environment. Although this book has the normal settings which are being used in post apocalyptic world, and scarcely has Sci Fi elements in it. The story is not very novel to me.

6.75 out of 10.

[Orla Hegarty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading this over 3 years ago in the specialty sci fi library in Toronto (http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/me...). You could only read it on site and I didn't finish it before I moved out of the city.

I occasionally searched for it online to buy and it was never available until recently - it is years out of print and probably only had a limited run.

A feminist friend who was also a sci fi junkie recommended it to me back in 2013.

I wish this sort of fantasy/sci-fi had been more readily available to me when it was published (late 80s). It is a fantastical tale with many layers of plot. And also very fun...especially if you've had the good fortune (like me) to visit San Fran during a similar time period to this book (pre silicon valley days) .

[Bettielee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well- add this to my rapidly expanding top-shelf-loves. This was just amazing. I want to urge any of you young’uns that like the Dystopia genre to check this out. The genre is actually a hard one to nail down because it’s definitely post-apocalyptic, which a dystopian can be. And there is definitely a dystopian state up North, but what is going on in San Francisco is more of a Utopian vibe - and they fight to keep the Dystopians off! However -there are some fantasy/magical-realism elements as well.

This ticks so many boxes for me. First of all - I’m from San Francisco, I still live in the Bay Area, and this is a big ol’ post-apocalyptic love letter to the people and the spirit of San Francisco, lovingly referred to as “the city” by locals. SF is a small city - something nearly everyone that comes to visit mentions. Even so, it’s hard to imagine a place that held millions of people having only a few hundred in it. What is no surprise is that those people are artists. The city has become a giant art project. Art and expression and how it affects and changes us is a huge and beautiful part of this novel.

The fellow we spend most of our time with is Danny-boy, who lives in a hotel in San Francisco. He grew up among the abandoned buildings, still full of the detritus of the earlier time, as well as ghosts and memories that still live in the city. There is a pivotal exchange between Danny-boy and a man named Duff who is a businessman that runs a sort of armers market to bring the artists of the city and their scavenged/reimagined items or inventions and the farmers and merchants outside the city together to trade goods. Duff is disgusted by the way the people in the city treat it. He thinks what the artists are doing is a waste of time. He keeps saying if people could just get together they could “do something”. Danny-boy is like, what would you want us to do? It comes down to the argument over art vs trade. There will always be people who see art as a waste, and people who see not making/performing/doing art as a waste. It’s from this buggaboo that Danny gets the idea of painting the Golden Gate bridge blue.

The reason there are so few people is because of the plague. It began in major cities and spread outward, decimating the world’s population. However, San Francisco was the epicenter and some places still hold the city responsible. Our teenagers in the book were born around the time of the plague, so it’s been 15-17 years after that the story takes place. The first person we meet is a teenage girl who has no name. Her mother believes that an angel offered to help her deliver the baby, if allowed to name it. However, the angel didn’t remember or had other plans, and didn’t leave a name for the baby! Afraid to bring the angel’s ire down on her family, she simply doesn’t name her. Our Girl does find a name, so I’m going to call her Jax. Jax grows up wild and mistrustful of other people. Her mother is haunted by what happened during the plague and is distant. I mentioned the dystopian part of the story - that is where Jax lived. She basically ends up having to leave, and her mom wanted her to go to San Francisco and warn them that the General (the despot in charge of their city-state) is going to invade.

There are a lot of themes in this book: the value of art, the transformative nature of items, belonging in society, and the the nature of war. The plague, we learn, started in some sort of attempt to bring peace to the world. I don’t want to give too much away about that, but when war comes to the remaining people of San Francisco, it has to be fought differently than it ever has before. Jax tries to tell everyone they have to kill their enemy, that is the way of the world. But Danny-Boy says no we don’t, we make the world what it is. He didn’t want to lower himself and become the thing that he hated. The war stuff is just amazing good fun. In the beginning, when it’s mostly good times and artistic expression, we hear all about the art installations ranging throughout the city, described with this haunting, beautiful prose. I knew we had a war brewin’, and I was afraid that fun experience, that joy and beauty was going to be lost, but the inventive way they fight and deal with the general and his men is amazing.

There are a lot of magical elements, weird dreamy things that happen and one or two slight instances of deus ex machina. I found that easy to absorb with the rest of the story, if a little unusual. You don’t usually see magical elements in dystopia/utopian stories. The city itself is a living, breathing character and it will work for or against people.

This is a beautiful, lyrical read, with wonderful characters. If you happen to be an artist, or someone with a great passion in your life that is occasionally shit on by other people, I think you would really like this and be inspired. The imagery in this book is just amazing.

If you want to see pictures, I have this on my tumblr: http://bettieleetwo.tumblr.com/post/1...

[heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book because Pat Murphy is a guest at Fogcon, and because it's about San Francisco. I really enjoyed it. I am not really bothered by post-apocalyptic books, but I am bothered by dystopian books (I can read them, but I seldom choose to). This books is post-apocalyptic but not at all dystopian. It's magical realism after everything and nothing has changed.

In some ways, I wish I'd read this before I'd ever read Dhalgren. There are a lot of superficial similarities, themes about coming of age and bridges and crystals and fog and violence and sex. I couldn't help thinking of and contrasting them as I read along. But in the end, The City, Not Long After is a profoundly hopeful book about both nonviolence and stepping away from one's principles in times of crisis.

I liked most of the characters, and laughed at General "Miles" as the most apropos name possible, although I originally misread it as General Mills, which was also funny. Danny-boy was especially appealing -- simple and loving, but not stupid. The city is also a beautiful and animate character.

The magical realism was well-handled. It could be easy to make it schmaltzy, but it wasn't, and I thought that was pretty impressive for a book where someone's tears turned into butterflies that turned into paint. There were some stumbles of predictability -- i resented the obligatory sacrifice-of-self-for-LUV, but it was at least more joyful than emo. It is also odd to read a post-apocalyptic book written in the 80's. The cold war was still everpresent, but there were typewriters in offices, and Macy's had a NOTIONS COUNTER. You know, like you could still buy things to sew at department stores. Wow. It's nothing anyone can avoid when they destroy the world in their own time, it's just an artifact, but while all the rest of the story was pretty immediate for me, I kept running a sort of ethnography on the world-that-was.

On the whole, I would probably never have picked this book up on my own, but I'm very glad that I read it.

Read if: You would like a future of poets and painters and librarians. You are a fan of magical realism. You are interested in what happens when pacifists go to war.

Skip if: You are actually looking for the grim meathook future. You will find magical fogs and glass mazes twee and annoying. You have plague issues. Wandering through houses with dead people would skeeve you out.

[Shel]

Artists wage a creative turf war in post-apocalyptic San Francisco and paint the Golden Gate Bridge blue as butterfly wings.

Writers read this for: strong, effective use of theme...anything an artist creates, however impermanent, changes themselves and therefore changes the world..."When you make something beautiful, you change. You put something of yourself into the thing you make. You're a different person when you're done."

Quotes at the opening of Part 2 "The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street"

"A general definition of civilization: a civilized society is exhibiting the five qualities of truth, beauty, adventure, art, peace." — Alfred North Whitehead

"We are mad in a very different way." — Max Ernst

[MD · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would probably only give this a 2 or 3 except that it's set in San Francisco and I really enjoyed actually being able to place the action in physical space. (It mentions the building where I work - twice!) It's just not my usual taste in science fiction - I've read some magical realism I've enjoyed, but not much. That and the ending are the reasons I would have given it fewer stars otherwise. I was initially a little put off by the idea that after an apocalypse nearly every surviving San Franciscan would be, or become, an artist but I did like the ingenuity and playfulness of the action that afforded.

[David Hefesto · Rating 4 out of 5]

De las mejores novelas post-apocalípticas que he leído (y no son pocas). Me ha parecido muy poética, de principio a fin. Esos toques fantásticos que a mí en la ciencia ficción no suelen decirme mucho, aquí me han parecido perfectos e imprescindibles.
Una novela tristemente poco conocida y que merecería estar por delante de títulos como ''el cartero'', ''caminando hacia el fin del mundo'' o ''Deus Irae''.

[Jean Labrador · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and Insightful

When I first started this book, I almost put it down as one not for me, but then a girl with a crossbow entered the narrative. I was hooked. This girl with no name began a journey, a quest that led her to a dream city and to friends she had never had before. The book had several characters who continue to puzzle and enchant long after the book is completed. I highly recommend this book.

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Distractions and the fact that I misplaced the paperback for a while kept me from finishing this one quickly. When I did finish, however, it left me feeling wistful, hopeful, and wanting to roam the nooks and crannies of San Francisco. Even though the book is a couple of decades old, the description of all the familiar spots in the city - as well as interesting thoughts about triumph of art, ingenuity and determination over violence and domination - are as relevant as ever.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very very enjoyable novel. Sort of sneaks up on you and hits you. I loved the way things unfolded. Hints leading finally to disclosure. I'm not a big fan of magical realism for the most part, but I very much enjoyed the way it played out in this. Excellent and will reread at some point.

[jaroiva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ach, nemám slova. Úžasná kniha.
San Francisco, jak ho neznáte. Ráda jsem se do něj vrátila i v té postapokalyptické době.

[Nadine in California · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for an IRL book group. A post-apocalyptic community of artists use their art to defend San Francisco (population 50) against an invading army (population 150) led by a self-styled General. Written in the late 80's but with a definite 70's sensibility,plus elements of magical realism, which worked for me 90% of the time. Most of the novel is about the post-apocalyptic life of the characters, rural and urban, and I liked it better than the final war, which strayed into YA territory. Interestingly for a book with an anti-war message, the apocalyptic plague was introduced by American peace activists who imported monkeys from a Buddhist monastery in Nepal into the US as a symbol of peace.

[Shaxx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Povedený žánrový mix, kde se mísí postapo s fantaskními prvky, kapkou magického realismu a surrealismu. Je to asi nejmilejší postapo svět, co jsem kdy četla. Svět, ve kterém v San Franciscu žijí převážně umělci z různých sfér, kteří na stav ohrožení reagují tím, co jim jde nejlépe – uměním. Stejně tak město je jeden velký, živoucí organismus, který si nehodlá do sebe jen tak pustit vetřelce. Závěrečný střet vojenské síly s „flower power“ byl téměř až humorný a milý. Zajímavé dílo. Jen mě trochu mrzelo, že samotné postavy nedostaly trochu více prostoru, aby s nimi čtenář mohl ještě chvilku pobýt, protože byly zajímavé, zejména třeba takový Stroj.