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City at World's End
A surprise nuclear war may cause the End of the World, but not the way anyone could have imagined.
"Terrific... Mark Nelson’s narration is super-listenable... very keen Science Fiction." - SFFaudio
Approx. 7 hours
"Terrific... Mark Nelson’s narration is super-listenable... very keen Science Fiction." - SFFaudio
Approx. 7 hours
Audiobook
First published January 1, 1950
346 people are currently reading
1080 people want to read
About the author
Edmond Hamilton
1,026 books137 followersEdmond Moore Hamilton was a popular author of science fiction stories and novels throughout the mid-twentieth century. Born in Youngstown, Ohio, he was raised there and in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania. Something of a child prodigy, he graduated high school and started college (Westminster College, New Wilmington, Pennsylvania) at the age of 14--but washed out at 17. He was the Golden Age writer who worked on Batman, the Legion of Super-Heroes, and many sci-fi books.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 198 reviews
June 16, 2017
Written near the dawn of the Cold War era and soon after mankind first became aware of the fearful possibilities of the atom bomb, "City at World's End" yet remains both highly readable and grippingly entertaining today, more than 65 years after its initial appearance. Edmond Hamilton's book initially appeared as a "complete novel" in the July 1950 issue of the pulp magazine "Starling Stories," was released in hardcover the following year, and, in '53, appeared again in the pages of "Galaxy." (Personally, I just finished reading the 35-cent Crest Giant paperback from 1957.) Hamilton, who was already 46 when he wrote this tale, had been a published author since 1926, and already had countless hundreds of short stories, novellas and novels under his spacebelt (I invite you to look up his bibliography online, such as on the Internet Speculative Database; you will be flabbergasted, trust me!) before he penned this 1950 affair. His marriage to the so-called "Queen of Space Opera," Leigh Brackett, in 1946, only served to polish and refine his authorial technique, by his own admission. Thus, with the benefit of almost 25 years' worth of unremitting practice and the input of what Hamilton later called his "kindest of critics," the pulpmaster was able to come up with a genuinely well-written winner.
The novel strains the reader's credulity in its opening pages, but if you can get past them alright, and buy into the central premise, you'll be home free. In "City at World's End," the reader is introduced to the small city of Middletown, in Anywhere, U.S.A.; a burg of some 50,000 souls going about their business on a beautiful June morning. What the citizens of Middletown don't know, however, is that its local industrial laboratory is actually the secret working site of a group of atomic physicists, which makes the otherwise undistinguished locale a prime target in a potential war. And before the citizenry is even aware of it, a so-called "super atomic" is exploded right over their heads, knocking one and all off their feet. And that's all! As the populace dusts itself off, it is noticed that the air is now very much colder, and that the sun has changed to a gloomy-looking red ball in the heavens. The moon is now enormous, the stars are visible in the daytime sky, and the lab scientists, by analyzing those changed star patterns, soon come to realize the impossible truth: The city of Middletown has somehow been blown, via a rift in the time-space continuum, millions of years into Earth's future!
In the book's first section, Dr. John Kenniston and fellow physicist Hubble explore their devastated surroundings, only to discover an abandoned city protected by a hemispherical dome. As a means of sheltering themselves from the killing cold, an organized migration is effected, relocating the 50,000 Middletowners into the abandoned metropolis, which is dubbed New Middletown. In the book's next section, men from outer space, representing the League of Stars, arrive near New Middletown in response to its radioed pleas for assistance; these Earthmen of the future and their alien shipmates help get New Middletown going but then insist on evacuating the 20th century community to another, more livable world, much against the wishes of the old-fashioned folk. Thus, in "City at World's End"'s next section, it is up to Kenniston, as the city's representative, to go to the galaxy's capital world near Vega and plead his neighbors' case before the Board of Governors. And before he knows it, he has also become embroiled in a plot involving the futuristic scientist Jon Arnol, who claims to have invented an "energy bomb" that can revive a dying planet....
Writing in his "Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction," Scottish critic David Pringle says of Hamilton's book that it is "an exciting tale full of standard space-opera elements--old-fashioned, implausible but full of pulp verve," and I suppose that this is absolutely so. As for me, I really did enjoy Hamilton's work here. "City at World's End" contains that elusive "sense of wonder" that was held at such a high premium in Golden Age sci-fi. That sense of wonder is never more apparent than when Kenniston first gazes at the stars of deep space from the spaceship Thanis ("It was one thing to read and talk and speculate on flying space. It was another and much more frightening thing to do it, to step off the solid Earth, to rush and plunge and fall through the worldless emptiness...."), and when he first steps foot on the Vegan capital world. But Hamilton also manages to communicate that cosmic spirit of awe when the abandoned city under the dome is first explored (in a scene strangely reminiscent of the investigation of the domed alien city in Wylie & Balmer's 1935 classic "After Worlds Collide"), and when the Middletowners espy their first nonhuman aliens (although the bearlike Gorr Holl from Capella and the catlike Magro from Spica ultimately become fast friends and allies of Kenniston).
Hamilton, who over the course of his Golden Age career had destroyed so many planets in his stories that he soon acquired the nickname "The World Wrecker" for himself, here shows an interest in figuring out a way to save a moribund Earth that is in its final death throes, and Arnol's gizmo for doing so is a fascinating one. The author intersperses other surprising twists into his novel, as well. For example, Kenniston's relationships with his girlfriend, Carol, and with the female alien administrator from Vega, Varn Allan, do not take the paths that the reader might expect. The people of Earth, rather than leaping at the chance to be rescued and to zoom off to a greener, warmer planet picked out especially for them, instead opt to stay on their dying homeworld. The children of Middletown, instead of being scared and intimidated by the imposing nonhumans, are the first to (literally) embrace them. Piers Eglin, the kindly Vegan historian, ultimately reveals himself to be something of a weasel. Bertram Garris, the pudgy, cowardly and often quite foolish mayor of Middletown, is later shown capable of some distinct leadership abilities, while the ultracool and capable Varn is shown to have some unsuspected depths. As does Kenniston himself at one point, quoting from Herman Melville's third novel, 1849’s "Mardi," by heart.
Hamilton's writing style here, as always, is simple yet effective; a highly readable style that sweeps the reader along from one cliff-hanging chapter to the next. "City at World's End" is nobody's idea of fine literature, of course, but pulp sci-fi surely doesn't get too much better. The author makes some flubs here and there (for example, Varn is initially described as being "tall and lithe"; 50 pages later, she is a "prim little figure"), but most readers will never notice or even care, as Hamilton whisks them breathlessly along. Maybe not with the force of a "super atomic" tearing through the time-space continuum, but pretty powerfully, still....
(By the way, this review initially appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Edmond Hamilton....)
The novel strains the reader's credulity in its opening pages, but if you can get past them alright, and buy into the central premise, you'll be home free. In "City at World's End," the reader is introduced to the small city of Middletown, in Anywhere, U.S.A.; a burg of some 50,000 souls going about their business on a beautiful June morning. What the citizens of Middletown don't know, however, is that its local industrial laboratory is actually the secret working site of a group of atomic physicists, which makes the otherwise undistinguished locale a prime target in a potential war. And before the citizenry is even aware of it, a so-called "super atomic" is exploded right over their heads, knocking one and all off their feet. And that's all! As the populace dusts itself off, it is noticed that the air is now very much colder, and that the sun has changed to a gloomy-looking red ball in the heavens. The moon is now enormous, the stars are visible in the daytime sky, and the lab scientists, by analyzing those changed star patterns, soon come to realize the impossible truth: The city of Middletown has somehow been blown, via a rift in the time-space continuum, millions of years into Earth's future!
In the book's first section, Dr. John Kenniston and fellow physicist Hubble explore their devastated surroundings, only to discover an abandoned city protected by a hemispherical dome. As a means of sheltering themselves from the killing cold, an organized migration is effected, relocating the 50,000 Middletowners into the abandoned metropolis, which is dubbed New Middletown. In the book's next section, men from outer space, representing the League of Stars, arrive near New Middletown in response to its radioed pleas for assistance; these Earthmen of the future and their alien shipmates help get New Middletown going but then insist on evacuating the 20th century community to another, more livable world, much against the wishes of the old-fashioned folk. Thus, in "City at World's End"'s next section, it is up to Kenniston, as the city's representative, to go to the galaxy's capital world near Vega and plead his neighbors' case before the Board of Governors. And before he knows it, he has also become embroiled in a plot involving the futuristic scientist Jon Arnol, who claims to have invented an "energy bomb" that can revive a dying planet....
Writing in his "Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction," Scottish critic David Pringle says of Hamilton's book that it is "an exciting tale full of standard space-opera elements--old-fashioned, implausible but full of pulp verve," and I suppose that this is absolutely so. As for me, I really did enjoy Hamilton's work here. "City at World's End" contains that elusive "sense of wonder" that was held at such a high premium in Golden Age sci-fi. That sense of wonder is never more apparent than when Kenniston first gazes at the stars of deep space from the spaceship Thanis ("It was one thing to read and talk and speculate on flying space. It was another and much more frightening thing to do it, to step off the solid Earth, to rush and plunge and fall through the worldless emptiness...."), and when he first steps foot on the Vegan capital world. But Hamilton also manages to communicate that cosmic spirit of awe when the abandoned city under the dome is first explored (in a scene strangely reminiscent of the investigation of the domed alien city in Wylie & Balmer's 1935 classic "After Worlds Collide"), and when the Middletowners espy their first nonhuman aliens (although the bearlike Gorr Holl from Capella and the catlike Magro from Spica ultimately become fast friends and allies of Kenniston).
Hamilton, who over the course of his Golden Age career had destroyed so many planets in his stories that he soon acquired the nickname "The World Wrecker" for himself, here shows an interest in figuring out a way to save a moribund Earth that is in its final death throes, and Arnol's gizmo for doing so is a fascinating one. The author intersperses other surprising twists into his novel, as well. For example, Kenniston's relationships with his girlfriend, Carol, and with the female alien administrator from Vega, Varn Allan, do not take the paths that the reader might expect. The people of Earth, rather than leaping at the chance to be rescued and to zoom off to a greener, warmer planet picked out especially for them, instead opt to stay on their dying homeworld. The children of Middletown, instead of being scared and intimidated by the imposing nonhumans, are the first to (literally) embrace them. Piers Eglin, the kindly Vegan historian, ultimately reveals himself to be something of a weasel. Bertram Garris, the pudgy, cowardly and often quite foolish mayor of Middletown, is later shown capable of some distinct leadership abilities, while the ultracool and capable Varn is shown to have some unsuspected depths. As does Kenniston himself at one point, quoting from Herman Melville's third novel, 1849’s "Mardi," by heart.
Hamilton's writing style here, as always, is simple yet effective; a highly readable style that sweeps the reader along from one cliff-hanging chapter to the next. "City at World's End" is nobody's idea of fine literature, of course, but pulp sci-fi surely doesn't get too much better. The author makes some flubs here and there (for example, Varn is initially described as being "tall and lithe"; 50 pages later, she is a "prim little figure"), but most readers will never notice or even care, as Hamilton whisks them breathlessly along. Maybe not with the force of a "super atomic" tearing through the time-space continuum, but pretty powerfully, still....
(By the way, this review initially appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Edmond Hamilton....)
August 9, 2015
I read this years ago & it was pretty good. Listening to it as an audio book read by Mark Nelson was a treat. Nelson is as good as most of the commercial readers out there & by far the best Librivox narrator I've ever listened to. He's read a lot of books in this genre, too. It's worth searching for his books. They're free on Librivox.org
https://librivox.org/reader/251?prima...
as are some of Hamilton's books on Gutenberg.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/autho...
Hamilton is a latter day ERB in my mind. His novels are short, interesting, & move quickly. In this one, a midwest town of the Cold War era is blown out of time by a super atomic bomb. 1950's values in a world very reminiscent of ERB's Barsoom have to adapt. There's a fairly common galactic setting & a young man torn between what was & what is. Fairly simple thematically, predictable in plot, it was still a lot of fun. A blast from the past & it might really be appropriate today when so many others are facing future shock, a term Toeffler didn't come up with for 15 years after this book was written, I believe.
https://librivox.org/reader/251?prima...
as are some of Hamilton's books on Gutenberg.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/autho...
Hamilton is a latter day ERB in my mind. His novels are short, interesting, & move quickly. In this one, a midwest town of the Cold War era is blown out of time by a super atomic bomb. 1950's values in a world very reminiscent of ERB's Barsoom have to adapt. There's a fairly common galactic setting & a young man torn between what was & what is. Fairly simple thematically, predictable in plot, it was still a lot of fun. A blast from the past & it might really be appropriate today when so many others are facing future shock, a term Toeffler didn't come up with for 15 years after this book was written, I believe.
June 18, 2021
Estamos en la pequeña ciudad de Middletown, cuando de repente se produce un gran resplandor, como si una bomba atómica hubiera estallado. Sin embargo, todo sigue en pie, alguna persona ha sufrido un pequeño shock, pero poco más. Pero la gente más avispada sí nota cambios, como que el Sol está más apagado, casi extinto, y hace más frío. Y las estrellas ya no están en la misma posición que antes. Kenniston, que trabaja de manera encubierta en un laboratorio dedicado a investigaciones atómicas, tiene claro que algo extraño ha sucedido, seguramente resultado de una bomba superatómica. Hubble, compañero de Kenniston, lo tiene casi claro: toda Middletown ha sido desplazada millones de años en el futuro.
‘La ciudad en el fin del mundo’ (The City at World’s End, 1950), de Edmond Hamilton, tiene un principio de esos que atrapan, investigando junto a los protagonistas qué puede haber sucedido, y qué puede haber más allá de las fronteras de la ciudad. La primera mitad es francamente buena, después se vuelve más tópica, pero no por ello aburrida.
‘La ciudad en el fin del mundo’ (The City at World’s End, 1950), de Edmond Hamilton, tiene un principio de esos que atrapan, investigando junto a los protagonistas qué puede haber sucedido, y qué puede haber más allá de las fronteras de la ciudad. La primera mitad es francamente buena, después se vuelve más tópica, pero no por ello aburrida.
April 24, 2016
Up until recently, I have to confess that I had not heard of Edmond Hamilton (even though I most likely read some of his work on The Legion of Super-Heroes in my childhood). Having come across some people raving about this book at a Forum, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy and I am certainly glad that I did.
It is a very enjoyable book, which while clearly marked by its time (the 50s) still holds up and keeps surprising the reader. I do not want to reveal too much, since half the fun is seeing the way the story develops, but let me say that the basis for the story is a catastrophe, in the form of a nuclear explosion, affects the 1950s American town of Middletown in ways one could hardly have foreseen, and that we as readers get to follow protagonist Kenniston on a journey stranger than he (or I) could have anticipated.
Highly recommended!
It is a very enjoyable book, which while clearly marked by its time (the 50s) still holds up and keeps surprising the reader. I do not want to reveal too much, since half the fun is seeing the way the story develops, but let me say that the basis for the story is a catastrophe, in the form of a nuclear explosion, affects the 1950s American town of Middletown in ways one could hardly have foreseen, and that we as readers get to follow protagonist Kenniston on a journey stranger than he (or I) could have anticipated.
Highly recommended!
June 1, 2021
OH PUKE!
This is one of the worst Sci-Fi books I've ever read! The idea is interesting, but the story is pure crap. I read it because my husband recommended it, but it turned out that he hasn't really read it, he uses the audiobook as sleeping aid, because Mark Nelson, who reads the book, has such a nice, warm, soothing voice.
It's incredibly sexist. I know it was written (published) 1950, so the values were different, but if Edgar Allan Burroughs can write less sexist books, you understand that this was sexist even for 50s. I reacted already at "nice ankles", but "the inability of the female mind to grapple with the essentials of a situation" couldn't be ignored. It didn't get any better after that.
The people are all a-holes. Bigoted, belligerent, narrow minded, hysterical idiots. Even the children are nasty. They come to this brilliant white futuristic town, and what do the children do? Make noise and start vandalizing the city. And that's all right by the adults.
Now, this description of people supports all my preconceived notions about USonians, so I can imagine it was kind of realistic, but the author doesn't seem to have written it as a social critique... he seems to think that's how people are, and it's all right, and there's nothing one can do to change it. In fact, a couple of times the aliens admire how "brave" the people are for fighting against the Star Council's decision to evacuate them.
I somewhat liked the aliens, and Varn Allan, and Carol, too. Everyone else was crap.
And even these people were cheapened by Gary Stew, because OF COURSE they all liked him, the girls swooned over him, and everyone thought he was the bee's knees (even though I have to giggle at "your primitive scientist brain cannot understand how this thing works, so I won't even try to explain it to you". With other words, Edmond didn't have the slightest idea of how his idea would work.)
This is one of the worst Sci-Fi books I've ever read! The idea is interesting, but the story is pure crap. I read it because my husband recommended it, but it turned out that he hasn't really read it, he uses the audiobook as sleeping aid, because Mark Nelson, who reads the book, has such a nice, warm, soothing voice.
It's incredibly sexist. I know it was written (published) 1950, so the values were different, but if Edgar Allan Burroughs can write less sexist books, you understand that this was sexist even for 50s. I reacted already at "nice ankles", but "the inability of the female mind to grapple with the essentials of a situation" couldn't be ignored. It didn't get any better after that.
The people are all a-holes. Bigoted, belligerent, narrow minded, hysterical idiots. Even the children are nasty. They come to this brilliant white futuristic town, and what do the children do? Make noise and start vandalizing the city. And that's all right by the adults.
Now, this description of people supports all my preconceived notions about USonians, so I can imagine it was kind of realistic, but the author doesn't seem to have written it as a social critique... he seems to think that's how people are, and it's all right, and there's nothing one can do to change it. In fact, a couple of times the aliens admire how "brave" the people are for fighting against the Star Council's decision to evacuate them.
I somewhat liked the aliens, and Varn Allan, and Carol, too. Everyone else was crap.
And even these people were cheapened by Gary Stew, because OF COURSE they all liked him, the girls swooned over him, and everyone thought he was the bee's knees (even though I have to giggle at "your primitive scientist brain cannot understand how this thing works, so I won't even try to explain it to you". With other words, Edmond didn't have the slightest idea of how his idea would work.)
May 19, 2012
Audiobook.
Be careful reading other Goodreads reviews for this novel as some toss spoilers out in their questions or dissatisfaction with the plot.
That said, I am 6 chapters in (listening via narrator Mark Douglas Nelson's SciPodBooks podcast which releases a chapter a week) and am fascinated by this story. Yes, as others have noticed, it does reflect the societal attitudes of the 1950s in which it was written. Ok. What do they expect?
Looking past that, though, is the "end of the world" concept which is undertaken in a surprising way. And I didn't think I could be surprised by such things anymore, here in the future 60 or so years later. I am really interested to see how this tale proceeds as it seems to me to be an impossible situation.
FINAL
I was won over by this story's old-school sf charm and also as a look at "primitives" versus the "civilized" ... really a great read. And one that has more food for thought than many might think.
Be careful reading other Goodreads reviews for this novel as some toss spoilers out in their questions or dissatisfaction with the plot.
That said, I am 6 chapters in (listening via narrator Mark Douglas Nelson's SciPodBooks podcast which releases a chapter a week) and am fascinated by this story. Yes, as others have noticed, it does reflect the societal attitudes of the 1950s in which it was written. Ok. What do they expect?
Looking past that, though, is the "end of the world" concept which is undertaken in a surprising way. And I didn't think I could be surprised by such things anymore, here in the future 60 or so years later. I am really interested to see how this tale proceeds as it seems to me to be an impossible situation.
FINAL
I was won over by this story's old-school sf charm and also as a look at "primitives" versus the "civilized" ... really a great read. And one that has more food for thought than many might think.
January 14, 2009
Fascinating read - both the concept (which I'll leave to the reader to discover) and the amusing thoughts on what the future will be like as perceived by someone in the 1950's. Some interesting messages in the book about sentimentality, fear and happiness. I certainly enjoyed it.
July 21, 2018
This is nice old-fashioned science fiction novel from Edmond Hamilton. It has the time-and-space-sprawling-cosmic-sweep-grandeur thing going for it, though it isn't as much fun as the Captain Future books or as fast-paced and adventurous as the Star Wolf novels. It would have made a good movie in the 1950's, though it hasn't aged well; the relationship between the protagonist and his wife is particularly wince-worthy.
February 4, 2023
Re-reading this made me remember why I've loved science fiction ever since I was twelve or so. Passages like this, old-fashioned and romantic, no doubt:
"He stood on an alien world, under an alien Sun, and all around him was the rush and clangor of the starport, where the great ships came and went across the galaxy. Somehow here, more than in space, he caught the reality of that incredible commerce that plied between the farthest Suns, that knew the shining trails among the nebulae and the deadly currents of the stardrifts, and the infinite numbers of ports on infinite nameless worlds. Something in him rose up in mingled awe and pride, remembering that men of Earth had first voyaged across the unknown seas to these star-fringed shores of the universe….Man and woman and humanoid, silken clothing and furry hides and backs humped with wings, voices human and nonhuman, alien music that jarred his nerves, throb of hidden machines, and over all the deep humming from the sky that told of more and more starships dropping down through the deepening dusk."
"He stood on an alien world, under an alien Sun, and all around him was the rush and clangor of the starport, where the great ships came and went across the galaxy. Somehow here, more than in space, he caught the reality of that incredible commerce that plied between the farthest Suns, that knew the shining trails among the nebulae and the deadly currents of the stardrifts, and the infinite numbers of ports on infinite nameless worlds. Something in him rose up in mingled awe and pride, remembering that men of Earth had first voyaged across the unknown seas to these star-fringed shores of the universe….Man and woman and humanoid, silken clothing and furry hides and backs humped with wings, voices human and nonhuman, alien music that jarred his nerves, throb of hidden machines, and over all the deep humming from the sky that told of more and more starships dropping down through the deepening dusk."
May 24, 2012
-Spoilers-
Ok. Let me make a disclaimer before starting this review: This was standard 1950’s scifi pulp. If you expect more from it than that, you fail for being ridiculous, not the book. :D
Things I loved: Absolutely ridiculous premise that a super atomic bomb can launch a small town millions/billions of years into the future with no other consequences than its just chilling out on a dying earth (ignore the development of disease, bacteria, and you know, possible damage to humans when travelling through a giant rift in space/time). Pseudo-science (or whats a step below pseudo-science?) like this is why I LOVE pulp scifi.
Things I liked: 1950’s humans don’t get along with space-humans, but get along fine with what appear to be crustaceans and werewolfs from other planets. Hamilton is usually very xeno friendly in his scifi. I appreciate this about him. It denotes a strange hopefulness that someday we could get along with people that are vastly different from us, written in a time when KKK and other despicable organizations were raging race wars.
Things I didn’t like: Even for the time Hamilton tends to be a bit more misogynist than other authors. I tried not to let this detract from my enjoyment of the book, but it did lead to cardboard characters, which I do have an issue with. In one hand he tries to grant equality to space-human female, noting her intelligence and her position of authority in the Federation of Star, then takes that away with the other hand but noting later that she is just another weepy female. I feel like Hamilton was confused. You see the same double-sided issue to females in his other work The Stars, My Brothers.
Things that confused me: Why the humans refused to move to a new planet.
Still standard pulp scifi, and I felt a thoroughly entertaining read. Not the best of the genre from the time, but if you’ve gotten through everything else Hamilton is worth a listen. I would recommend starting with The Stars, My Brothers, I enjoyed it more. Still three stars to this for providing me with several hours of brain-vacation.
This book was read by my absolute favorite Librivoxer Mark Nelson. Truly professional quality.
Ok. Let me make a disclaimer before starting this review: This was standard 1950’s scifi pulp. If you expect more from it than that, you fail for being ridiculous, not the book. :D
Things I loved: Absolutely ridiculous premise that a super atomic bomb can launch a small town millions/billions of years into the future with no other consequences than its just chilling out on a dying earth (ignore the development of disease, bacteria, and you know, possible damage to humans when travelling through a giant rift in space/time). Pseudo-science (or whats a step below pseudo-science?) like this is why I LOVE pulp scifi.
Things I liked: 1950’s humans don’t get along with space-humans, but get along fine with what appear to be crustaceans and werewolfs from other planets. Hamilton is usually very xeno friendly in his scifi. I appreciate this about him. It denotes a strange hopefulness that someday we could get along with people that are vastly different from us, written in a time when KKK and other despicable organizations were raging race wars.
Things I didn’t like: Even for the time Hamilton tends to be a bit more misogynist than other authors. I tried not to let this detract from my enjoyment of the book, but it did lead to cardboard characters, which I do have an issue with. In one hand he tries to grant equality to space-human female, noting her intelligence and her position of authority in the Federation of Star, then takes that away with the other hand but noting later that she is just another weepy female. I feel like Hamilton was confused. You see the same double-sided issue to females in his other work The Stars, My Brothers.
Things that confused me: Why the humans refused to move to a new planet.
Still standard pulp scifi, and I felt a thoroughly entertaining read. Not the best of the genre from the time, but if you’ve gotten through everything else Hamilton is worth a listen. I would recommend starting with The Stars, My Brothers, I enjoyed it more. Still three stars to this for providing me with several hours of brain-vacation.
This book was read by my absolute favorite Librivoxer Mark Nelson. Truly professional quality.
February 9, 2013
Imagine just going about the day with your usual procedures, then suddenly you've been catapulted some centuries into the future... Well these are the adventures of the people from a small community called Middletown. After a nuclear explosion, from which the town is strangely spared, everyone ends up about a million years ahead of the time they know and they re seeing the rest of earth dying around them... But soon they meet some advanced races and their only thoughts are those of survival...
August 1, 2008
I loved this novel the first time I read it as a young man. I own two copies and have read it about half a dozen times. Recommended.
March 19, 2022
I loved loved loved the first third of the book. Despite having been written more than 70 years ago, the originality of the main idea, the character portraits, and the deep understanding of the human psyche drew me in immediately.
As for the rest of it, I could've done without those later plot lines and would've been content to read only about the people of Middletown. I just don't think some of the ideas presented made much sense and it was obvious the writing was carried by certain central notions that overrode other plot considerations (of which there were plenty). All in all, still an enjoyable read with unexpected depth. Definitely an important forerunner to many later major sci-fi works.
As for the rest of it, I could've done without those later plot lines and would've been content to read only about the people of Middletown. I just don't think some of the ideas presented made much sense and it was obvious the writing was carried by certain central notions that overrode other plot considerations (of which there were plenty). All in all, still an enjoyable read with unexpected depth. Definitely an important forerunner to many later major sci-fi works.
October 16, 2023
what an absolutely charming mid-century sci-fi. City at World's End is deeply American and patriotic in its ideology even without the presence of the United States millions of years into Earth's future. as other reviewers have said, once you get past the initial premise of an atomic bomb sending a small town into the future, this book is a fun but grounded sci-fi story that explores the animalistic tendency to cling to old ways even when they might stunt survival. don't expect any women with real personalities, though!
August 6, 2019
review of
Edmond Hamilton's City at World's End
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 4-6, 2019
Of course, after the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, many writers, esp SF writers, wrote extrapolatory tales about future horrors to be anticipated if such bombings were to continue.
"Kenniston realized afterward that it was like death. You knew you were going to die someday, but you didn't believe it. He had known that there was danger of the long-dreaded atomic war beginning with a sneak punch, but he hadn't really believed it." - p 7
Well, yeah, it happens, over Kenniston's small town where he & his coworkers are doing secret military research unknown to the townspeople — including Kenniston's fiancée.
""Yes, the bomb," said Hubble. "A force, a violence, greater than any ever known before, too great to be confined by the ordinary boundaries of matter, too great to waste its strength on petty physical destruction. Instead of shsttering buildings, it shattered space and time."" - pp 14-15
Yep, you read it here, instead of annhilating the town it moved it into a far-distant future where more or less nothing of the world it had existed in existed anymore. Robert Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold (1964) has a similar plot:
"Farnham's Freehold is a post-apocalyptic tale. The setup for the story is a direct hit by a nuclear weapon, which sends into the future a fallout shelter containing Farnham, his wife, son, daughter, daughter's friend, and domestic servant." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnham...
City at World's End is from 1961. I wonder if Henlein took any inspiration from it for Farnham's Freehold. If he did, he added plenty of sex. City at World's End's characters jump to ill-supported conclusions:
"Kenniston raised his head. "Yes. Dead and gone, all of them, long ago." He looked around the beautiful buildings. "You know what that means, Hubble. It means that Earth won't support human life any more. For even in this domed city they couldn't live."" - p 30
Sheesh. They've only been blown into the future for a very brief while & the protagonist is already sure there's no one else left alive on the entire planet, blah, blah. I will say that this plot whips right along. They've discovered an abandoned future city & the 20th century Middle Americans move into it.
"Kenniston had gone two of the long squares, sunk in his disturbed thoughts, before he realized that a change had come into the streets. He tried to think what it was. People were more in the buildings now, and less in the cars, but that was not all of it. There was something . . .
"The streets had suddenly come alive.
"The children had done it. Overawed at first by the strangeness and the silence and the behavior of their elders, it had slowly dawned upon them that here was a whole great city lying ready to their hands—fabulous empty buildings full of mysteries and treasures, new streets, new narrow ways behind them, all virgin territory to be explored." - p 50
Yes, the rug rats. Who wd've ever thought they'd be good for something. Of course, the next thing you know, a space ship from off-planet appears just when everyone was starting to feel comfy.
""Look!" cried Crisci. "Look at it!"
"They turned, there at the portal. And Kenniston saw now that the downward rush of the black visitant upon them had been only an illusion born of its bigness. For the thing, whatever it was, humming like a million tops, was settling upon the plain a half-mile from New Middletown. Sand spumed up wildly to veil the great bulk, then fell away and disclosed it resting on the plain.
"It was, Kenniston saw instantly, a ship. Bud Martin's description had been accurate. The thing looked for all the world like a gigantic submarine without a conning tower, that had come down out of the sky to land upon the plain." - p 66
Of course, what it really was was a giant cup of coffee w/ enuf milk in it to empty out a whole herd of cows. "Are you sure that's the biggest size you have?", Kenniston asked the delivery being, "I've got a shitload of work to do."
The delivery being "discovered one day that he was working besides the humanoids as naturally as though he had always done it. It no longer seemed strange that Magro, the handsome white-furred Spican was an electronics expert whose easy unerring work left Kenniston staring.
"The brothers, Ban and Bal, were masters at refitting. Kenniston envied their deftness with outworn parts, the swift ease with which their wiry bodies flitted batlike among the upper levels of the towering machines, where it was hard for men to go." - p 82
But, coffee being the laxative party that it is, the people have to move along.
"Gorr Holl nodded to that. "Oh, yes. Whenever life on some planet becomes economically unsound, or the margin of survival is too small, the Governors evacuate the people to a better world. There are lots of them, good warm fertile planets that are uninhabited or nearly so. They did it to some of my own people, moved them from Capella Five to Aldebaran."
"Kenniston cried out of his anger, "And the people let that be done to them? They didn't even resist it?"
"Gorr Hall said, "People—human people, I mean—have got millions of years of civilization behind them. They're used to peaceful government, used to obedience, and they've been moving from world to world ever since they left Earth ages ago, so that one planet doesn't mean much to them. But the primitive humanoid folk, lately civilized, like my own and Magro's, aren't so reasonable. There's been a good bit of resentment among them about this evacuation business. In fact, they hate it—just as much as you do."" - pp 86-87
So what's the back-story here? Are these people speaking in euphemisms? Once the Earth's humanoid population got to be 20 billion the 'evacuation' problem got to be crucial. All feces was being dumped in rivers. Mourners wd put a burning corpse raft on the Ganges & the river wd set fire from the methane. Eventually, it just stayed that way. Then the worm-hole was discovered. It wasn't known where it went to but all fecal matter got redirected there. The worm-hole got redubbed the 'shit-hole'. Of course, the waste material was needed to keep the Earth fertile so the Earth dried up toute suite. Enter our Middle Americans thrust into a dry future. Anyway, our future ancestors had a bad feeling about where they might be evacuated to. Call it intuition but they didn't want to end up on the crappier side of the universe.
"Garris forgot oratory, in his indignation. He sputtered, "If they think we are going to move away from Earth to some crazy world out in the sky, they're badly mistaken! You make that clear to them!"
"Varn Allen looked [honestly] bewildered, when Kenniston did. "But surely you people don't want to stay in the cold and hardship of this dying world?"" - p 90
Well, Kenniston decides to appeal to the Governors for the Earthlings to be allowed to stay on their planet. Naturally, he has to pack.
"The nightmare unreality of it hit Kenniston again as he hastily got his few necessaries together. It was just like packing for an overnight run to Pittsburgh or Chicago, instead of for a trip across the galaxy. It couldn't be really going to happen. . ." - p 109
All sorts of things happen, they plug the giant coffee maker into the Earth's core & the next thing ya know all the problems are solved even if it's obvious coffee is only a temporary solution. Will the ensuing laxative party necessitate reopening the shit-hole? Read the bk & don't find out.
Edmond Hamilton's City at World's End
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 4-6, 2019
Of course, after the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, many writers, esp SF writers, wrote extrapolatory tales about future horrors to be anticipated if such bombings were to continue.
"Kenniston realized afterward that it was like death. You knew you were going to die someday, but you didn't believe it. He had known that there was danger of the long-dreaded atomic war beginning with a sneak punch, but he hadn't really believed it." - p 7
Well, yeah, it happens, over Kenniston's small town where he & his coworkers are doing secret military research unknown to the townspeople — including Kenniston's fiancée.
""Yes, the bomb," said Hubble. "A force, a violence, greater than any ever known before, too great to be confined by the ordinary boundaries of matter, too great to waste its strength on petty physical destruction. Instead of shsttering buildings, it shattered space and time."" - pp 14-15
Yep, you read it here, instead of annhilating the town it moved it into a far-distant future where more or less nothing of the world it had existed in existed anymore. Robert Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold (1964) has a similar plot:
"Farnham's Freehold is a post-apocalyptic tale. The setup for the story is a direct hit by a nuclear weapon, which sends into the future a fallout shelter containing Farnham, his wife, son, daughter, daughter's friend, and domestic servant." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnham...
City at World's End is from 1961. I wonder if Henlein took any inspiration from it for Farnham's Freehold. If he did, he added plenty of sex. City at World's End's characters jump to ill-supported conclusions:
"Kenniston raised his head. "Yes. Dead and gone, all of them, long ago." He looked around the beautiful buildings. "You know what that means, Hubble. It means that Earth won't support human life any more. For even in this domed city they couldn't live."" - p 30
Sheesh. They've only been blown into the future for a very brief while & the protagonist is already sure there's no one else left alive on the entire planet, blah, blah. I will say that this plot whips right along. They've discovered an abandoned future city & the 20th century Middle Americans move into it.
"Kenniston had gone two of the long squares, sunk in his disturbed thoughts, before he realized that a change had come into the streets. He tried to think what it was. People were more in the buildings now, and less in the cars, but that was not all of it. There was something . . .
"The streets had suddenly come alive.
"The children had done it. Overawed at first by the strangeness and the silence and the behavior of their elders, it had slowly dawned upon them that here was a whole great city lying ready to their hands—fabulous empty buildings full of mysteries and treasures, new streets, new narrow ways behind them, all virgin territory to be explored." - p 50
Yes, the rug rats. Who wd've ever thought they'd be good for something. Of course, the next thing you know, a space ship from off-planet appears just when everyone was starting to feel comfy.
""Look!" cried Crisci. "Look at it!"
"They turned, there at the portal. And Kenniston saw now that the downward rush of the black visitant upon them had been only an illusion born of its bigness. For the thing, whatever it was, humming like a million tops, was settling upon the plain a half-mile from New Middletown. Sand spumed up wildly to veil the great bulk, then fell away and disclosed it resting on the plain.
"It was, Kenniston saw instantly, a ship. Bud Martin's description had been accurate. The thing looked for all the world like a gigantic submarine without a conning tower, that had come down out of the sky to land upon the plain." - p 66
Of course, what it really was was a giant cup of coffee w/ enuf milk in it to empty out a whole herd of cows. "Are you sure that's the biggest size you have?", Kenniston asked the delivery being, "I've got a shitload of work to do."
The delivery being "discovered one day that he was working besides the humanoids as naturally as though he had always done it. It no longer seemed strange that Magro, the handsome white-furred Spican was an electronics expert whose easy unerring work left Kenniston staring.
"The brothers, Ban and Bal, were masters at refitting. Kenniston envied their deftness with outworn parts, the swift ease with which their wiry bodies flitted batlike among the upper levels of the towering machines, where it was hard for men to go." - p 82
But, coffee being the laxative party that it is, the people have to move along.
"Gorr Holl nodded to that. "Oh, yes. Whenever life on some planet becomes economically unsound, or the margin of survival is too small, the Governors evacuate the people to a better world. There are lots of them, good warm fertile planets that are uninhabited or nearly so. They did it to some of my own people, moved them from Capella Five to Aldebaran."
"Kenniston cried out of his anger, "And the people let that be done to them? They didn't even resist it?"
"Gorr Hall said, "People—human people, I mean—have got millions of years of civilization behind them. They're used to peaceful government, used to obedience, and they've been moving from world to world ever since they left Earth ages ago, so that one planet doesn't mean much to them. But the primitive humanoid folk, lately civilized, like my own and Magro's, aren't so reasonable. There's been a good bit of resentment among them about this evacuation business. In fact, they hate it—just as much as you do."" - pp 86-87
So what's the back-story here? Are these people speaking in euphemisms? Once the Earth's humanoid population got to be 20 billion the 'evacuation' problem got to be crucial. All feces was being dumped in rivers. Mourners wd put a burning corpse raft on the Ganges & the river wd set fire from the methane. Eventually, it just stayed that way. Then the worm-hole was discovered. It wasn't known where it went to but all fecal matter got redirected there. The worm-hole got redubbed the 'shit-hole'. Of course, the waste material was needed to keep the Earth fertile so the Earth dried up toute suite. Enter our Middle Americans thrust into a dry future. Anyway, our future ancestors had a bad feeling about where they might be evacuated to. Call it intuition but they didn't want to end up on the crappier side of the universe.
"Garris forgot oratory, in his indignation. He sputtered, "If they think we are going to move away from Earth to some crazy world out in the sky, they're badly mistaken! You make that clear to them!"
"Varn Allen looked [honestly] bewildered, when Kenniston did. "But surely you people don't want to stay in the cold and hardship of this dying world?"" - p 90
Well, Kenniston decides to appeal to the Governors for the Earthlings to be allowed to stay on their planet. Naturally, he has to pack.
"The nightmare unreality of it hit Kenniston again as he hastily got his few necessaries together. It was just like packing for an overnight run to Pittsburgh or Chicago, instead of for a trip across the galaxy. It couldn't be really going to happen. . ." - p 109
All sorts of things happen, they plug the giant coffee maker into the Earth's core & the next thing ya know all the problems are solved even if it's obvious coffee is only a temporary solution. Will the ensuing laxative party necessitate reopening the shit-hole? Read the bk & don't find out.
March 20, 2020
I am giving this book only 1 star because of its sexist content. And that's a shame because the story was kind of... acceptable, considering that it's a 50's sci-fi.
I absolutely hated the author's demeaning manner towards women throughout the entire book. His female characters were hysterical, wailing, too irrational, and their feeble minds were incapable of grasping the seriousness of the situation. And there were only 2 women in the main plot: one was a stupid human who understood nothing and was included only because she was the love interest of the main character and the other was an alien female whom everyone detested and resented because she had authority and was mostly referred to as the blonde which just goes to show that the author was a sexist whose only interest in women did not go far beyond the color of their hair and eyes.
Other than that, the story was promising at first but ended disappointingly, and I still don't see the sense in the humans' fight to stay on a dying earth. We're literally spending billions to find a way to get out, and they had that chance for free and they said no? The board's goal was clearly to preserve species so the whole resistance part was irritating me and failed to please me.
Would NOT recommend this book or even read anything else by Hamilton.
I absolutely hated the author's demeaning manner towards women throughout the entire book. His female characters were hysterical, wailing, too irrational, and their feeble minds were incapable of grasping the seriousness of the situation. And there were only 2 women in the main plot: one was a stupid human who understood nothing and was included only because she was the love interest of the main character and the other was an alien female whom everyone detested and resented because she had authority and was mostly referred to as the blonde which just goes to show that the author was a sexist whose only interest in women did not go far beyond the color of their hair and eyes.
Other than that, the story was promising at first but ended disappointingly, and I still don't see the sense in the humans' fight to stay on a dying earth. We're literally spending billions to find a way to get out, and they had that chance for free and they said no? The board's goal was clearly to preserve species so the whole resistance part was irritating me and failed to please me.
Would NOT recommend this book or even read anything else by Hamilton.
August 25, 2010
City at World's End by Edmond Hamilton was an interesting book, though not one that I would recommend. It was egregiously flawed in its attitude towards women, portraying them as not mentally capable of rigorous thought. It is no wonder that boys who were born in the 40s had horrible images of women if this was the line they were fed. The writing was pedestrian, though nowhere near as bad as some of the contemporary novels that I've read lately.
The story was engaging. It contained aspects of time-travel and meeting of other races. Interestingly, it wasn't xenophobic. The evil race in the future is us, though not all of us. The humanoid races, there were none that weren't, were more good. And of course good and evil was very black and white. There are aspects of the plot that are extremely contrived. Still, the storyline was fun.
I read it because it was free in an app called Free Books on the iPad. If it weren't free, I wouldn't recommend it. Despite the story and adequate writing, it can only get two stars with its sad attitude towards women.
The story was engaging. It contained aspects of time-travel and meeting of other races. Interestingly, it wasn't xenophobic. The evil race in the future is us, though not all of us. The humanoid races, there were none that weren't, were more good. And of course good and evil was very black and white. There are aspects of the plot that are extremely contrived. Still, the storyline was fun.
I read it because it was free in an app called Free Books on the iPad. If it weren't free, I wouldn't recommend it. Despite the story and adequate writing, it can only get two stars with its sad attitude towards women.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 24, 2016
I absolutely love 1950's sci-fi movies. The cheesier the better. So it really shouldn't surprise me how much I loved this book but, for some reason it does. Let's get this out of the way - the writing isn't the best, it's completely small town 1950's, the sexism is both hilarious and offensive at the same time, and the author gives too little credit to people - humanity - for their adaptability. But all that said, I was hooked on the first page and enjoyed ever single turn of the page until the last.
I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Edmond Hamilton might have come up with the concept of Chewbacca.
I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Edmond Hamilton might have come up with the concept of Chewbacca.
Read
June 7, 2020Plaisant à lire (belle écriture) certes mais vieillot avec la culture du Happy End qui enlève de la tension au récit : pas de vrais méchants même les ET sont 100 % anti violence ...
Il y a certainement d'autres récits sur des villes qui sont projetées dans d'autres périodes ou isolées du monde extérieur décrivant les réactions des habitants Je pense par ex /
à Manhattan Transfer de Stith, John E.
à l'inévitable Under the Dome par Stephen King
à Spin de Robert Charles Wilson- bien que j'ai préféré Blind Lake;
ou encore àMarooned In Real Time de Vernor Vinge et j'en oublie ... récits qui donnent une vision plus réaliste de la nature humaine !
AVIS aux amis GR : Je suis preneur de conseil de lectures dans le genre avec une touche SF ...
Il y a certainement d'autres récits sur des villes qui sont projetées dans d'autres périodes ou isolées du monde extérieur décrivant les réactions des habitants Je pense par ex /
à Manhattan Transfer de Stith, John E.
à l'inévitable Under the Dome par Stephen King
à Spin de Robert Charles Wilson- bien que j'ai préféré Blind Lake;
ou encore àMarooned In Real Time de Vernor Vinge et j'en oublie ... récits qui donnent une vision plus réaliste de la nature humaine !
AVIS aux amis GR : Je suis preneur de conseil de lectures dans le genre avec une touche SF ...
August 25, 2018
A small city in the Midwest is suddenly projected into the future by an atomic explosion. The population find themselves on a planet with a dying sun. When a spaceship offers to evacuate them to a different planet, the people refuse.
This is a quick and interesting read, but I had problems with attitudes. The survivors are a backward, provincial society with antiquated attitudes about gender role models. Like the role models I grew up with and happily left behind. So I had to check the copyright date. 1951.
This is more a what-if novel, short on character development, especially when it comes to crowds and females. Written in 1951, I see we've come a long way, baby.
This is a quick and interesting read, but I had problems with attitudes. The survivors are a backward, provincial society with antiquated attitudes about gender role models. Like the role models I grew up with and happily left behind. So I had to check the copyright date. 1951.
This is more a what-if novel, short on character development, especially when it comes to crowds and females. Written in 1951, I see we've come a long way, baby.
April 28, 2022
I enjoyed the image I conjured up in my mind from the telling of this story, very 50’s sci fi tropes that kept me entertained. The problem I found with this book is the first half was quite enthralling however it suffers pacing issues towards the end of the book and doesn’t end on such a high note. Entertaining, if a small bit tedious through the second half.
February 9, 2023
A total surprise! Once you accept the opening premise, this is a wonderful read. The characters are well developed, the story crisp in action. Tension builds and the story expands beyond what seems to be a closed worldscape. The ending surprised me, which I enjoyed. One line by a character sets the future in a very different direction. My goodness, I enjoyed this.
March 25, 2020
Atomic Age sci fi about a midwestern American town sent into the harsh world of the far future. Kind of a chilling thing to be reading during a pandemic that's drastically altered everyday life. Very well-written, but there's some stiffnes in the text that feels like a product of it's age.
February 3, 2022
Really enjoyed this story! The time period in which it was written offered a different view of "home" and that perspective was quite refreshing. I was cheering at the end. Highly recommend.
March 15, 2018
This is a really old one which I read. Although it is listed as an audiobook, I don't do those. I need the pages to turn. I enjoyed although it did seem dated. But then so am I.
May 13, 2024
An Excellent Anthology of Hamilton Classics
Whether he describes vampire frog warriors on a planet draining the blood of its prisoners for nourishment or erect Crocodile warriors on Mars plotting to invade Earth by radio signals, Edmond Hamilton manages to keep you gnawing on your knuckles as his suspenseful tales unfold. Hamilton tells his tales with lean, mean prose. He knows how long to let the suspense stretch out until everything breaks.
Whether he describes vampire frog warriors on a planet draining the blood of its prisoners for nourishment or erect Crocodile warriors on Mars plotting to invade Earth by radio signals, Edmond Hamilton manages to keep you gnawing on your knuckles as his suspenseful tales unfold. Hamilton tells his tales with lean, mean prose. He knows how long to let the suspense stretch out until everything breaks.
September 3, 2024
HG WELLS MEETS TWILIGHT ZONE
What a disappointment this book was. It started out as a haunting, HG Wells/Twilight Zone tale about the futility of all our human endeavors and aspirations… But quickly devolved into the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but without the humor.
As you can tell from the dust jacket of the book, the small American town of Middleton is blasted 1 million years into the future by a super-atomic explosion. The 50,000 inhabitants are suddenly stranded in earth devoid of humans, with barely any life, and a sun that has grown cold. Their hopes are momentarily kindled when they find a nearby city under a dome… only to be dashed again upon discovering that the city is deserted. No sign of human habitation whatsoever.
This is all very creepy and haunting. It reminded me of that part in HG Wells’s “The Time Machine” where the protagonist travels to the far distant future to discover an earth that is barely recognizable, and what he sees fills him with despair.
Our heroes must find a way of keeping the community from tearing itself to pieces, fighting over limited and dwindling resources. They decide their best move is to relocate to the deserted city. This section of the story is not done well at all. There is neither food nor water in the city, although it is marginally less cold than Middleton, but relocating 50,000 people to a city with no food or water seems like a ridiculous plan that was not well thought out at all. Nevertheless, up to this point all of this seems pretty good as far as the story goes. There is a quaint and adorable assumption that “scientists” are the modern equivalent of the clergy, and the bulk of the population accepts their explanations and conclusions quite readily… Which is an interesting insight into the mindset of the early 1950s.
HYSTERICAL WOMEN AND MASTERFUL MEN
There is also a kind of relentless hostility towards women in the story, with the narrator voicing his irritation at “the inability of the female mind to grapple with the essentials of a situation”, another guy protesting that he did not imagine that spaceship flying across the sky by saying “I’m not a hysterical woman“, and how the hero, in an effort to calm down his girlfriend “grabbed her with a rough, male masterfullness”.
All of this struck me as funny and silly, but did not derail the story for me. It is only when the spaceship shows up that everything began to go sideways. Turns out that the radio signals Middleton had been broadcasting, caught the attention from future humans living in a distant star. The delegation from Star Command (or whatever their galactic government is called) shows up, and this is where we find ourselves in a completely different story. No longer are we in an HG Wells novel. Suddenly we find ourselves in a ridiculous space opera, where humans have left earth to spread across the stars… and this is where the writer loses the plot entirely.
POST APOCALYPSE MAYBERRY
See, here’s the thing. Up until now, the story felt like a tale about how petty and insignificant all our hopes and fears are when faced with a vast, uncaring universe, and the immense stretches of time in the face of which all of our accomplishments dwindle into insignificance. Shelly’s “Ozymandias“, basically. But now, when the future humans arrive, suddenly the story feels like we are in the “Andy Griffith Show“ in space. The humans from the future look and act like caricature bureaucrats from the department of education or something. Apparently evolution has come to an end, because these humans look, sound and act pretty much like us.
In any event, you would think that the residents of Mayberry/Middleton would be delighted to be rescued, but no. They are silly, bitter, hostile and endlessly complain about these weird people who just came down to “our city” from across the stars. They are horrified and menacing towards the jolly, furry humanoid alien (who looks like Chewbacca) with the humans from the future.
At this point, I would’ve expected the author to be making a commentary about how provincial, bigoted and ridiculous the residents of Middleton are… But no. Turns out he is presenting them as heroic. The bad guys are the future humans, who are trying to relocate the humans to a warmer planet and to make them citizens of the Galactic Federation. Horrified at the idea of leaving earth (even though they will die if they stay), the Middletonians pick up arms and decide to go to war against the Galactic Empire. Throughout all of this, it is simply taken for granted that the Middletonians are noble, honorable and correct in their fight against the intergalactic oppressors… who want to save their lives by relocating them to a nicer planet.
MAKE EARTH GREAT AGAIN!
There is a little bit more nuance in the story than the way I have described it, but not much. The mayor and the residents of the town are a bit histrionic and crass in their approach to things, and the scientist protagonist is much more levelheaded… but ultimately they all agree. The message seems to be “when confronted with the choice of doing things the way you have always done them, or going forth and discovering the wonders of the galaxy and a super advanced Star-faring civilization, the choice is clear: stay put. Who needs all that fancy book learning anyway?”
This is all very strange, and as far as I can tell, the author seems to be making an argument against progress and the New Deal. The novel was written in 1951, the anti-communist hysteria was just getting started, and there is no evidence of it in this book. However, there is a great deal of suspicion and hostility towards “government bureaucracy“, even though the bureaucrats are for the most part well meaning. Most of all, the Middletonian’s hostility to change and progress, even at the expense of their own lives, is presented as heroic, not as reactionary, backwards bigotry.
UNDER THE DOME
On an interesting aside, as I was reading the beginning of this book it reminded me of Stephen King‘s “Under the Dome“. I wondered if King had read this novel and was inspired to write his own version of it decades later… And then I come across a chapter in the 1951 book called “Under the Dome“. Fascinating. There is also something in this story that is very reminiscent of Ray Bradbury “The Martian Chronicles“, although Bradbury comes to exactly the opposite conclusions than this author does.
HYSTERICAL MALES
The writers absolute panic regarding women in charge verges on the hysterical. He is constantly making references to the female mind, and its inability to handle facts rationally. I thought he was going to turn around and make some kind of feminist point when the leader of the future humans delegation turns out to be a strong, intelligent woman… but no. Instead, she ends up being the foil of the protagonist, stubbornly insisting that the Middletonians relocate (otherwise they will die), but in the end she succumbs to the hero’s manly dominance and collapses tearfully into his arms like the helpless little girl she deep down is.
CONCLUSION
All in all, a book that started with great promise, but quickly devolved into a silly but interesting example of the mindset of America in the early 1950s.
What a disappointment this book was. It started out as a haunting, HG Wells/Twilight Zone tale about the futility of all our human endeavors and aspirations… But quickly devolved into the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but without the humor.
As you can tell from the dust jacket of the book, the small American town of Middleton is blasted 1 million years into the future by a super-atomic explosion. The 50,000 inhabitants are suddenly stranded in earth devoid of humans, with barely any life, and a sun that has grown cold. Their hopes are momentarily kindled when they find a nearby city under a dome… only to be dashed again upon discovering that the city is deserted. No sign of human habitation whatsoever.
This is all very creepy and haunting. It reminded me of that part in HG Wells’s “The Time Machine” where the protagonist travels to the far distant future to discover an earth that is barely recognizable, and what he sees fills him with despair.
Our heroes must find a way of keeping the community from tearing itself to pieces, fighting over limited and dwindling resources. They decide their best move is to relocate to the deserted city. This section of the story is not done well at all. There is neither food nor water in the city, although it is marginally less cold than Middleton, but relocating 50,000 people to a city with no food or water seems like a ridiculous plan that was not well thought out at all. Nevertheless, up to this point all of this seems pretty good as far as the story goes. There is a quaint and adorable assumption that “scientists” are the modern equivalent of the clergy, and the bulk of the population accepts their explanations and conclusions quite readily… Which is an interesting insight into the mindset of the early 1950s.
HYSTERICAL WOMEN AND MASTERFUL MEN
There is also a kind of relentless hostility towards women in the story, with the narrator voicing his irritation at “the inability of the female mind to grapple with the essentials of a situation”, another guy protesting that he did not imagine that spaceship flying across the sky by saying “I’m not a hysterical woman“, and how the hero, in an effort to calm down his girlfriend “grabbed her with a rough, male masterfullness”.
All of this struck me as funny and silly, but did not derail the story for me. It is only when the spaceship shows up that everything began to go sideways. Turns out that the radio signals Middleton had been broadcasting, caught the attention from future humans living in a distant star. The delegation from Star Command (or whatever their galactic government is called) shows up, and this is where we find ourselves in a completely different story. No longer are we in an HG Wells novel. Suddenly we find ourselves in a ridiculous space opera, where humans have left earth to spread across the stars… and this is where the writer loses the plot entirely.
POST APOCALYPSE MAYBERRY
See, here’s the thing. Up until now, the story felt like a tale about how petty and insignificant all our hopes and fears are when faced with a vast, uncaring universe, and the immense stretches of time in the face of which all of our accomplishments dwindle into insignificance. Shelly’s “Ozymandias“, basically. But now, when the future humans arrive, suddenly the story feels like we are in the “Andy Griffith Show“ in space. The humans from the future look and act like caricature bureaucrats from the department of education or something. Apparently evolution has come to an end, because these humans look, sound and act pretty much like us.
In any event, you would think that the residents of Mayberry/Middleton would be delighted to be rescued, but no. They are silly, bitter, hostile and endlessly complain about these weird people who just came down to “our city” from across the stars. They are horrified and menacing towards the jolly, furry humanoid alien (who looks like Chewbacca) with the humans from the future.
At this point, I would’ve expected the author to be making a commentary about how provincial, bigoted and ridiculous the residents of Middleton are… But no. Turns out he is presenting them as heroic. The bad guys are the future humans, who are trying to relocate the humans to a warmer planet and to make them citizens of the Galactic Federation. Horrified at the idea of leaving earth (even though they will die if they stay), the Middletonians pick up arms and decide to go to war against the Galactic Empire. Throughout all of this, it is simply taken for granted that the Middletonians are noble, honorable and correct in their fight against the intergalactic oppressors… who want to save their lives by relocating them to a nicer planet.
MAKE EARTH GREAT AGAIN!
There is a little bit more nuance in the story than the way I have described it, but not much. The mayor and the residents of the town are a bit histrionic and crass in their approach to things, and the scientist protagonist is much more levelheaded… but ultimately they all agree. The message seems to be “when confronted with the choice of doing things the way you have always done them, or going forth and discovering the wonders of the galaxy and a super advanced Star-faring civilization, the choice is clear: stay put. Who needs all that fancy book learning anyway?”
This is all very strange, and as far as I can tell, the author seems to be making an argument against progress and the New Deal. The novel was written in 1951, the anti-communist hysteria was just getting started, and there is no evidence of it in this book. However, there is a great deal of suspicion and hostility towards “government bureaucracy“, even though the bureaucrats are for the most part well meaning. Most of all, the Middletonian’s hostility to change and progress, even at the expense of their own lives, is presented as heroic, not as reactionary, backwards bigotry.
UNDER THE DOME
On an interesting aside, as I was reading the beginning of this book it reminded me of Stephen King‘s “Under the Dome“. I wondered if King had read this novel and was inspired to write his own version of it decades later… And then I come across a chapter in the 1951 book called “Under the Dome“. Fascinating. There is also something in this story that is very reminiscent of Ray Bradbury “The Martian Chronicles“, although Bradbury comes to exactly the opposite conclusions than this author does.
HYSTERICAL MALES
The writers absolute panic regarding women in charge verges on the hysterical. He is constantly making references to the female mind, and its inability to handle facts rationally. I thought he was going to turn around and make some kind of feminist point when the leader of the future humans delegation turns out to be a strong, intelligent woman… but no. Instead, she ends up being the foil of the protagonist, stubbornly insisting that the Middletonians relocate (otherwise they will die), but in the end she succumbs to the hero’s manly dominance and collapses tearfully into his arms like the helpless little girl she deep down is.
CONCLUSION
All in all, a book that started with great promise, but quickly devolved into a silly but interesting example of the mindset of America in the early 1950s.
Want to read
February 1, 2017This book started well and had so much promise. Perhaps if it had been written more recently its potential could have been realised.
In short The City at World's End is just plain depressing. The mc is a depressing pessimist, the setting is depressing, the writing is depressing. Nonetheless I pushed on until chapter six when the author threw down this line regarding the mc's irritation at his fiancé because of the "inability of the female mind to grapple with the essentials of a situation".
Now I get that the book was written in a different era, when a woman's place was in the home. But really! Did the author have to present all the women in his book as hysterical simpletons?
The really frustrating thing is I'm going to keep encountering this. I'm dependent on audiobooks for a lot of my reading, and I can't afford to buy them. So it's off to the public domain I go. And apparently there are two roles for women in public domain sci fi (on the rare occasion the author notices that there is more than one sex) - the helpless female, and the sex symbol.
Sigh. This has been a depressing review of a depressing book.
In short The City at World's End is just plain depressing. The mc is a depressing pessimist, the setting is depressing, the writing is depressing. Nonetheless I pushed on until chapter six when the author threw down this line regarding the mc's irritation at his fiancé because of the "inability of the female mind to grapple with the essentials of a situation".
Now I get that the book was written in a different era, when a woman's place was in the home. But really! Did the author have to present all the women in his book as hysterical simpletons?
The really frustrating thing is I'm going to keep encountering this. I'm dependent on audiobooks for a lot of my reading, and I can't afford to buy them. So it's off to the public domain I go. And apparently there are two roles for women in public domain sci fi (on the rare occasion the author notices that there is more than one sex) - the helpless female, and the sex symbol.
Sigh. This has been a depressing review of a depressing book.
August 15, 2013
It is with mixed feelings I leave this story. I like the story but I didn't like a lot of the persons in the story. For instance the girlfriend, Carol, was a child, a whiney one at that. The mayor is everthing I hate about politicians as a whole. And what ever happened to the spirit of exploration that seems to be what America is about? These people were so homebound that watching the moon launches would have caused them heart attacks and nightmares!
The story uses the idea that adding heat to earth was all it would take to make it habitable. I have tried growing plants under lights before,the light spectrum is just as important as heat. A dying red sun would still not provide the necessary light for survival if you are relying on agriculture. So the science was not sound.
I guess I liked it because it was a good story for action. The author was good at what he did,If he wasn't there was enough goofy things to make ths book fall appart.
And I guess Keniston is in the end free to chase the space chick (didn't see that coming did you?)
The story uses the idea that adding heat to earth was all it would take to make it habitable. I have tried growing plants under lights before,the light spectrum is just as important as heat. A dying red sun would still not provide the necessary light for survival if you are relying on agriculture. So the science was not sound.
I guess I liked it because it was a good story for action. The author was good at what he did,If he wasn't there was enough goofy things to make ths book fall appart.
And I guess Keniston is in the end free to chase the space chick (didn't see that coming did you?)
January 28, 2024
What a fun book! It is very much a product of 1951. The concerns of the characters are fitting for that time period. It is a fun look at the future through the eyes of the 1950s. You must accept the starting premise that a new type of atomic bomb could cause time shifts. Also, the relationship of the sun, moon, and Earth of the future is not really what people would expect. But this book is an Adventure in Space (or Time) example of Science Fiction. In that respect it reminds me a bit of the John Carter Barsoom books.
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