Unlike the other citizens of Diaspar, Alvin is a Unique - he was 'born' as a completely new person, rather than being reincarnated from a preexisting personality stored in the Halls of Creation. While everyone else in Diaspar is content to live in this splendid isolation, Alvin yearns for adventure. Despite its isolation, Diaspar isn't an uncomfortable place to live: Humanity has managed to achieve functional immortality by means of Brain Uploading and longevity treatments, while highly advanced matter replication allows its citizens to lead lives of almost complete leisure and a dedicated Central Computer manages the maintenance down to the molecular level. Mankind once spread out in a great interstellar empire, but after a millennia-long war they were driven back to Earth and eventually confined to Diaspar, which cut itself off from the rest of the world to preserve itself against the Invaders while the rest of the planet slowly withered away over the eons. Millions of years into the future, Diaspar stands as the last apparent bastion of humanity in a hostile universe. Clarke in 1956, and is a major rewrite of Against the Fall of Night, his novel debut. (28529).The City and the Stars is a novel written by Arthur C. A fine copy in a nearly fine dust jacket with a small 11 mm closed tear to the lower right front corner and mild age darkening to spine panel. Pringle, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels 22. This novel 'is perhaps his most characteristic and most enduring.' - Survey of Science Fiction Literature I, pp. The novel is even more deserving of commendation because it is an early cybernetic novel, and computers and information theory were recent developments when it was written.' - Warrick, The Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction, pp. Beyond imagining how computers might transform a society, Clarke also dramatizes the philosophical implications of life in a totally structured society.

is one of the most remarkable accomplishments of the imagination in all the literature that I am considering. Clarke's 2001 (1968) is one of the most famous computer stories, but his THE CITY AND THE STARS (1956) may well be the profound artistically successful work of cybernetic fiction. A completely revised and expanded version of Clarke's first published novel, AGAINST THE FALL OF NIGHT (1948 1953). Review copy with Harcourt advance slip affixed to front free end paper.

Arthur clarke city and the stars