From archive (archive) Xref: sssab.se rec.arts.books:2505 rec.arts.sf-lovers:8494 Path: sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: ecl@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Evelyn C. Leeper) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf-lovers Subject: THE CITY, NOT LONG AFTER by Pat Murphy Message-ID: <4424@cbnewsj.ATT.COM> Date: 30 Mar 90 16:41:43 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 84 THE CITY, NOT LONG AFTER by Pat Murphy Bantam Spectra, 1990 (1989c), ISBN 0-553-28370-7, $4.50. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper The time is the near future. The place (the city of the title) is San Francisco. And what it's not long after is a plague that has killed off most of humanity. If this sounds a lot like George R. Stewart's classic EARTH ABIDES, rest assured Murphy is not simply rehashing Stewart. In fact, THE CITY, NOT LONG AFTER is as much a rebuttal, or at least a counter- proposal, to EARTH ABIDES as anything else. Stewart's novel champions the American way, with the main character as "The Last American" mourning its passing and only reluctantly accepting a new way of life (which is still very similar to life as we know it); Murphy's novel puts forth a society directly opposed to "the American way of life" as presented by General Miles (a.k.a. "Fourstar") in the novel. I can't claim that Murphy stacks the deck either; both novels emphasize the structure and discipline of an orderly government, as represented by the hammer in EARTH ABIDES and the Fourstar's troops here. I can only claim that Stewart characters also remember the personal liberty that America gave them, and this balance is missing from Murphy's portrait. (I am trying very hard here to avoid attributing to the authors philosophies that may belong only to their characters, not to them, but this makes for some awkward sentences, so if I slip up, bear this in mind.) We are introduced to Jax (who remains unnamed until half-way through the novel, but for clarity's sake I will call her that throughout this review), the daughter of a woman who has fled the city. We find out that Jax's mother is somehow blamed for the catastrophe that has overtaken humanity, but we do not learn until much later in the novel what did happen. (And when we do, it seems to hearken back to Ursula LeGuin as much as Stewart.) Stewart and Murphy both gloss over the health implications of millions of rotting bodies. (I believe Stewart at least has his main character avoid the city for a while after the plague has run its course.) When Jax, directed by her dying mother, does return to the city, she finds it has become a city of artists. Jax warns the residents that Fourstar is coming to take over the city, but rather than fight a traditional battle (which would have been what Stewart's characters would have done), they decide to fight Fourstar's armies using art. This use of art is more like a highly refined use of psychological warfare, but to call it that would have undercut the "message" of the novel. (After all, on page 15 Murphy declares, "When Danny-boy was eight years old, he learned that art could change the world.") Call it what you will, though, it does have an effect. (My favorite line of the novel is "Lily and Zatch lay on the roof of a warehouse, their bellies flat against the gravel and tar paper. Down below them, the army was overreacting to a work of art.") Now all this sounds implausible (or worse). And it pretty much is. For example, before Fourstar's arrival, one artist is making a giant harp by stringing wires across the Opera House Plaza so that when the wind blows it will make music. Another builds elaborate mechanical creatures that run (or fly) around the city. All this works, in large part, because there is so much food to be scavenged that people don't need to farm or hunt for a living. Shelter, clothing, all the necessities of life are provided by the city. But as a novel it still works. And the reason it works is that, contrary to what it says on the spine of this book, this is not a science fiction novel. This is a fantasy novel. Or even closer, this is a "magical" novel. The characters in this novel live with ghosts, just as Murphy's characters in THE FALLING WOMAN did. The ghosts walk and talk and communicate with the characters. When someone decides to paint the Golden Gate Bridge blue, he is aided by the sudden arrival of a swarm of blue butterflies. Flowers fall from the sky. Angels give people advice. This is the city, not long after, and not quite real. Jax spends most of the novel coming to terms with people who live through their art. She must struggle to understand that life for everyone does not consist in following the same path day after day, just because that is how it has always been done. By the end of the novel, she hasn't completely come around to the artists' way of thinking, but she has been affected and changed by it. By the end of the novel, the reader won't necessarily be ready to throw it all over and become an environmental artist either. But s/he will look at life, and art, and society, differently. [Bantam/Spectra Special Editions may very well be taking the place of the Ace Science Fiction Specials as the leading edge of science fiction/fantasy. I was a bit put off by the number of them published--it sometimes seems that there are three new "Special Editions" every month--but I have been very impressed with the three I have read so far and plan to read more. My only caveat to the buyer is that some of them are reprints.] Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 201-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From rec.arts.sf-lovers Tue Dec 11 17:24:05 1990 Xref: herkules.sssab.se rec.arts.books:7098 rec.arts.sf-lovers:19942 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!bu.edu!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf-lovers Subject: POINTS OF DEPARTURE by Pat Murphy Message-ID: <1990Dec9.135121.26123@cbnewsj.att.com> Date: 9 Dec 90 13:51:21 GMT Followup-To: rec.arts.sf-lovers,rec.arts.books Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 50 POINTS OF DEPARTURE by Pat Murphy Bantam Spectra, 1990, ISBN 0-553-28615-3, $3.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper Once again, I find myself recommending a Bantam Spectra Special Edition. (Maybe I should just save us all the time and recommend them en masse.) This collection is by Pat Murphy, author of THE CITY, NOT LONG AFTER, and demonstrates more of her range (as I suppose one would except from a collection). This is not to say that she doesn't revisit themes. Domination and escape (usually women escaping from men's domination) is a theme she deals with in at least seven of the nineteen stories: "Dead Men on TV"; "Women in the Trees"; "Touch of the Bear"; "His Vegetable Wife"; "Good-Bye, Cynthia"; "Clay Devils"; and "Escape." With an untalented author, this could be repetitious; with Murphy, it is not. Each story looks at the topic from a different perspective and uses different tools (technology, nature, the supernatural) to examine it. The other stories run the gamut from time travel ("Orange Blossom Time" and in a philosophical sense, "Don't Look Back") to straight fantasy ("In the Islands"; "Sweetly the Waves Call to Me") to psi phenomena ("Prescience") to straight science fiction ("On a Hot Summer Night in a Place Far Away"; "A Falling Star Is a Rock from Outer Space"). "On the Dark Side of the Station Where the Train Never Stops" seemed almost mythic-- Stapledonian is the word that comes to mind. Echoes of myth are also found in "Bones"--with this story I have the feeling that there is something I understand from it about "what it means" (a poor term), but I can't quite explain it in words. About "Rachel in Love" little need be said, as this is her best-known story. Not everything appealed to me. I found her attempt at high fantasy ("With Four Lean Hounds") uninvolving, though that may reflect my general disinterest in that sub-genre. "Recycling Strategies for the Inner City" also did nothing for me. "In the Abode of the Snows" I thought showed too much of Michael Moorcock's influence. I can't say more without giving it away--read the story and you'll get the reference. (If you don't, you need to read more Moorcock.) Out of nineteen stories, only three were disappointing. This is clearly a strong recommendation--and Kate Wilhelm's introduction and Murphy's own afterword add to the literary value. And unlike many collections, where all the stories are readily available elsewhere, this has one new story ("Women in the Trees") and several which appeared in sources you are unlikely to have ready access to, making it an excellent idea to get this volume. Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From rec.arts.sf-reviews Sun Oct 27 15:00:22 1991 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!psinntp!psinntp!rpi!uwm.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!pacbell!pbhyc!djdaneh From: wex@pws.ma30.bull.com (Alan Wexelblat) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-reviews Subject: REVIEW: The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy Message-ID: <6890@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> Date: 23 Oct 91 20:10:16 GMT Sender: djdaneh@PacBell.COM Lines: 45 Approved: djdaneh@pbhyc.pacbell.com The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy Review Copyright (c) 1991 Alan Wexelblat I must confess up front that I'm not totally comfortable reviewing this book. I do not think I understood it completely, but I liked it and I think Murphy is one of the brightest of the new talents around. So I'll say my piece and then you can go out and buy the book and judge for yourself. "City," like "Falling Woman," is mostly the story of a young woman trying to come to terms with the world around her, especially in her relations with men and her mother. "City" is the story of Mary Laurenson's daughter, born "Not Long After" a plague has decimated the world's population. The plague appeared virtually simultaneously around the world and wreaked its devastating effects indiscriminately. Something like 80% of the people died. Survival seemed random, as the plague would take the father, mother, and all but one child of the same family. The City is Murphy's beloved home, San Francisco. The city is now inhabited by a colony of artists and artisans who have used their art to transform the city itself, making mazes and sculptures in the streets and paintings on the building walls. Eventually the City and the woman (whose name and means of naming are important to the story and I won't give that away here) come together in the face of a danger posed by General Fourstar, a military man from before the Plague who is leading an army to "reunite" the scattered colonies of people, whether they want to be reunited or not. The novel is relatively short (at 244 pages) but extremely complex. Murphy sets up conflicts between Man/Woman, Violence/Nonviolence, Art/War, and Love/Fear, among others. In less-skilled hands, this assemblage of Great Themes might be ponderous or preachy, but Murphy mostly lets the story roll along, handling things with a light touch. The ending baffles me, though, in that it seems to say something different than the rest of the book. I say you should read it for yourself and see. %A Pat Murphy %T The City, Not Long After %I Foundation/Doubleday %G ISBN 0-385-24925-X %O $17.95 %D 1989 From archive (archive) From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ Subject: THE FALLING WOMAN by Pat Murphy Date: 9 Dec 88 22:02:01 GMT THE FALLING WOMAN by Pat Murphy Tor, 1987 (1986c), ISBN 0-812-54620-2, $3.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper This book won the 1988 Nebula and deservedly so. It is a fantasy, but not one of those Tolkienesque elves-or-what-have-you-on-a-quest-to- save-the-world-from-the-ultimate-evil sort of novel. (No slur towards Tolkien--he did it early and he did it better. But, oh the imitators he spawned!) THE FALLING WOMAN is about an archaeologist who is very involved with her work, so much so that she communicates with the spirits of those who lived and died where she is digging. Her work takes her to Dzibilchaltun in the Yucatan where she is visited by the spirit of a long- dead priestess. How she deals with this is the meat of the novel. There is not a lot of action, but there is a lot of thoughtful character development and a good use of the Mayan setting. As a well-written, literate fantasy, this is hard to beat. (Side-note: why don't more fantasy authors write in less over-used mythologies? Tiptree also wrote Mayan-based material, but I can't think of anyone else. LeGuin is doing some work in Native American legends, and one or two other authors have also done so, but again, I can't think of too many. Milton and Brust did the Christian Heaven; Dante and Niven and Pournelle did Hell. And then there are a wealth of Asian mythologies that almost entirely ignored....) Evelyn C. Leeper | +01 201-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com Copyright 1988 Evelyn C. Leeper