The City, Not Long After

Author: Pat Murphy

Sense of place is, to be honest, not particularly strong in a lot of science fiction. We get identikit urban futures, or rural redoubts that could be anywhere, or other worlds that can be described any way that the author finds convenient. But one of the particular enchantments of Pat Murphy's The City, Not Long After, is the way San Francisco is a character in the story, its quirks and oddities lovingly described. And, of course, the whole story turns on the particular characteristics of San Francisco natives. The story is set not long after the Plague, which has drastically reduced the population, terminally disrupted the governance of the United States, but has not overly inconvenienced the survivors in San Francisco. They seem to have plenty of food, grown locally and sold at markets around the city, and most of them seem to be using their post-apocalyptic leisure to become artists. In other words, San Francisco has reinvented itself as a sort of utopia. But that sort of anarchistic life cannot be allowed to continue by those seeking to reimpose order. In particular, General Miles, who has decided that a military government is needed, that everyone must be made to work together to rebuild the country, and that dissent must be stamped out. The clash of worldviews is inevitable. What makes this such a delightful novel is the way the artists of San Francisco are busy reimagining reality, and base their resistance upon this. Their opposition to the General has a surreal quality to it, works of art are ranged against armies. Might must win in the end, but before we get there some very interesting things are happening. Underneath it all, The City, Not Long After is a very traditional, very familiar story: the threat of a military dictatorship being imposed in the wake of some disaster. But in the way it is told, in the way the characters respond to the disaster with art, and above all in the portrayal of San Francisco, the familiar is made new.

Similar Recommendations

Alternative Choice
A Mask for the General by Lisa Goldstein occupies very similar territory to The City, Not Long After. Economic collapse has enabled The General to seize power in America, imposing a harsh police state in which many foodstuffs are unavailable, curfews are imposed and work camps established. Again, the rebellion has an artistic aspect. The "tribes", updated hippies, wear animal masks which somehow reflect the character of the wearer and affect their behaviour. The central thrust of their rebellion against military rule is to deliver such a mask to the General.

San Francisco also plays a major part in the Bridge Trilogy by William Gibson, which consists of Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties. Central to the trilogy is the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge, which has become a shanty town after a devastating earthquake. The anarchistic community that grows up on the bridge, like the artists of The City, Not Long After, becomes a centre for reimagining the world through the development of nanotechnology and cyberspace.