They Shall Have Stars - James Blish
An oldie but goodie! First book of four that were later joined and published as ‘Cities In Flight’ back in 1970.
I suppose this is cheating, really, reviewing just the first part; but I’ll get round to the others eventually, promise!
In a western society that seems to have become increasingly socialist, even communist; where religious faith has become more insular and dangerous than now, scientific method and scientific research has become stagnant. Very few are doing original research, and those that are are so concerned that the State may find out about it and deem it unworthy, that they just don’t bother anymore. Though the State seems happy to fund many of the projects.
There are exceptions, however, otherwise the story would be really boring! One company is heavily involved and well advanced (without the State’s knowledge) in the final solution to the ageing process - agathics. Our hero, if that’s what he is, stumbles upon this when delivering a soil sample (collected from near the second project, below) to their New York offices. He’s a spaceman, by the way.
Another project, connected to the first by virtue of the senator who is involved in both, is building a huge bridge of ice on Jupiter via waldoes operated from one of the moons. The bridge is enormous, but is only half built, has cost many lives, and few can see what use it serves. The senator, probably putting himself in mortal danger, takes the hero (and his ‘girlfriend’) to meet the bridge-builders, using a rather special vessel - developed from a crackpot theory that could only be checked using such a huge structure as The Bridge.
There are spies of a sort in this story, and the science does tend to get a little too detailed (formulas even!). The language is somewhat antique by today’s standards, but it was written in 1950, so that’s hardly a surprise. Incidentally, the other books that make up the compendium, in timeline order, were written in 1962, 1955 and 1958. The changes in style between them are quite evident. But that takes nothing from the stories, the others of which I’ll come back to at a later date.
This one is enjoyable, though, and if you’re thinking of getting a copy, try to make it the set of four, rather than just the one.
This is from the SF Masterworks ‘Cities In Flight’, Orion Books 1999.
Available from Alibris.co.uk and Abebooks.