Popular Science Review - The City and the Stars

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Review - The City and the Stars - Arthur C. Clarke

Science authors' favourites - Marcus Chown

When I was 12, science at shool was dull and boring. The I read The City and the Stars and it blew my mind.

I'd read books that were set a few decades in the future and spanned the Solar System. But The City and the Stars spanned a billion years and the whole Universe. Who was it who said 'Science fiction is the only legal mind-expanding drug?' They could have been referring to The City and the Stars. It changed my life and kept me interested in science.

What's it about? Here's the blurb:

Men had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar; for millennia its protective dome shutout the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it held powers that rules the stars. But then, as legend had it, The invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. It takes one man, A Unique to break through Diaspar's stifling inertia, to smash the legend and discover the true nature of the Invaders.

Reviewed by Marcus Chown

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