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The City and the Stars is a 1956 novel by Arthur C. Clarke. It was a rewrite of his first novel, Against the Fall of Night, which was written between 1937 and 1946, and which, according to Clarke, "had most of the defects of a first novel." He was motivated to rewrite the story by technological innovations, especially by "certain developments in information theory (which) suggested revolutions in the human way of life even more profound than those which atomic energy is already introducing."
The story takes place on Earth, one billion years into the future. The hero is Alvin, who lives in the domed city Diaspor. The people of Diaspor believe that the human race, a billion years earlier, had established a vast galactic empire, only to be thrown back to their own solar system by an alien race remembered only as the "invaders." The survival of Earth was guaranteed at the battle of Shilmarine, but what was left of the human race had to be confined to this one city of Diaspar. Outside the city walls the rest of the planet had become a desert—desolate and barren of life. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Diaspar lack for nothing; human science has advanced to the point where lifespans are centuries long, where people never age, where people are created by the central computer rather than born (hence no infancy or childhood). When a person dies, his or her consciousness goes back into the central computer, to be reincarnated in another body in about 50,000 years' time (a kind of serial immortality). For entertainment, the residents of Diaspar have virtual-reality adventures, philosophy, and art, and guilt-free sex.
Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.
On his twentieth birthday, Alvin is told by his adopted parents and his tutor that he is a "unique," meaning he had no previous incarnations in Diaspor (normally, the memories of past lives would start to surface after someone was 20 or 30 years old). He is the first unique created in Diaspar in 10 million years. Alvin is filled with a restless, adventurous spirit that his comrades lack; he wants desperately to see what is outside the city. He begins searching the city’s air tunnels that lead to the outside; although he can see the desert far below, the grates are impassable. Finally a "jester" named Khedron makes contact with him and shows him the building that houses the central computer. There the two men access a four-dimensional (time and space) map of the city, going all the way back to the days when the city was built, a billion years earlier. With this information, they discover that there is a way out of the city, though Khedron is too frightened to follow Alvin on his adventure. Outside the city, Alvin eventually discovers that there are in fact other humans who have survived, as well as some very strange aliens.
This novel bears some similarity to the later story Logan's Run, in that the hero escapes from an enclosed city to explore a hostile world outside.
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