City at World's End

OH PUKE!

This is one of the worst Sci-Fi books I've ever read! The idea is interesting, but the story is pure crap. I read it because my husband recommended it, but it turned out that he hasn't really read it, he uses the audiobook as sleeping aid, because Mark Nelson, who reads the book, has such a nice, warm, soothing voice.

It's incredibly sexist. I know it was written (published) 1950, so the values were different, but if Edgar Allan Burroughs can write less sexist books, you understand that this was sexist even for 50s. I reacted already at “nice ankles”, but “the inability of the female mind to grapple with the essentials of a situation” couldn't be ignored. It didn't get any better after that.

The people are all a-holes. Bigoted, belligerent, narrow minded, hysterical idiots. Even the children are nasty. They come to this brilliant white futuristic town, and what do the children do? Make noise and start vandalizing the city. And that's all right by the adults.
Now, this description of people supports all my preconceived notions about USonians, so I can imagine it was kind of realistic, but the author doesn't seem to have written it as a social critique... he seems to think that's how people are, and it's all right, and there's nothing one can do to change it. In fact, a couple of times the aliens admire how “brave” the people are for fighting against the Star Council's decision to evacuate them.

I somewhat liked the aliens, and Varn Allan, and Carol, too. Everyone else was crap.
And even these people were cheapened by Gary Stew, because OF COURSE they all liked him, the girls swooned over him, and everyone thought he was the bee's knees (even though I have to giggle at “your primitive scientist brain cannot understand how this thing works, so I won't even try to explain it to you”. With other words, Edmond didn't have the slightest idea of how his idea would work.)
OK, so the story is that they are on this planet going around a dying sun. The Star Council finds them and decides to evacuate them, because the Earth is dying, but they won't have any of that, so they vehemently resist being evacuated. The hero learns the new language in a couple of days, well enough to speak for Earth and its inhabitant in front of the star council (what ever it was called, can't be bothered to go back and find out.) and he has a passionate speech about how horrible it is to force people leave their homes. Still no reflections about how some people might not have wanted to leave their home town to move under the dome. Earth is your home! Home, God, Fatherland! Then the villain speaks against letting the humans stay on Earth. They are violent, warring people. They can't be allowed to interact with the modern peaceful people, they would corrupt all the peace loving people. The logic of this is really weird, because if they shouldn't be let to interact with others, and they want to live on their godforsaken dying planet, then why the heck not let them? Just forget them, and they will die and no-one will ever know about them. But, no, the star council decides that they just have to waste a lot of resources, time, and a new planet to evacuate these evil people to some other godforsaken planet out of the way of good people... The heroes put the planet renewal bomb in Earth anyway, and everyone is saved, the villains don't need to evacuate the people any longer, because Earth is inhabitable again. Yay. It would all be good, if the author didn't start the book by making the hero and his friends evacuate their home town and move everyone in a new city under a dome, to save them. While they were doing this, all the people who didn't want to move were described as stubborn, old-fashioned and stupid. For some reason Edmond Hamilton doesn't see the obvious parallels between forcing people to leave their homes, and forcing people to leave their home planet. Also, they would have been evacuated because the decision was to evacuate them. That they put this thing in action shouldn't have changed anything.Also, they should have been punished for breaking the law. The MC was emotionally unstable, but called every woman he met hysterical. At one point his girlfriend - totally calmly and correctly - states her feelings about the catastrophe she's living, and he calls her hysterical and bitter. She breaks - like the good girl she is - and cries to his shoulder and he gets to be the Big Man, but when he leaves the situation he thinks that there was "some truth" in what she said, and that's why he reacted so negatively. Yeah, sure... but don't let the hysterical female know she wasn't the hysterical one, or that she was right. Can't have that.The first time he sees the new female love interest, he resents her, because even though she is friendly, she has an air of authority and she walks as if she was the boss of the group. Which she was. He resents her for knowing more than he does, being at ease with this time, for making decisions (totally correct - according to his own values and decisions in the book), and doesn't relent until she shows she's "just a girl" and cries in front of him. That's when he falls in love with her. A lot of puppy eyes and brooding and such. *sigh*Luckily his girlfriend decides he has changed (which he vehemently objects to, of course, because no f-ing female is going to tell him anything), and tells him to get lost - in a very feminine, demure, submissive, kind, gentle way that sets him free without any bad conscience, and lets him think it's her, not him. *rolling eyes*