City of a Thousand Suns

The final book in The Fall of the Towers concludes our trilogy and the fate of our protagonists. As to be expected, Delany's novel eschews easy outs and explanations, while engaging in some more experimental prose. The Lord of the Flames, unsurprisingly, is defeated, but at great cost (the fall of Toron). Jon, Petra, Arkor, Alter, and company are joined by Clea Koshar, Vol Nonick (a poet), and a historian (Rolth). These last three represent three ideal forms humanity can pursue: science, arts, philosophy. Like the enigmatic triple being which aids the human protagonists against the Lord of the Flames, they are still individuals but come together to find their strength. The rest of the novel is a series of obstacles, fast-paced action scenes, exploration of the City of a Thousand Suns (a new city on the hill for those malcontent with the malcontent, hopeful for a new, more egalitarian world) and the utter meaningless of war. While these three novels are certainly not my favorite of Samuel Delany's work, they seem to be important in his 1960s oeuvre as transitional works that develop a more complex prose with some of the typical themes and characters of American science fiction of this time. An "interesting" read for what it suggests about the pointlessness of war at a time where US entanglement in Vietnam was only intensifying...