Review of City under the Stars by Gardner Dozois & Michael Swanwick

Gardner Dozois has gone down in history as one of the great editors of science fiction and fantasy. I know. The history of sf has yet to be written. But it's fair to say he's secured his place. Which is a bit of a shame actually; Dozois was also a writer of short fiction, including the 1995 novella “The City of God” co-written with Michael Swanwick. But novella-length wasn't enough. In 2020, upon Dozois' passing, Swanwick picked up the notes the two had been working on for a novel and and finished it. City under the Stars is the result.

City under the Stars recalls the story of a man named Hanson. He spends his days shoveling coal in an industrial complex while a distant wall, promising freedom beyond, reminds him of the backbreaking limits of his situation. Getting long in the tooth, Hanson is wary of every new kid joining the shovel line. And his boss doesn't help. The two constantly irritating and badgering one another, things finally come to a head one day, and Hanson's fortunes shift in the blink of an eye.

City under the Stars is a difficult novel to review without spoiling certain plot points. What I can say is that Hanson's coal-slinging life in the industrial complex comes to an end and he finds himself in a utopian situation, entirely the opposite of daily, endless, manual labor. But Hanson has a surprise up his sleeve. Rather than getting drunk on power and everything else which comes with the easy life, he chooses another path.

It's worth noting that Swanwick includes an excellent tribute to Dozois in the final pages of the book. Doubling as the genesis story for the novel, Swanwick describes his relationship with Dozois, beginning to end, highlighting how the original story (man slinging coal) slowly evolved into a full-length dystopian/utopian novel. I enjoyed this story as much as the novel.

The main challenge with City under the Stars is that it never gets better than the opening, coal-slinging scene. That scene sticks. Dozois nails it. There are later scenes which are also developed well—very Voyage to Arcturus-esque. The groundwork for the novel is clear. But the remaining scenes and setting don't pack the same punch.

I'd have to read the novel again, but I believe this juxtaposition derives from the fact Dozois and Swanwick choose to be coy about the utopian setting, that is, as opposed to explaining it in more detail. They want it to be mysterious, nebulous. But it becomes partially random as a result, which in some cases means meaningless. Offering a stronger backdrop to the utopian setting would have better contrasted the coal yard and given readers a better understanding of the novel's stakes. Bah, just my two cents.

In the end, City under the Stars is a decent spot of imagination kicked off by a superb scene of one man's labors at an industrial coal mine. Distantly, distantly reminiscent of Keith Roberts' Pavane, Dozois and Swanwick take the reader on a journey from dystopia to utopia and arrive somewhere else.