The City and the Stars
- 254
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The City and the Stars” is a compact, well-told science fiction novel and a good first meeting with Arthur C. Clarke. Published in 1956, it completely reworks his first novel, “Against the Fall of Night”. In some 250 pages it joins a dystopian setting to the pull of outer space, in a mood of mystery and adventure. Some readers praise its style as much as its story.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The City and the Stars is a science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke, published in 1956. This novel is a complete rewrite of Clarke's earlier Against the Fall of Night, his first novel, which had been published in Startling Stories magazine in 1948 after being rejected by the editor of Astounding Science-Fiction, according to the author.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.0 across 172 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 54% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Science fiction average of 7.8. That is how 7.9 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 8.0 | 172 | 100% |
Frequently asked
How long is The City and the Stars?
It has 254 pages — shorter than 86% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 7.8 and 7.9, closest to this book.
