The second half of Blish's late 50s/early 60s saga of peripatetic space cities that, having uprooted themselves from the Earth with handy anti-gravity technology, cruise the stars in search of work. This one includes one novel-length story and one that's probably just short enough to qualify as a novella.

The first, "Earthman, Come Home" features the episodic interstellar exploits of New York, NY. By all rights, I really should like this one a lot better than the stories in the first volume. It's got a lot of great-sounding stuff: Space battles! Star Trek-style interplanetary adventures! Plots and machinations! Moving planets for fun and profit! Unfortunately, though, the style is still very dry and talky, with much of the most interesting action conveyed in something more akin to after-the-fact summary than anything makes the reader feel involved. Sometimes, in fact, the action is so compressed that I found it rather difficult to follow. And then there's the attitude towards women, which occasionally made me want to hurt something. Also the fact that, at least for most of the story, the protagonists behave in a massively amoral manner that might make them interesting anti-heroes if they were more fleshed out, but as is, is mostly just kind of unpleasant. Oh, and the fact that while Blish does a reasonable job conveying an impressive sense of scale when it comes to space, I never for a second found the vast spans of time this story was meant to cover the slightest bit convincing. All that having been said, I can certainly see how this might have been exciting when it first came out, but it really hasn't aged well. Which is disappointing, given how much potential it has. I can't help thinking that it would be fascinating to see a more modern take on it. If someone decided to do a movie version, with a large budget, an intelligent scriptwriter, and some judicious choices about what elements to keep, which to ditch, and what to to add, well, I'd line up for my ticket right now.

In the second story, "The Triumph of Time," New York City has been grounded for good, but its inhabitants find themselves unexpectedly facing the end of the universe. Or at least the end of time, which I guess is pretty much the same thing. This one generally did a much better job of holding my attention than the other installments. Admittedly, it has a lot of the same structural flaws as the previous story, as well as a lot of tedious and often impenetrable cosmology lectures. (Or possibly psuedo-cosmology lectures. The science seems to me to consist of an odd mix of the dated, the weirdly prescient, and the just plain nonsensical.) But it also has a bit more emotional and philosophical depth, even if the former occasionally borders on the melodramatic. And it does a rather better job, on the whole, with both large time scales and women. There's also a fair bit of that good old cosmic sense of wonder, shining through all the things that don't actually make all that much sense. ( )