- Hardcover: 128 pages
- Publisher: Legend; New edition edition (Jan 31 1991)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0712636935
- ISBN-13: 978-0712636933
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The latest from Nebula and World Fantasy Award winner Morrow ( Only Begotten Daught e r ) is a witty satire that examines the value of absolute honesty in human relationships. In Veritas, the city of the title, everyone tells the truth (whole and nothing but), due to harsh, aversive shock therapy. People tell one another what they really think of their new hairdos; they eat "murdered cow" sandwiches, drive Plymouth Adequates and Toyota Functionals and sign their letters "yours up to a point"; the dentist has to say, "This is going to hurt like hell." Jack Sperry is a loyal Veritasian "art deconstructor" (metaphor and fabulation are illegal, of course) until he learns that his son Toby has a fatal disease and that lying to him about it might be the only way to give Toby enough hope to effect his own cure. Against his wife's wishes, Jack joins the dissemblers--covert liars bent on undermining Veritas's status quo--and from them he learns the pleasures of mendacity, as well as the pain it can cause. Morrow leavens his serious theme with sizable dollops 'leaven' is food; 'dose' is medicine of humor, without losing poignancy--his prose is compulsively readable, sprinkled with nicely understated jokes. At 100-odd pages, the novel may seem short, but satire can become tiresome when played out too long--the length, like almost everything else about this novella, is nearly perfect. Illustrations, by Steve Crisp, not seen by PW.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
A pair of novellas explore the meaning of mortality from different perspectives. Pohl's satire is set in a future that has seen the conquest of death due to the activation of certain genes in the developing fetus. The few genetic failures live out normal, slightly extended lives, as media celebrities--made special simply because of their ephemerality. Morrow's tale approaches the bitterness of farce as he chronicles a desperate man's search for lies to save his dying son. Each story is a small masterpiece, carefully crafted and exquisitely told. Price and brevity, however, may limit purchase to libraries with larger budgets.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Im all right, Jack. Who cares about you?,
By A Customer
This review is from: City Of Truth (Paperback)
"City of Truth" is really two short stories, three if you count the brief final section. Each section is almost worth its own review, because they are so different.City I is a description of a society where people have perfect honesty literally burned into their brains. It's incredibly funny because it contrasts so completely with our own feel-good consumer society. Politicians candidly admit that they accepted kick-backs; a salesperson tells you where to buy an item more cheaply from a competitor; restaurants sell "murdered cow" sandwiches with "wilted lettuce." The odd thing is that the city is rather a flat, cold place. Parents critique their kids' drawings ("It's pretty ugly.") and romance is replaced by the brutal, hurtful truth. After a while, you long for someone to say "Have a nice day!" with a big smile, instead of truthfully expressing their complete indifference. City II describes a rebel group which teaches people to lie again. The treatment involves exposing disciples to genetically-engineered impossibilities: pigs that fly, dogs that talk. Why this is supposed to help isn't entirely clear, but it enables a father to tell "kind lies" to his terminally sick child. The problem is that the boy can see that his father is lying: This is one case where honesty would be the best policy. City II is a real tear-jerker. City III has the family leaving both the Truth Tellers and the Liars and settling for the kind of messy mix that we have: trying to tell the truth as far as possible, but making space for poetic license and white lies. That's fair enough, but there are no revelations here. Most of us feel this way already. Consider the five stars all for the first section and well worth them.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Empirical or True,
By doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
This review is from: City Of Truth (Paperback)
Here is an initially sharp social satire set in a city where you must tell the truth and lies are against the law. The authorities have literally scared lying out of the population. The book starts hilariously with the citizens of Veritas telling it like it is - ending letters with "yours up to a point" and eating at a restaurant called Booze Before Breakfast. It turns out that Veritas is really obsessed with empiricism (based only on observation and rules) rather than the much deeper "truths" of life. Morrow brings up this point very briefly in chapter 5, but unfortunately fails to expand on this intriguing theme. After that brief insight, the book becomes nonsensical and melodramatic, as the main character escapes to the secret city of Satirev to deal with the real truth about his son's fatal illness. The city of Satirev, in which people are allowed to lie but ultimately are more truthful, is a ridiculous construct that is hard to take seriously, while the story devolves into sentimentality rather than the sharp social observation that was hinted at earlier. Morrow's examination of the real meaning of truth, even if lying is necessary to achieve it, ultimately does not materialize even though he was really onto something big for a while.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Audacious,
By
This review is from: City Of Truth (Paperback)
James Morrow is a writer after my own heart. In City of Truth, he takes an audacious idea--what if everyone always told the truth?--and uses it to show that there's something much deeper. We learn that while truth is beautiful, it can also be incredibly ugly. And that, while lies are despicable, they also have a place. And while we learn these things, we also get to laugh at some great imagination, as what would advertising be like if it had to be truthful (I especially enjoyed the "new" Surgeon General's warning on a pack of Canceroulettes, not to mention Camp Ditch-the-Kids). Morrow's got a way with this; his Full Spectrum story, "Daughter Earth," contained many of the same elements: a light, humorous tone encasing a serious, yet not dull, meaning.
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