''The City, Not Long After'' is a

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

postapocalyptic Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astr ...

science fiction novel by Pat Murphy that incorporates elements of magic realism.

Plot summary

The novel is set almost 20 years after a plague has devastated the Earth's population. A few hundred people, most of them artists, live in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, and have built many large-scale artworks there out of salvaged materials. To the east, in the Central Valley, a military government headed by General Miles (nicknamed "Fourstar") has spread from

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

and annexed many other towns, including Fresno and

Modesto Modesto () is the county seat and largest city of Stanislaus County, California, United States. With a population of 218,464 at the 2020 census, it is the 19th largest city in the state of California and forms part of the Sacramento-Stockton- ...

. Miles dreams of recreating the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

of old and is planning to invade San Francisco, which he claims is populated by Godless sinners who are hoarding its resources. A nameless young woman, whose mother fled the city soon after the plague, has a vision of an angel at her mother's death. It leads her to believe she will be reunited with her mother in the city and inspires her to go there and warn its inhabitants of the coming invasion. While there, she meets the city's residents, acquires a name, and convinces them that the threat of invasion is real and spurs them into taking action to resist it. Believing that they cannot beat Fourstar using straightforward military methods, they improvise their own methods of demoralizing his army, and are aided by mysterious manifestations related to the city's past.

References

Novels set in San Francisco 1989 American novels 1989 science fiction novels American post-apocalyptic novels Works by Pat Murphy (writer) {{1980s-specf-novel-stub