Nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Award, City on Fire returns to the world-city of Metropolitan, a city dominated by plasm, the magical substance capable of both creation and destruction.
With her help, Aiah’s lover Constantine has established himself in the metropolis of Caraqui, a nation dominated by corrupt officials, gangsters, and the genetically altered known as the “twisted.” Here they hope to create a revolution in the cosmic order--- but first they must fend off treachery, war, and the threat of Taikoen, the “hanged man,” a deadly creature that lives within plasm itself. Aiah must fight not only for her revolution and for her place in the world, but for Constantine’s very soul.
“City on Fire is a splendid, riveting novel in which the most powerful magic is that of a writer directing the twin streams of reason and intuition to produce a dream within the texture of reality.”
--- Russell Letson, Locus, April 1997
“City on Fire, by Walter Jon Williams, is that rarest of entertainments, a sequel that improves on a successful predecessor . . . Mr. Williams’ prose is distinguished by a no-nonsense confidence that perfectly matches Constantine’s unshakable faith in his own destiny and in his ability to resist the corruption that notoriously comes with power.”
---Gerald Jonas, NY Times Book Review, Feb 23, 1997
“City on Fire offers something for just about every kind of reader . . . Williams really gives the reader hours of entertainment with polished style, twisty plots, action and vivid characters.”
---Jeff Watkins
“Williams [creates] a magnificent world-city, its entire surface urbanized by a multitude of civilizations that draw their very existence from plasm, the mysterious energy contained in all matter . . . Well-drawn, believable characters give emotional force to this fine novel . . . Ultimately, however, it is Williams’s complex world-city, more convincing than even Asimov in Foundation, and his endlessly inventive use of plasm that will hold readers’ fascinated attention.
--- Publishers Weekly, Dec 30, 1996./
