The city, not long after

Maybe I'm a cynic, but this story of a post-apocalyptic SF populated by artists -- in which the artists must USE ART to fight off an invading force -- was just a little too fluffy for me. I picked it up to pass the time and it was pleasant enough, and I have to admit it did have a sort of charm, but on the whole nothing about it was especially deep or interesting -- especially given the liberal use of deus ex machina in the form of "the city dreaming" or "the city defending itself" etc. Good airplane read.

A quick read, and pretty fun. There's some portions of the book that discuss pacifism and art in ways that can become fairly cloying, but I took each with a grain of salt, given that this book was published (probably) for people in their mid-to-late teens in the late 80s and I'm reading it as a 28-year-old in 2013. The writing is simple and straightforward, following a standard narrative arc peppered with elements of magical realism. Recommended for teenage anarchists of the "That's soooo random!" variety.

Post-apocalyptic fantasy, with a feminist, pacifist slant. The reason I say fantasy, rather than SF, is that things happen in the city of San Francisco that are along the lines of an active spirit of the city, rather than anything explainable by technology.