Cities in the Air
By Edmond Hamilton
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Air Wonder Stories November, December 1929
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Edmond Hamilton
Here is one of the most extraordinary stories that it has been our good fortune to read. For sheer audacity in construction, excellence in science and breath-taking adventure, this story undoubtedly stands in the foreground of science air-fiction stories of the year.
The recent advances in aeronautics where airplanes have been in the air for weeks at a time without coming down to the ground, point the way for tremendous achievements in the generations to come.
City life today is a conglomeration of structures close together. We have buildings now that house as many as 40,000 people at one time and soon we will have single business buildings that will house 100,000 and more individuals at the same time. Furthermore, every doctor will tell you that living at the surface of the earth is usually unhealthy because of the dust and the high density of the air, which gives rise to most pulmonary diseases, particularly consumption, colds and the like. At high altitudes such diseases tend to disappear. Therefore physicians usually send their afflicted patients to the higher altitudes.