La ciudad y las estrellas

In the distant future, the city of Diaspar shelters the last remnants of humanity on Earth. Hunted back to their home planet by the mysterious Invaders who conquered the universe, humans abandoned their Galactic Empire. Since then, for millions of years, Diaspar has kept its inhabitants in the pleasant stupor of a perfect society. Thanks to its powerful eternity circuits, the city preserves all its elements forever, including its citizens, who emerge fully grown from the Creation Room, live full lives that last for centuries, and finally return to the Memory Banks to await their resurrection after thousands of years. But very rarely, a unique citizen is born in Diaspar, whose information is not previously recorded in the city's memory. No one knows why they appear, nor what their function is in Diaspar's sophisticated mechanism. Alvin is one of these unique individuals, and as such, he has no past lives to refer to. That's why he finds it easy to question Diaspar's seemingly perfect social organization, and especially the psychological limitations that prevent its inhabitants from ever leaving it. Despite the comforts that surround him, Alvin is dissatisfied. But he soon finds his purpose: to leave Diaspar, to find out if the outside world is as hostile as they say, and to discover if they really are the last humans on Earth.