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James Blish

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James Benjamin Blish (East Orange, New Jersey, May 23, 1921 – Henley-on-Thames, July 30, 1975) was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling Jr.

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[edit] Biography

Blish trained as a biologist at Rutgers and Columbia University, and spent 1942–1944 as a medical technician in the U.S. Army. After the war he became the science editor for the Pfizer pharmaceutical company. His first published story appeared in 1940, and his writing career progressed until he gave up his job to become a professional writer.

He is credited with coining the term gas giant, in the story "Solar Plexus" as it appeared in the anthology Beyond Human Ken, edited by Judith Merril. (The story was originally published in 1941, but that version did not contain the term; Blish apparently added it in a rewrite done for the anthology, which was first published in 1952.)

Blish was married to the literary agent Virginia Kidd from 1947 to 1963.

Between 1967 and his death in 1975, Blish became the first author to write short story collections based upon the classic TV series Star Trek. In total, Blish wrote 11 volumes of short stories adapted from episodes of the 1960s TV series, as well as an original novel, Spock Must Die! in 1970 — the first original novel for adult readers based upon the series (since then hundreds more have been published). He died midway through writing Star Trek 11; his wife, J. A. Lawrence, completed the book, as well as two additional volumes of Star Trek episode adaptations.

Blish lived in Milford, Pennsylvania at Arrowhead until the mid-1960s. In 1968, Blish emigrated to England, and lived in Oxford until his death from lung cancer in 1975. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, near the grave of Kenneth Grahame.

[edit] Works

[edit] Cities in Flight

Perhaps Blish's most famous works were the "Okies" stories, known collectively as "Cities in Flight", published in the science-fiction digest magazine Astounding Science Fiction. The framework for these was set in the first of four eventual novels, They Shall Have Stars, which shows two essential features of the series. The first was the invention of the anti-aging drug ascomycin; Blish's employer Pfizer makes a thinly disguised appearance as Pfitzner in a section showing the screening of biological samples for interesting activity. (Pfizer also appears in disguise as one of the sponsors of the polar expedition in a subsequent book, Fallen Star). The second was the development of an antigravity device known as the "spindizzy". Since the device became more efficient as its field of influence was increased, entire cities were lifted from Earth and sent roving amongst the stars.

They Shall Have Stars is dystopian science fiction of a type common in the era of McCarthyism. The second, A Life For The Stars, is a coming of age story set amid flying cities. The third, Earthman, Come Home, is a series of loosely connected short stories detailing the adventures of a flying New York City.

Blish set the end of his literature's universe in 4004 AD.<ref>Choosing 4004 AD is a satirical reference to the year "4004 BC", inferred by Bishop James Ussher to be the year of the creation of the universe, based on his study of the Book of Genesis.</ref> (The chronology in early editions of They Shall Have Stars differed somewhat from the later reprints, indicating that Blish, or his editors, may not have been planned this at the beginning of the series.) A film version of Cities in Flight was in pre-production by Spacefilms in 1979, but never materialized.<ref>Perakos, Peter S. (June 1979). "John Flory's Monument: An SF Saga in the Works". Starlog (23).</ref>

[edit] After Such Knowledge

Blish declared that another group of novels was a trilogy, each dealing with an aspect of the price of knowledge, and given the overall name of "After Such Knowledge" (the title taken from a T. S. Eliot quote). The first published, A Case of Conscience (a winner of the 1959 Hugo Award as well as 2004/1953 Retro-Hugo award for Best Novella), showed a Jesuit priest confronted with an alien intelligent race, apparently unfallen, which he eventually concludes must be a Satanic fabrication. The second, Doctor Mirabilis, is a historical novel about the medieval proto-scientist Roger Bacon. The third, actually two very short novels, Black Easter and The Day after Judgement, was written using the assumption that the ritual magic for summoning demons as described in grimoires actually worked.

[edit] Pantropy

Blish's most famous short stories are the "Pantropy" tales, collected in the book The Seedling Stars. In these stories, humans are modified to live in various alien environments, this being easier and vastly cheaper than terraforming. Surface Tension finds generations of microscopic aquatic humans battling the other occupants of their world, eventually building a space ship to cross to other worlds.

[edit] Other

Blish collaborated with Norman L. Knight on a series of stories set in a world with a population a thousand times that of today, and followed the efforts of those keeping the system running, collected in one volume as A Torrent of Faces. James Blish's grave marker.

[edit] Selected bibliography

[edit] Cities in Flight

  • They Shall Have Stars (1957) (also published under the title Year 2018!)
  • A Life for the Stars
  • Earthman Come Home (1955) G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.
  • A Clash of Cymbals, (published in the US as The Triumph of Time) (1959)

A one-volume collection of all four Cities in Flight books exists, first published in the US by Avon (1970), ISBN 0-380-00998-6 and later in the UK by Arrow (1981), ISBN 0-09-926440-4, which includes an analysis of the work (pp.597 onwards) as an Afterword by Richard D. Mullen, derived from an original article by Leland Shapiro in the publication Riverside Quarterly. It is now available in hardcover and trade paperback from Overlook Press.

[edit] After Such Knowledge

[edit] Others

  • Jack of Eagles (1952}
  • The Seedling Stars (1957)
  • Fallen Star (1957) — Set in the International Geophysical Year of 1958, it tells the story of a disaster-ridden polar expedition that finds a meterorite containing fossil life forms.
  • VOR (1958) Avon Publications, Inc., New York, in wrappers (paperback).
  • The Star Dwellers (1961}
  • Titans' Daughter (also under the title Beanstalk) (1961)
  • The Night Shapes (1962)
  • Mission to the Heart Stars (1965}
  • Welcome to Mars! (1967}
  • A Torrent of Faces (with Norman L. Knight, 1967)
  • Midsummer Century (1972)
  • The Quincunx of Time (1973}
  • Star Trek 1-11 (1967-1975) Novelizations of the scripts of the well-known TV series.
  • Spock Must Die! (1970) An original Star Trek novel, the first such to be published.

[edit] Non-fiction

Blish wrote criticism of science fiction (some quite scathing) under the name of William Atheling Jr, as well as reviewing under his own name.: the Atheling articles were reprinted in two collections, The Issue at Hand (1964) and More Issues at Hand (1970), and the posthumous The Tale That Wags The God 1987 collects Blish essays.

He was a fan of the works of James Branch Cabell, and for a time edited Kalki, the journal of the Cabell Society.

[edit] More on James Blish

[edit] Honors, Awards and Recognition

[edit] Footnotes

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[edit] External links

[edit] See also

de:James Blish fr:James Blish it:James Blish nl:James Blish ja:ジェームズ・ブリッシュ sv:James Blish

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