BLISH, James (Benjamin)

(1921-1975)

   US writer. JB's early career in sf followed the usual pattern. He was a fan during the 1930s. His first short story, "Emergency Refueling" (1940), was published in SUPER SCIENCE STORIES. He belonged to the well known New York fan group the FUTURIANS, where he became friendly with such writers as Damon KNIGHT and C.M. KORNBLUTH. He studied microbiology at Rutgers, graduating in 1942, and was then drafted, serving as a medical laboratory technician in the US Army. In 1945-6 he carried out postgraduate work in zoology at Columbia University, abandoning this to become a writer. He was married to Virginia KIDD 1947-63 and then, from 1964 until his death, to Judith Ann LAWRENCE. Three of his early short stories, two of them collaborations, were written under the pseudonyms Donald LAVERTY, John MACDOUGAL and Arthur Merlyn.JB worked hard to develop his craft, but not until 1950, when the first of his Okie stories appeared in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION, did it became clear that he could become an sf writer of unusual depth. The Okie stories featured flying CITIES, powered by ANTIGRAVITY devices called SPINDIZZIES, moving through the Galaxy looking for work, much as the Okies did in the 1930s when they escaped from the dustbowl. The first Okie book, a coherent if episodic novel, was Earthman, Come Home (1950-53 var mags; fixup 1955; cut 1958). Three more followed: They Shall Have Stars (1952-4 ASF; fixup 1956UK; rev vt Year 2018! 1957 US), The Triumph of Time (1958; vt A Clash of Cymbals UK) and A Life for the Stars (1962). These four books were finally brought together in a single volume, CITIES IN FLIGHT (omni 1970), where they appeared in the order of their internal chronology: They Shall Have Stars, A Life for the Stars, Earthman, Come Home and The Triumph of Time. Underpinning the pulp-style plotting of much of this series is a serious and pessimistic interest in the cyclic nature of HISTORY, partly derived from JB's reading of Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), especially The Decline of the West (1918-22). The cycle is carried, at the end of The Triumph of Time, from the death of our Universe to the birth of the next, in a memorable passage where Mayor Amalfi becomes, literally, the deep structure of the new Universe.The years 1950-58 were extraordinarily productive for JB, and many of his best short stories were published in this period, including "Beanstalk" (1952), "Surface Tension" (1952), "Common Time" (1953), which is probably his most praised story, "Beep" (1954) and "A Work of Art" (1956). Several appear in his first collection, Galactic Cluster (coll 1959; with 3 stories cut and "Beanstalk" added, rev 1960 UK). JB's own choice was published as Best Science Fiction Stories of James Blish (coll 1965UK; with 1 story cut and 2 added, rev 1973 UK; rev vt The Testament of AndrosUK). 6 of the 8 stories in this collection, along with an introduction by Robert A.W. LOWNDES, appear with 6 new stories in the posthumous THE BEST OF JAMES BLISH (coll 1979 US).These years also saw the publication of his first novel in book form, Jack of Eagles (TWS 1949 as "Let the Finder Beware"; rev 1952; cut 1953; full text vt ESP-er 1958). It was followed by The Warriors of Day (1951 Two Complete Science Adventure Books as "Sword of Xota"; 1953), THE SEEDLING STARS (1952-6 var mags; coll of linked stories 1957), The Frozen Year (1957; vt Fallen Star UK), A CASE OF CONSCIENCE (part 1 in If, 1953; 1958) and VOR (part 1949 TWS with Damon Knight; exp 1958). Jack of Eagles contains one of the few attempts in sf to give a scientific rationale for telepathy. A CASE OF CONSCIENCE, which won the 1959 HUGO for Best Novel, was one of the first serious attempts to deal with RELIGION in sf, and remains one of the most sophisticated in its tale of a priest faced with a planet whose inhabitants seem free of the concept of Original Sin. In THE SEEDLING STARS and other stories of the period, JB introduced biological themes (BIOLOGY). This area of science had previously been rather neglected in sf in favour of the "harder" sciences - physics, astronomy, technology, etc. THE SEEDLING STARS is an important roadmarker in the early development of sf about GENETIC ENGINEERING.JB was interested in METAPHYSICS, and some critics regard as his most important work the trilogy After Such Knowledge: A CASE OF CONSCIENCE, Doctor Mirabilis (1964UK; rev 1971 US), and Black Easter; or, Faust Aleph-Null (1968) and The Day after Judgment (1971); he regarded the last two books as one novel, and indeed they were so published in Black Easter and The Day After Judgement (omni 1980US; vt The Devil's Day 1990 US) - hence his use of the term "trilogy". After Such Knowledge poses a question once expressed by JB: "Is the desire for secular knowledge, let alone the acquisition and use of it, a misuse of the mind, and perhaps even actively evil?" This is one of the fundamental themes of sf, and is painstakingly explored in Doctor Mirabilis, an historical novel which treats the life of the 13th-century scientist and theologian Roger Bacon (c1214-1292). It deals with the archetypal sf theme of CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH from one intellectual model of the Universe to another, more sophisticated model. Black Easter, a better and more unified work than its sequel The Day After Judgment, is a strong fantasy in which black MAGIC - treated here as a science or, as JB has it, a "scholium" - releases Satan into the world again; Satan rules Heaven in the sequel. The four books were collected in After Such Knowledge (omni 1991 UK).As a writer, JB was thrifty - to the point of parsimony in his later years. He returned to many of his best stories to revise and expand them, sometimes into novel form. Apart from those already mentioned, he also used this treatment on an early short story, "Sunken Universe" (1942 as by Arthur Merlyn), and built it into another story, "Surface Tension" (1952 Gal), which revised again became part of THE SEEDLING STARS; "Surface Tension" was his most popular and most anthologized story. Other examples are Titan's Daughter (1952, in Future Tense, ed Kendell Foster CROSSEN, as "Beanstalk"; vt "Giants in the Earth" in The Original Science Fiction Stories 1956; exp 1961) and The Quincunx of Time (1954 Gal as "Beep"; exp 1973).JB wrote two not very successful sf novels in collaboration: The Duplicated Man (1953 Dynamic SF; 1959) with Robert A.W. LOWNDES and A Torrent of Faces (fixup 1967) with Norman L. KNIGHT. The latter is a tale of Earth suffering from, but to a degree coping with, OVERPOPULATION.JB's later years were much preoccupied with the STAR TREK books. These are Star Trek * (coll 1967), Star Trek 2 * (coll 1968), \#3 * (coll 1969), \#4 * (coll 1971), \#5 * (coll 1972), \#6 * (coll 1972), \#7 * (coll 1972), \#8* (coll 1972), \#9 * (coll 1973), \#10 * (coll 1974) and \#11 * (coll 1975). They are based on the original tv scripts, and hence are in fact collaborations, but Spock Must Die * (1970) is an original work, the first original adult Star Trek novel (it was preceded by Mack REYNOLDS's Mission to Horatius * [1968], a juvenile). The posthumous Star Trek 12 (coll 1977) contained two adaptations (out of five) completed by Judith Ann Lawrence, who also completed some of the work in \#11. Omnibus editions include: The Star Trek Reader * (omni 1976), containing \#2, \#3 and \#8; The Star Trek Reader II * (omni 1977), containing \#1, \#4 and \#9; The Star Trek Reader III * (omni 1977), containing \#5, \#6 and \#7; The Star Trek Reader IV * (omni 1978), containing \#10, \#12 and Spock Must Die. Re-sorted in order of tv appearance, they were reassembled as Star Trek: The Classic Episodes \#1 * (coll 1991) with J.A. Lawrence, 27 first-season episodes, Star Trek: The Classic Episodes \#2 * (coll 1991), 25 second-season episodes, and Star Trek: The Classic Episodes \#3 * (coll 1991) with J.A. Lawrence, 24 third-season episodes.Aside from Spock Must Die and A Life for the Stars (1962), the fourth of the Okie books, JB wrote four more juvenile novels, none very successful. These are a short and rather didactic series - The Star Dwellers (1961) and Mission to the Heart Stars (1965) - along with Welcome to Mars! (1967) and, the weakest of them, The Vanished Jet (1968). JB's output remained fairly steady during the 1960s and 1970s, but the overall standard of his work had dropped, although his penultimate serious work was interesting. This was Midsummer Century (1972US; with 2 stories added, as coll 1974 US), in which the disembodied consciousness of a scientist is cast forward into a FAR FUTURE where it meets different forms of AI and intervenes in an evolutionary struggle. It is hard to read this story of active mental life cut off from the physical world without thinking of the frail JB's last years. He had a successful operation for throat cancer in the 1960s but died from lung cancer in 1975, characteristically turning out an essay on Spengler and sf on his deathbed - its DEFINITION OF SF is "the internal (intracultural) form taken by syncretism in the West". JB was also one of the earliest and most influential of sf critics, under the pseudonym William Atheling Jr. Much of his criticism was collected in two books, The Issue at Hand (coll 1964) and More Issues at Hand (coll 1970). It is notably stern in many cases, often pedantic, but intelligent and written from a much wider perspective than was usual for fan criticism of his era. Further essays, including that on Spengler noted above, appear in the posthumous, curate's egg collection The Tale that Wags the God (coll 1987; published as by JB), ed Cy Chauvin. As anthologist, JB edited New Dreams this Morning (anth 1966), Nebula Award Stories 5 (anth 1970) and Thirteen O'Clock (coll 1972), a collection of short stories by C.M. Kornbluth. He also edited the only issue of the sf magazine VANGUARD SCIENCE FICTION (June 1958).JB did much to encourage younger writers, and was one of the founders of the MILFORD SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS' CONFERENCE (he and J.A. Lawrence also founded the UK Milford workshop), and an active charter member of the SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA. He also became, in 1970, one of the founder members of the SCIENCE FICTION FOUNDATION in the UK. The latter organization named the James Blish AWARD for excellence in sf criticism in honour of him after his death. The first award went in 1977 to Brian W. ALDISS, but it then lapsed for lack of funds.His dominant intellectual passions, which often recur in his writing, were, aside from Spengler, the works of Ezra Pound, James Joyce (he published papers on both of them) and James Branch CABELL (he edited the Cabell Society magazine Kalki), the music of Richard Strauss, and relativistic physics. JB was an interesting example of a writer with an enquiring mind and a strong literary bent - with some of the crotchets of the autodidact - who turned his attention to fundamentally pulp GENRE-SF materials and in so doing transformed them. His part in the transformation of pulp sf to something bigger is historically of the first importance. Nonetheless, he was not a naturally easy or harmonious writer; his style was often awkward, and in its sometimes anomalous displays of erudition it could appear cold. On the other hand, there was a visionary, romantic side to JB which, though carefully controlled, is often visible below the surface.JB had a scholastic temperament, and in 1969 emigrated to England to be close to Oxford, where he is buried. His manuscripts and papers are in the Bodleian Library. These include several unpublished works of both mainstream fiction and sf.

   PN

   Other works: So Close to Home (coll 1961); The Night Shapes (1962); Anywhen (coll 1970; with 1 story added, rev 1971 UK); . . . And All the Stars a Stage (1960 AMZ; exp 1971); Get Out of My Sky, and There Shall Be No Darkness (coll 1980 UK); The Seedling Stars/Galactic Cluster (omni 1983).

   About the author: By far the most complete critical and biographical account is Imprisoned in a Tesseract: The Life and Work of James Blish (1988) by David KETTERER; also essential is A Clash of Cymbals: The Triumph of James Blish (chap 1979) by Brian M. STABLEFORD; relevant are "After Such Knowledge: James Blish's Tetralogy" by Bob Rickard in A Multitude of Visions (anth 1975) ed Cy Chauvin, and the special Blish issue of FSF (April 1972).

   See also: ADAM AND EVE; ALIENS; ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN SF; ARTS; ASTEROIDS; CHILDREN'S SF; COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; COMMUNICATIONS; COMPUTERS; COSMOLOGY; CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; DISCOVERY AND INVENTION; END OF THE WORLD; EVOLUTION; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; FASTER THAN LIGHT; GALACTIC EMPIRES; GENERATION STARSHIPS; GOLDEN AGE OF SF; GOTHIC SF; GRAVITY; GREAT AND SMALL; HISTORY OF SF; IMAGINARY SCIENCE; IMMORTALITY; JUPITER; LONGEVITY (IN WRITERS AND PUBLICATIONS); The MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION; MARS; MATHEMATICS; MESSIAHS; MONSTERS; MUSIC; ORIGIN OF MAN; PANTROPY; PARANOIA; PERCEPTION; PHYSICS; POLITICS; POLLUTION; REINCARNATION; SHARED WORLDS; SOCIOLOGY; SPACE FLIGHT; SPACE OPERA; SUPERMAN; SUPERNATURAL CREATURES; TERRAFORMING; THRILLING WONDER STORIES; TRANSPORTATION; UNDER THE SEA; UTOPIAS; WEAPONS.