| Article: 348
From: [email protected] (Dani Zweig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: REPOST: Belated Reviews #21: James Blish
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: 01 Sep 93 22:14:52 GMT
Belated Reviews #21: James Blish
Many newer readers may know James Blish for his Star Trek books, but his
writing spans four decades, with most of his best work being written in the
fifties -- a decade notable for the volume and the variety of his work.
Variety means taking chances, and some of his efforts turned out badly, but
most were imaginative, original, thought provoking, and readable. They've
aged moderately well: His better books are worth reading, but often show
their age.
"Cities in Flight" (***) consists of four novels -- "They Shall Have Stars",
"A Life For the Stars", "Earthman Come Home", and "The Triumph of Time" --
but it's fairly easy to find in an omnibus paperback edition. It is a
future history stretching from 2018 AD to (not coincidentally) 4004 AD.
"They Shall Have Stars" (**) is a prologue to the other three, and introduces
the two key technologies upon which the rest of the story rests -- a superb
all-purpose spacedrive, to make space travel possible, and longevity drugs,
to make it practical. The spacedrive (the spindizzy) imposes no practical
size limit on spacecraft -- and one by one, Earth's major cities fit them-
selves out for space travel and become galactic migrants. "A Life For the
Stars" (***) takes place at the height of this period, which we see through the
eyes of a boy who leaves Earth for New York City. (I apologize for the
straight line. Please resist the temptation.) "Earthman Come Home" (***+)
was written first of the four, and tells of the collapse of this system, and
of the cities' attempt to return to Earth. "The Triumph of Time" (***) is
something of an epilogue -- a tale of NYC-in-space and the threatened premature
end of the universe. It doesn't hurt to read the books out of order. "Cities
in Flight" isn't Blish's best-written work, but it's his biggest -- in more
than page count -- and tends to be a favorite.
"A Case of Conscience" (***) may be Blish's best-known book. Father
Ruiz Sanchez, a Jesuit and a scientist, is a member of the expedition to
the newly-discovered planet Lithia. As the book opens, he is relaxing by
attempting to disentangle a theoretical theological conundrum of the sort
in which Jesuits are supposed to delight. He solves this conundrum at
about the time he begins to realize that Lithia itself offers a nastier
real-life theological conundrum: Much as it galls his scientific mind,
the evidence suggests that the planet was Satanically custom-designed
to undercut the Christian faith. Needless to say, other expedition
members are not thrilled by his conclusion. Neither is the Church, since
that conclusion is heretical. Sanchez, being a good scientist and a
good theologian, realizes this, but the logic appears to be compelling.
"The Seedling Stars" (***) is a fixup novel about a future in which humanity
has colonized the galaxy through genetic manipulation. Earthlike planets
are few, and terraforming is impractically expensive, so instead, worlds
which are habitable (in the broadest sense of the word) are settled by
people who have been bioengineered for their new habitats. The book consists
of four sections, the best of which is the novella "Surface Tension" (****-).
"Surface Tension" begins with a seeding expedition that crashes on an
inhospitable world. The only ecological niche the doomed crew can find
that offers a chance of survival for their bioengineered descendents is a
microscopic one. ("Interplanetary travel" takes on a new meaning when
your world's a puddle.)
I see these three as the best starting points for readers who are unfamiliar
with Blish, but readers who enjoy these may want to read other Blish novels.
"Black Easter" (**+), a theologically oriented contemporary fantasy, is about
a Catholic priest who finds himself involved in an effort to summon demons
from Hell. That this effort is more successful than expected may be inferred
from the title of the sequel, "The Day After Judgment" (**). "Jack of
Eagles" (***-) is a minor novel for which I have a fondness, about a man who
finds himself developing a range of esp talents. It's a relatively early use
of this theme, so the talents are the focus of the novel, rather than just
serving as a plot device. (There may be two versions of this novel, because
I think I remember seeing a later edition whose ending included a social-
conscious-angst insertion which the 1953 copy lacks.)
"The Star Dwellers" (***-) is a Heinleinesque juvenile, set in a future in
which potential successors are apprenticed to senior officials at an early
age. This device also motivates the inclusion of the inevitable teenagers
in a mission aimed at forging a treaty with a completely alien life form.
Another juvenile novel set in the same universe is "Welcome to Mars" (**+).
An honorable mention goes to "The Quincunx of Time" (**), a short novel in
which Blish has some fun with the concepts of causality and faster-than-light
communication. Dishonorable mentions go to "Vor" and "The Warriors of Day".
%A Blish, James
%S Cities in Flight
%T They Shall Have Stars
%T A Life For the Stars
%T Earthman Come Home
%T The Triumph of Time
%T A Case of Conscience
%T The Seedling Stars
Standard introduction and disclaimer for Belated Reviews follows.
Belated Reviews cover science fiction and fantasy of earlier decades.
They're for newer readers who have wondered about the older titles on the
shelves, or who are interested in what sf/f was like in its younger days.
The emphasis is on helping interested readers identify books to try first,
not on discussing the books in depth.
A general caveat is in order: Most of the classics of yesteryear have not
aged well. If you didn't encounter them back when, or in your early teens,
they will probably not give you the unforced pleasure they gave their
original audiences. You may find yourself having to make allowances for
writing you consider shallow or politics you consider regressive. When I
name specific titles, I'll often rate them using the following scale:
**** Recommended.
*** An old favorite that hasn't aged well, and wouldn't get a good
reception if it were written today. Enjoyable on its own terms.
** A solid book, worth reading if you like the author's works.
* Nothing special.
Additional disclaimers: Authors are not chosen for review in any particular
order. The reviews don't attempt to be comprehensive. No distinction is
made between books which are still in print and books which are not.
-----
Dani Zweig
[email protected]
The inability of snakes to count is actually a refusal, on their part,
to appreciate the Cardinal Number system. -- "Actual Facts"
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| There's also a few JB short stories around. I've got a collection
called "Galactic Cluster", published by Four Square in the UK in, I
think, the late sixties. The first story features an elderly Dolph
Haertel, the young protagonist of "Welcome to Mars". The last story is
an interesting one, about an agency with the task of patching up the
referential integrity of the universe.... They use Dirac transmitters
for interstellar communication, and they've discovered that the bleep
at the beginning of each message contains every Dirac message ever
sent, forwards and backwards in time... These guys are basically
tasked with, among other things, making sure everyone mentioned in a
Dirac message gets born....
Richard
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