James Blish was an author of science fiction and fantasy. The author was born in 1921 and passed away in 1975. He is best known as the author of the Cities in Flight series and the After Such Knowledge series.
His first published work was featured in magazines like Super Science Stories and Amazing Stories, but he would eventually move to novels. Blish won the Hugo Award for the first novel in the After Such Knowledge series, A Case of Conscience. In addition to his work under his own name, Blish also wrote under the pen names of Donald Laverty, John MacDougal, and Arthur Lloyd Merlyn. He also worked extensively as a literary critic.
Publication Order of Cities in Flight Books
Publication Order of After Such Knowledge Books
Publication Order of Heart Stars Books
Publication Order of Haertel Scholium Books
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
Publication Order of Star Trek Adventures Books
Publication Order of Star Trek: TOS Adaptations Books
Publication Order of Anthologies
If You Like James Blish Books, You’ll Love…
A Case of Conscience follows a space-traveling priest known as Father Ruiz-Sanchez. He’s a man of faith, but he’s also a scientist and doesn’t have any conflicts in his beliefs. Then he is sent to Lithia, a planet inhabited by repilians. They have no concept of God, literature, or art, but they manage to live in peace. They are logical and only rely on reason in decision making, but there are fears that they may pose a threat to our world. Ruiz-Sanchez is driven by his own understanding of good and evil. Can he do the right thing?
They Shall Have Stars is the first book in the Cities in Flight series. The story, written in 1967, takes place in a distant future of 2018 as man builds a bridge to Jupiter. The bridge is thirty miles high, eight miles wide, and impossibly long, always growing. The question becomes: what is the purpose of this bridge? There is only one man who knows the answer to this question. The answer itself may just be the most tormenting of all the knowledge in the universe.
