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The Best of James Blish
Contents:
· Science Fiction the Hard Way · Robert A. W. Lowndes · in
· Citadel of Thought · ss Stirring Science Stories Feb ’41
· The Box · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’49
· There Shall Be No Darkness · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’50
· Surface Tension [Lavon] · na The Seedling Stars, James Blish, Gnome, 1956; revised from “Sunken Universe”, Super Science Stories May ’42 and “Surface Tension”, Galaxy Aug ’52.
· Testament of Andros · nv Future Jan ’53
· Common Time · ss Science Fiction Quarterly Aug ’53
· Beep · nv Galaxy Feb ’54
· A Work of Art [“Art-Work”] · nv Science Fiction Stories Jul ’56
· This Earth of Hours · nv F&SF Jun ’59
· The Oath · nv F&SF Oct ’60
· How Beautiful with Banners · ss Orbit 1, ed. Damon Knight, Berkley Medallion, 1966
· A Style in Treason [expanded from “A Hero’s Life”, Impulse Mar ’66] · nv Galaxy Jun ’70
· Probapossible Prolegomena to Ideareal History · William Atheling, Jr. · aw Foundation May ’78
· Science Fiction the Hard Way · Robert A. W. Lowndes · in
· Citadel of Thought · ss Stirring Science Stories Feb ’41
· The Box · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’49
· There Shall Be No Darkness · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’50
· Surface Tension [Lavon] · na The Seedling Stars, James Blish, Gnome, 1956; revised from “Sunken Universe”, Super Science Stories May ’42 and “Surface Tension”, Galaxy Aug ’52.
· Testament of Andros · nv Future Jan ’53
· Common Time · ss Science Fiction Quarterly Aug ’53
· Beep · nv Galaxy Feb ’54
· A Work of Art [“Art-Work”] · nv Science Fiction Stories Jul ’56
· This Earth of Hours · nv F&SF Jun ’59
· The Oath · nv F&SF Oct ’60
· How Beautiful with Banners · ss Orbit 1, ed. Damon Knight, Berkley Medallion, 1966
· A Style in Treason [expanded from “A Hero’s Life”, Impulse Mar ’66] · nv Galaxy Jun ’70
· Probapossible Prolegomena to Ideareal History · William Atheling, Jr. · aw Foundation May ’78
358 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published July 12, 1979
4 people are currently reading
189 people want to read
About the author
James Blish
456 books326 followersJames Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling Jr.
In the late 1930's to the early 1940's, Blish was a member of the Futurians.
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.
From 1962 to 1968, he worked for the Tobacco Institute.
Between 1967 and his death from lung cancer 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 12; his wife, J.A. Lawrence, completed the book, and later completed the adaptations in the volume Mudd's Angels.
Blish lived in Milford, Pennsylvania at Arrowhead until the mid-1960s. In 1968, Blish emigrated to England, and lived in Oxford until his death in 1975. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, near the grave of Kenneth Grahame.
His name in Greek is Τζέημς Μπλις"
In the late 1930's to the early 1940's, Blish was a member of the Futurians.
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.
From 1962 to 1968, he worked for the Tobacco Institute.
Between 1967 and his death from lung cancer 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 12; his wife, J.A. Lawrence, completed the book, and later completed the adaptations in the volume Mudd's Angels.
Blish lived in Milford, Pennsylvania at Arrowhead until the mid-1960s. In 1968, Blish emigrated to England, and lived in Oxford until his death in 1975. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, near the grave of Kenneth Grahame.
His name in Greek is Τζέημς Μπλις"
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 13, 2024
This is a good collection of short fiction by Blish, and while I'm not sure it's his very "Best" work, there are two stories included I regard as classics of the field, Surface Tension and There Shall Be No Darkness. I wondered if a somewhat different table of contents might have been selected by the author, who passed at a relatively young age four years before the book appeared. The collection was edited by Robert Lowndes, and I thought he went with some of the stories simply because they'd appeared in magazines he edited. It's odd that none of the stories are from John W. Campbell's Astounding, though there are some from F & SF and Galaxy, in addition to older pulps like Thrilling Wonder. Blish was better known as a novelist and critic (as William Atheling, Jr., one of whose essays closes out the current book) than for his short work (heck, let's be honest, he's best known for his Star Trek adaptations), but he did produce a respectable body of work of which this is a respectable representation.
January 3, 2023
[Original review, 2009]
I first came across this book when I was way too young, about 10 or 11, and didn't get what most of the stories were about. I still thought it was brilliant... I must have read Surface Tension half a dozen times at least. It's a haunting tale, mainly set in a small pool, where microscopic people build a four centimeter long spaceship capable of traveling the several meters to the next puddle. Impossible to forget. I also loved There Will Be No Darkness, a superior werewolf story which I believe is the only thing Blish did that's ever been filmed.
When I re-read it in my teens, I appreciated several of the others. Testament of Andros is a wonderfully ambiguous story, possibly about how the world ends as the result of a massive solar flare, and more likely about how an elderly astrophysicist has a psychotic breakdown. A Work of Art describes an experiment where the personality of Richard Strauss is brought back to life in a future world where no one is interested in music any more. (Blish appeared to know quite a lot about Strauss). Tomb Tapper is an incident in some future war where the "tomb tapper" uses a telepathic probe to read the thoughts of a crashed enemy pilot. They are so weird that he concludes it must really be some kind of alien. Unless there is a third explanation...
If you like SF short stories (or, indeed, any kind of short stories), then I can't recommend this collection highly enough. It should be much better known.
_______________________________
So here's a speculative theory about A Work of Art, which I thought of while making lunch. The story is quite moving, which is often a sign that the author might feel personally involved. But why?
Well... when I read Blish, the themes of many of his novels do rather remind me of the kind of religious heroic fantasy that was being written hundreds of years ago by giants like Dante and Milton. You have the same kind of big-screen cosmic showdowns between the forces of Good, identified with the Christian Church, and Evil, identified with a very personal Satan. As with his august predecessors, Blish's books contain a lot of edgy and speculative theology, not at all mainstream stuff. For a clear example, take a look at my review of They Shall Have Stars.
Unfortunately, Blish had a double tragedy to contend with here. First, people aren't really interested any more in that kind of stuff. I seem to be one of the few people who's even noticed what They Shall Have Stars is about. Second, he didn't have any of Dante or Milton's talent. To put it bluntly, most of his books just come across as hack SF novels with exaggerated pretensions.
That's rather the situation we have in A Work of Art. Richard Strauss suddenly wakes up in a different body, and finds a world where no one cares about music any more. His personality has been revived as a scientific experiment. He tries to go about his business as a composer. One day, he stumbles across the following poem by Ezra Pound, and suddenly feels inspired:
It's not exactly a smoking gun, but I did wonder. A Work of Art is definitely one of the best things Blish did.
_______________________________
[Update, January 2023]
Technology has made dramatic advances. Following the recent release of ChatGPT, you can instruct Chat to respond in different voices; sometimes this works quite well. I wondered about Blish's idea from A Work of Art and thought I'd try a little experiment.
Well, I'm relieved to say that we're still a long way from being able to do it. I asked Chat to create a virtual discussion with Dante, Simone de Beauvoir and Astrid Lindgren, each speaking their original language, and it was totally unconvincing. Chat understands the instructions and does its best, but each character is transparently Chat being its usual upbeat, positive, rather boring self, speaking the language it's been told to use and tossing in a bit about heaven or feminism or Pippi when it remembers, which isn't very often.
So we're safe for now. But if the next version is as large a jump as this one was, who knows...
I first came across this book when I was way too young, about 10 or 11, and didn't get what most of the stories were about. I still thought it was brilliant... I must have read Surface Tension half a dozen times at least. It's a haunting tale, mainly set in a small pool, where microscopic people build a four centimeter long spaceship capable of traveling the several meters to the next puddle. Impossible to forget. I also loved There Will Be No Darkness, a superior werewolf story which I believe is the only thing Blish did that's ever been filmed.
When I re-read it in my teens, I appreciated several of the others. Testament of Andros is a wonderfully ambiguous story, possibly about how the world ends as the result of a massive solar flare, and more likely about how an elderly astrophysicist has a psychotic breakdown. A Work of Art describes an experiment where the personality of Richard Strauss is brought back to life in a future world where no one is interested in music any more. (Blish appeared to know quite a lot about Strauss). Tomb Tapper is an incident in some future war where the "tomb tapper" uses a telepathic probe to read the thoughts of a crashed enemy pilot. They are so weird that he concludes it must really be some kind of alien. Unless there is a third explanation...
If you like SF short stories (or, indeed, any kind of short stories), then I can't recommend this collection highly enough. It should be much better known.
_______________________________
So here's a speculative theory about A Work of Art, which I thought of while making lunch. The story is quite moving, which is often a sign that the author might feel personally involved. But why?
Well... when I read Blish, the themes of many of his novels do rather remind me of the kind of religious heroic fantasy that was being written hundreds of years ago by giants like Dante and Milton. You have the same kind of big-screen cosmic showdowns between the forces of Good, identified with the Christian Church, and Evil, identified with a very personal Satan. As with his august predecessors, Blish's books contain a lot of edgy and speculative theology, not at all mainstream stuff. For a clear example, take a look at my review of They Shall Have Stars.
Unfortunately, Blish had a double tragedy to contend with here. First, people aren't really interested any more in that kind of stuff. I seem to be one of the few people who's even noticed what They Shall Have Stars is about. Second, he didn't have any of Dante or Milton's talent. To put it bluntly, most of his books just come across as hack SF novels with exaggerated pretensions.
That's rather the situation we have in A Work of Art. Richard Strauss suddenly wakes up in a different body, and finds a world where no one cares about music any more. His personality has been revived as a scientific experiment. He tries to go about his business as a composer. One day, he stumbles across the following poem by Ezra Pound, and suddenly feels inspired:
No man hath dared to write this thing as yet,He starts writing a piece based on it. No one is interested; they just think it's a curiosity. But he perseveres, until a much worse realization dawns. It's no good. His talent didn't survive being transported into his new corporeal being. And, worst of all, he's the only person in the world who even knows it.
And yet I know, how that the souls of all men great
At times pass athrough us,
And we are melted into them, and are not
Save reflexions of their souls.
Thus am I Dante for a space and am
One Francois Villon, ballad-lord and thief,
Or am such holy ones I may not write
Lest blasphemy be writ against my name;
This for an instant and the flame is gone.
'Tis as in midmost us there glows a sphere
Translucent, molten gold, that is the "I"
And into this some form projects itself:
Christus, or John, or eke the Florentine;
And as the clear space is not if a form's
Imposed thereon,
So cease we from all being for the time,
And these, the Masters of the Soul, live on.
It's not exactly a smoking gun, but I did wonder. A Work of Art is definitely one of the best things Blish did.
_______________________________
[Update, January 2023]
Technology has made dramatic advances. Following the recent release of ChatGPT, you can instruct Chat to respond in different voices; sometimes this works quite well. I wondered about Blish's idea from A Work of Art and thought I'd try a little experiment.
Well, I'm relieved to say that we're still a long way from being able to do it. I asked Chat to create a virtual discussion with Dante, Simone de Beauvoir and Astrid Lindgren, each speaking their original language, and it was totally unconvincing. Chat understands the instructions and does its best, but each character is transparently Chat being its usual upbeat, positive, rather boring self, speaking the language it's been told to use and tossing in a bit about heaven or feminism or Pippi when it remembers, which isn't very often.
So we're safe for now. But if the next version is as large a jump as this one was, who knows...
August 26, 2025
Check out a discussion on this collection of short stories with Matt and Richard HERE.
This is a great collection of stories from Blish that helped push the genre into some new and interesting directions. Blish experimented with the ‘unreliable narrator’ in Testament of Andros and Common Time, which must have inspired many SF authors to come. Surface Tension is probably the most notable in this collection, it is such a great idea, and he executes it very well. I like how he turns myth into SF in There Shall Be No Darkness. Beep is one of the mind-blowing ideas, but I feel like he could have done more with it. There were definitely some duds in the collection as well but overall, I feel it’s a better than average collection.
My favorites were:
• A Work of Art
• Surface Tension
• Testament of Andros
• Common Time
• There Shall Be No Darkness
• Beep
• A Style in Treason
This is a great collection of stories from Blish that helped push the genre into some new and interesting directions. Blish experimented with the ‘unreliable narrator’ in Testament of Andros and Common Time, which must have inspired many SF authors to come. Surface Tension is probably the most notable in this collection, it is such a great idea, and he executes it very well. I like how he turns myth into SF in There Shall Be No Darkness. Beep is one of the mind-blowing ideas, but I feel like he could have done more with it. There were definitely some duds in the collection as well but overall, I feel it’s a better than average collection.
My favorites were:
• A Work of Art
• Surface Tension
• Testament of Andros
• Common Time
• There Shall Be No Darkness
• Beep
• A Style in Treason
May 24, 2023
Like a couple of other volumes I've read in the Del Rey "Best of" author series, the stories collected here represent more of a career survey than it does the actual best selection of short works. I definitely got the sense of Blish's arc as a science fiction author, from early promise to recognizable mastery, but the cost is that the early stories are ultimately forgettable and the later stories, while quite good, are not enough to amount to a statement of Blish's overall talent and oeuvre. Lowndes' introduction characterizes Blish as a literary-minded sci-fi author (he read, studied, and wrote about Pound, Joyce, Nabokov, etc.), and while a couple of stories allude to this mindset overtly (such as "Common Time," "This Earth of Hours," and "A Style in Treason") the final product doesn't resonate with the same mystery and depth as the artists it name drops. Instead, the high points for me were "Surface Tension," and "A Work of Art" and "The Oath." The latter two stories actually present a truly compelling and muse worthy concept that is wholly (and thereby successfully) character driven. Each can be appreciated as a surface sci-fi yarn, but there' plenty to think about underneath if you're game. By comparison, "Surface Tension" is much the same, though the idea is more expansive to invoke the very nature of human existence and the purpose of ingenuity in of itself for both survival and exploration (for further survival?). It's still a character driven piece, but at a novella length it follows several generations of humans as they combat and master their environment only to discover their microscopic place in the vast universe. My hope, when I get to A Case of Conscience (his Hugo winner for best novel), it will be reminiscent of these three stories more than any of the others I read.
P.S. The actual best bit in the whole volume is the essay by Blish (under a pseudonym stolen from anti-Semite Ezra Pound) at the end in which he defines science fiction in one of the more original ways I've ever read. It was worth the price of the whole collection and then some. If there's a collected essays by Blish, it will be must read for me.
P.S. The actual best bit in the whole volume is the essay by Blish (under a pseudonym stolen from anti-Semite Ezra Pound) at the end in which he defines science fiction in one of the more original ways I've ever read. It was worth the price of the whole collection and then some. If there's a collected essays by Blish, it will be must read for me.
November 20, 2018
I confess that I did not read this entire book, I read a novella called There Shall Be No Darkness that was part of a book called Witches Three along with Conjure Wife and Blue Star. I read this when I was very young and found the book on eBay. It is not listed on Goodreads so I had to pick a different book that also included the novella. This is a great werewolf story. Very, very atmospheric. A perfect autumn read. I loved it!
December 2, 2019
3.5 stars.
October 27, 2020
Common time is an eerie, fascinating short sci-fi story about an interstellar explorer’s adventures. Well worth a read.
March 18, 2023
Citadel of Thought - 4/5 - Not what I was expecting with the title but this ended up being a fun old school swashbuckling space adventure
The Box - 3.5/5 - I really enjoyed the ticking clock element but he does a bit of a time skip which sort of dampens the effectiveness. Still fun and pretty short
There Shall Be Darkness - 4.5/5 - I really like stories with classic monsters where they try to explain how they exist. Also it's about werewolves which seem to be often the forgotten monster in the literature world. Also this is the first story of his where I felt the prose really stood out as something special
Surface Tension - 5/5 - An incredibly unique take on planet colonization, genetic modification, and the thrill of exploration of the unknown
Testament of Andros - 3/5 - A dying Earth story that was had some interesting stuff but I inevitably didn't completely mesh with mostly because it was somewhat vague and abstruse
Common Time - 4/5 - A solitary astronaut experiencing "over-drive" travel (near FTL) and the effects it has on him. Really cool stuff as it's not a topic often mined. There are also some bits with aliens that is more confusing than anything else
Beep - 3.5/5 - Would not have expected a story that has as much technical language as this to have the name Beep so I was a bit surprised. The incessant technical talk did hurt it a bit in my eyes but Blish shows how great of a writer he is in that I wasn't really put off of the story entirely. I just sort of read those sections and retained none of it until the narrative resumed
A Work of Art - 4/5 - Basically the opposite of last story in that there is a really interesting sci-fi concept and he barely discusses the technicalities. In fact it's mostly in the background as we witness a composer attempt to create a new concert. Very enjoyable
This Earth of Hours - 3/5 - Fairly good but suffers from having multiple ideas and tropes from other sci-fi properties. Had I read this very early in my life I would have probably found it brilliant
The Oath - 4/5 - Not your typical post-apocalyptic story. This is mostly a look at two medical professionals discussing how their ways of treatment are different in this new reality. A nice change of pace from what we often get with these stories
How Beautiful With Banners - 3/5 - Story of survival on an alien planet. At times hard to know what is going on because he uses vague terms to name the aliens. I do think I finally understood what was going on by the end. It's super weird at the end (in a good way)
A Style in Treason - 4.5/5 - A professional traitor goes to a different planet to sell his information. It has a lot of cool ideas and the story itself is pretty great. Gave me a bit of a Shadow of the Torturer vibe except the main characters odd job wasn't being a torturer and I actually understood what I was reading
The Box - 3.5/5 - I really enjoyed the ticking clock element but he does a bit of a time skip which sort of dampens the effectiveness. Still fun and pretty short
There Shall Be Darkness - 4.5/5 - I really like stories with classic monsters where they try to explain how they exist. Also it's about werewolves which seem to be often the forgotten monster in the literature world. Also this is the first story of his where I felt the prose really stood out as something special
Surface Tension - 5/5 - An incredibly unique take on planet colonization, genetic modification, and the thrill of exploration of the unknown
Testament of Andros - 3/5 - A dying Earth story that was had some interesting stuff but I inevitably didn't completely mesh with mostly because it was somewhat vague and abstruse
Common Time - 4/5 - A solitary astronaut experiencing "over-drive" travel (near FTL) and the effects it has on him. Really cool stuff as it's not a topic often mined. There are also some bits with aliens that is more confusing than anything else
Beep - 3.5/5 - Would not have expected a story that has as much technical language as this to have the name Beep so I was a bit surprised. The incessant technical talk did hurt it a bit in my eyes but Blish shows how great of a writer he is in that I wasn't really put off of the story entirely. I just sort of read those sections and retained none of it until the narrative resumed
A Work of Art - 4/5 - Basically the opposite of last story in that there is a really interesting sci-fi concept and he barely discusses the technicalities. In fact it's mostly in the background as we witness a composer attempt to create a new concert. Very enjoyable
This Earth of Hours - 3/5 - Fairly good but suffers from having multiple ideas and tropes from other sci-fi properties. Had I read this very early in my life I would have probably found it brilliant
The Oath - 4/5 - Not your typical post-apocalyptic story. This is mostly a look at two medical professionals discussing how their ways of treatment are different in this new reality. A nice change of pace from what we often get with these stories
How Beautiful With Banners - 3/5 - Story of survival on an alien planet. At times hard to know what is going on because he uses vague terms to name the aliens. I do think I finally understood what was going on by the end. It's super weird at the end (in a good way)
A Style in Treason - 4.5/5 - A professional traitor goes to a different planet to sell his information. It has a lot of cool ideas and the story itself is pretty great. Gave me a bit of a Shadow of the Torturer vibe except the main characters odd job wasn't being a torturer and I actually understood what I was reading
July 20, 2015
Before this collection, I had only read novels by Blish. I always felt like he had great ideas, huge potential, but lousy execution. And most of them fall apart in the second half. Well, after reading this collection it seems clear that short stories are James Blish's wheelhouse. Most of these stories are really good. The short story seems to be Blish's creative unit, which helps explain why his novels are never that great. They all seem like short stories onto which unnecessary filler has been grafted to turn them into novels. They would all be much more effective as short stories. For evidence of this read this book.
June 16, 2021
An oft-forgotten sci-fi writer of the twentieth century, this book offers a panoply of James Blish’s greatest short stories. Everything from pulp-era to 1970s science fiction, a horror story, and even an essay on sci-fi, can be found within. Blish’s fiction can be characterized as “a thinking man’s sci-fi.” For those interested in sci-fi extrapolations of ideas, technologies, and their effects upon future peoples, Blish is a must-read. Recommend.
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May 20, 2015Science-Fiction
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