James Benjamin Blish began writing stories for the specialized science-fiction magazines during the 1940s while he was an editor of a trade newspaper in New York. Although he had published dozens of books, mostly science fiction, it was not until Blish...

When a number of writers, including Kurt Vonnegut, expressed resentment at the fact that their work was thought of as "science fiction," and did everything in their power to avoid the label, Blish campaigned for all "loyal" science fiction writers to insist that their works should be clearly labelled, and for they themselves to wear the title of "SF writer" with pride. He was always an earnest advocate of … [specifying] that known scientific facts should neve...

James Blish leads a double role. As Blish he is one of the most accomplished sf novelists now writing, as attested by such titles as Black Easter, Cities in Flight, and the recently published And All the Stars a Stage. As William Atheling, he has equal importance as one of the most provocative critics now writing of the genre. More Issues at Hand confirms this importance. He is one of the few popular critics who has always measured sf by its artistic merit and who explicitly shows himself aware of its relat...

Although some of the contradictions [in Blish's Cities in Flight tetralogy] surely result from authorial carelessness, forgetfulness, or indifference, they are too numerous and too prominent to be regarded as anything other than an essential feature of the overall story. Since point of view is rigidly controlled throughout the work, every statement can be attributed to one or another of the various characters. Given this fact, we can make sense of the tetralogy by regarding it, not as a fiction in wh...