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...

James Blish commands considerable respect as a science-fiction writer and his novels generally have a narrative directness and a thematic credibility that confounds sceptics. [And All the Stars a Stage], though written as usual with simplicity and a lack of pseudo scientific mystification, seems to contain too many themes for comfort…. [Blish makes up for some of the disappointments in this work] through the excitement of his space flight, of two abortive attempts to land (one of which would make an ...

The Day after Judgment is an exhilarating and hair-raising sequel to Mr. Blish's Black Easter, the two connected books now forming the centre-piece of a trilogy, flanked by Doctor Mirabilis and (still the best) A Case of Conscience, in which the author has aimed to dramatise, in terms of Science Fiction and black and white magic, some of the questions already posed by Milton and Marlowe concerning the powers of God and Satan, the nature of the demonic and the reach of human knowledge. In the present ...