About the Author

James Blish was the author of a wide range of science fiction and fantasy, from thrilling space opera involving the cities of earth traveling between the stars to biological SF about enhanced humans in radical environments to fantasies about werewolves and angels and demons. He believed in science fiction grounded in science and in rigorously logical fantasy. But he was also literarily ambitious, bringing depth and complexity to many SF themes. His interests were wide-ranging - from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake to opera to the poetry of Ezra Pound to philosophy. He incorporated Spenglerian philosophy into space opera and wrote SF stories centered on the opera of Richard Strauss and theology.