|
|
|
|
|
|
divinity. Yet he is very deeply a mystic; a man who has vigorously opposed the rash of psionics in science fictionand has written one of the best novels on it and used everything from telepathy to lycanthropy in some of his best stories. He is one of the most vigorous proponents of science fiction as something that must be artand yet he enjoys writing the "Star Trek" books, knowing that they are essentially hack work, no matter how well done. He loves to write, yet until recently found that he wrote more and better when working at a daily job than when having full time in which to write. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He's an extraordinarily impatient man when he confronts stupidity or lazy thinking; yet he can listen patiently to the worst kind of nonsense when he believes his listener needs his help. He is a severe criticand a kind one. Sometimes he seems cold; yet, though he originally disliked what must have seemed arrogance and fraud on my part, he came across town to take me to his bosom at once when he discovered I had written the story he only partly liked but felt to be an honest experiment. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jim is one of the most complex men I have known. We've spent a lot of time together in our joys and troubles. Yet I can't claim to understand him fully. (For instance, I can't understand how his magnum opus, Dr. Mirabilis plus A Case of Conscience plus Black Easter and its sequel form a trilogy to him. I find no central character or theme. But Jim, who demands rigor in statement and exactitude in words, insists they are a trilogy. De gustibus semper disputandum est!) (. . .) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Blish has continued through the fifties and sixties to maintain both a high output of all lengths of stories and his high and deserved repute. But I think it only fair to say that he hasn't, in my opinion, gone above the general average he maintained between 1950 and 1960. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lester del Rey, "The Hand at Issue," Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 42, No. 4 (April 1972): 7577 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The most interesting of the stories which Blish wrote during the hobbyist period of the early forties was one which did not see print until ten years laterthe novelette "There Shall Be No Darkness" (. . .) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The mechanics of the plot of "There Shall Be No Darkness" are crude in several respectsnot least in the establishment of the basic situation, |
|
|
|
|
|