79-799: James Benjamin Blish ( May 23 , 1921 – July 30 , 1975) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer . He is best known for his Cities in Flight novels and his series of Star Trek novelizations written with his wife, J. A. Lawrence . His novel A Case of Conscience won the Hugo Award . He is credited with creating the term " gas giant " to refer to large planetary bodies. His first published stories appeared in Super Science Stories and Amazing Stories . Blish wrote literary criticism of science fiction using
158-765: A computer -like screen , computer viruses , video chat , tanning beds , home treadmills , and more. In 1963, the time travel-themed Doctor Who premiered on BBC Television. The original series ran until 1989 and was revived in 2005. It has been extremely popular worldwide and has greatly influenced later TV science fiction. Other programs in the 1960s included The Outer Limits (1963–1965), Lost in Space (1965–1968), and The Prisoner (1967). Star Trek (the original series), created by Gene Roddenberry , premiered in 1966 on NBC Television and ran for three seasons. It combined elements of space opera and Space Western . Only mildly successful at first,
237-428: A space opera , went on to become a worldwide popular culture phenomenon , and the second-highest-grossing film series of all time. Since the 1980s, science fiction films , along with fantasy , horror , and superhero films, have dominated Hollywood's big-budget productions. Science fiction films often " cross-over " with other genres, including film noir ( Blade Runner - 1982), family film ( E.T.
316-439: A " sense of wonder ". According to Isaac Asimov , "Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology ." Robert A. Heinlein wrote that "A handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on
395-711: A 2015 interview Silverberg said that he did not intend to write any more fiction. Silverberg received a Nebula award in 1986 for the novella Sailing to Byzantium , which takes its name from the poem by William Butler Yeats ; a Hugo in 1987 for the novella Gilgamesh in the Outback , set in the Heroes in Hell universe of Bangsian Fantasy ; a Hugo in 1990 for Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another . The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Silverberg in 1999, its fourth class of two deceased and two living writers, and
474-535: A great and influential film. In 1954, Godzilla , directed by Ishirō Honda , began the kaiju subgenre of science fiction film, which feature large creatures of any form, usually attacking a major city or engaging other monsters in battle . 1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey , directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the work of Arthur C. Clarke , rose above the mostly B-movie offerings up to that time both in scope and quality, and influenced later science fiction films. That same year, Planet of
553-521: A hostile planet's shallow pools of water. The story proved to be among Blish's more popular and was anthologized in the first volume of Robert Silverberg 's The Science Fiction Hall of Fame . It was also anthologized in The Big Book of Science Fiction (2016), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer . The world of microscopic humans continued in "The Thing in the Attic" in 1954, and "Watershed"
632-433: A huge debt, at the age of 26, for a splendid house that I had bought. There would have been no way to pay the house off by writing science fiction ... so I turned out a slew of quick sex novels. I never concealed the fact that I was doing them; it made no difference at all to me whether people knew or not. It was just a job. And it was, incidentally, a job that I did very well. I think they were outstanding erotic novels." In
711-677: A journey to the Moon and how the Earth 's motion is seen from there. Kepler has been called the "father of science fiction". Following the 17th-century development of the novel as a literary form , Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein (1818) and The Last Man (1826) helped define the form of the science fiction novel. Brian Aldiss has argued that Frankenstein was the first work of science fiction. Edgar Allan Poe wrote several stories considered to be science fiction, including " The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall " (1835), which featured
790-460: A look at an overpopulated future; and Dying Inside , a tale of a telepath losing his powers. In the August 1967 issue of Galaxy , Silverberg published a 20,000-word novelette called "Hawksbill Station". This story earned Silverberg his first Hugo and Nebula story award nominations. An expanded novel form of Hawksbill Station was published the following year. In 1969 Nightwings was awarded
869-426: A million words a year, mostly for magazines and Ace Doubles . He used his own name as well as a range of pseudonyms during this era, and often worked in collaboration with Randall Garrett , who was a neighbor at the time. (The Silverberg/Garrett collaborations too were published under a variety of pseudonyms, the best-known being Robert Randall.) From 1956 to 1959, Silverberg routinely averaged five published stories
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#1732772948520948-409: A month, and he had over 80 stories published in 1958 alone. In 1959, the market for science fiction slumped due in part to changing tastes among readers, and also due to the bankruptcy of several leading magazines of the era. Silverberg adapted by writing copiously in other fields, from historical non-fiction to crime fiction and softcore pornography . "Bob Silverberg, a giant of science fiction...
1027-505: A new religion helps people reach the stars. That was followed by Downward to the Earth , a story containing echoes of material from Joseph Conrad 's work, in which the human former administrator of an alien world returns after the planet's inhabitants have been set free. Other acclaimed works of that time include To Live Again , in which the memories and personalities of the deceased can be transferred to other people; The World Inside ,
1106-558: A technical member of an expedition. While on the planet they discover a race of bipedal reptilians that have perfected morality in what Ruiz-Sanchez says is "the absence of God", and theological complications ensue. The book is one of the first major works in the genre to explore religion and its implications. It was the first of a series including Doctor Mirabilis (1964) and the two-part story Black Easter (1968) and The Day After Judgment (1971). The latter two were collected as The Devil's Day (1980). An omnibus of all four entries in
1185-464: A thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method ." American science fiction author and editor Lester del Rey wrote, "Even the devoted aficionado or fan—has a hard time trying to explain what science fiction is," and the lack of a "full satisfactory definition" is because "there are no easily delineated limits to science fiction." Another definition comes from The Literature Book by DK and is, "scenarios that are at
1264-495: A total estimated readership of at least 1 million), making it the world's most popular science fiction periodical . In 1984, William Gibson 's first novel, Neuromancer , helped popularize cyberpunk and the word " cyberspace ", a term he originally coined in his 1982 short story Burning Chrome . In 1986, Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold began her Vorkosigan Saga . 1992's Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson predicted immense social upheaval due to
1343-532: A trip to the Moon . Jules Verne was noted for his attention to detail and scientific accuracy, especially in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870). In 1887, the novel El anacronópete by Spanish author Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau introduced the first time machine . An early French/Belgian science fiction writer was J.-H. Rosny aîné (1856–1940). Rosny's masterpiece
1422-577: A type of anti-gravity engine. The premise and plot reflected Blish's feelings on the state of western civilization , and his personal politics. The first two stories, "Okie", and "Bindlestiff", were published in 1950, by Astounding . "Sargasso of Lost Cities" appeared in Two Complete Science-Adventure Books in April 1953. "Earthman, Come Home" followed a few months later, published by Astounding . In 1955, Blish collected
1501-582: A very palatable form... New adventures pictured for us in the scientifiction of today are not at all impossible of realization tomorrow... Many great science stories destined to be of historical interest are still to be written... Posterity will point to them as having blazed a new trail, not only in literature and fiction, but progress as well. In 1928, E. E. "Doc" Smith 's first published work, The Skylark of Space , written in collaboration with Lee Hawkins Garby , appeared in Amazing Stories . It
1580-629: A world of harmony and conformity within a united totalitarian state . It influenced the emergence of dystopia as a literary genre . In 1926, Hugo Gernsback published the first American science fiction magazine , Amazing Stories . In its first issue he wrote: By 'scientifiction' I mean the Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe type of story—a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision... Not only do these amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading—they are always instructive. They supply knowledge... in
1659-476: Is Les Navigateurs de l'Infini ( The Navigators of Infinity ) (1925) in which the word astronaut, "astronautique", was used for the first time. Many critics consider H. G. Wells one of science fiction's most important authors, or even "the Shakespeare of science fiction". His works include The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of
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#17327729485201738-704: Is a genre of speculative fiction , which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology , space exploration , time travel , parallel universes , and extraterrestrial life . It often explores human responses to changes in science and technology. Science fiction is related to fantasy , horror , and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres . Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Subgenres include hard science fiction , which emphasizes scientific accuracy, and soft science fiction , focusing on social sciences. Other notable subgenres are cyberpunk , which explores
1817-506: Is a prolific American science fiction author and editor. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards , a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame , and a Grand Master of SF since 2004. Especially noted Silverberg works include the novella Nightwings (1969) and the novels Downward to the Earth (1970), The World Inside (1971), Dying Inside (1972), and Lord Valentine's Castle (1980;
1896-635: Is often called the first great space opera . The same year, Philip Francis Nowlan 's original Buck Rogers story, Armageddon 2419 , also appeared in Amazing Stories . This was followed by a Buck Rogers comic strip , the first serious science fiction comic . Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future is a " future history " science fiction novel written in 1930 by the British author Olaf Stapledon . A work of unprecedented scale in
1975-512: Is one of the most influential examples of social science fiction , feminist science fiction , and anthropological science fiction . In 1979, Science Fiction World began publication in the People's Republic of China . It dominates the Chinese science fiction magazine market , at one time claiming a circulation of 300,000 copies per issue and an estimated 3–5 readers per copy (giving it
2054-482: The Russian writer and paleontologist Ivan Yefremov presented a view of a future interstellar communist civilization and is considered one of the most important Soviet science fiction novels. In 1959, Robert A. Heinlein 's Starship Troopers marked a departure from his earlier juvenile stories and novels. It is one of the first and most influential examples of military science fiction , and introduced
2133-508: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America made him its 21st SFWA Grand Master in 2005. Silverberg has been married twice. He and Barbara Brown married in 1956, separated in 1976 and divorced a decade later. Silverberg and science fiction writer Karen Haber married in 1987. They live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Before the age of 30, Silverberg was independently wealthy through his investments, and once owned
2212-557: The Tobacco Institute as a writer and critic. Much of his work for the institute went uncredited. Blish died on July 30, 1975, from complications related to lung cancer . He was buried in Holywell Cemetery , Oxford . The Bodleian Library at Oxford is the custodian of Blish's papers. The library also has a complete catalog of Blish's published works. Throughout the 1940s, Blish published most of his stories in
2291-521: The West Coast in 1972, and he announced his retirement from writing in 1975. In 1980 he returned, however, with Lord Valentine's Castle , a panoramic adventure set on an alien planet, which has become the basis of the Majipoor series —a cycle of stories and novels set on the vast planet Majipoor, a world much larger than Earth and inhabited by no fewer than seven different species of settlers. In
2370-451: The information revolution . In 2007, Liu Cixin 's novel, The Three-Body Problem , was published in China. It was translated into English by Ken Liu and published by Tor Books in 2014, and won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel , making Liu the first Asian writer to win the award. Emerging themes in late 20th and early 21st century science fiction include environmental issues ,
2449-845: The pen name William Atheling Jr. His other pen names included Donald Laverty , John MacDougal , and Arthur Lloyd Merlyn . Blish was born on May 23, 1921, at East Orange, New Jersey . While in high school, Blish self-published a fanzine , called The Planeteer , using a hectograph . The fanzine ran for six issues. Blish was a member of the Futurians . Blish attended meetings of the Futurian Science Fiction Society in New York City during this period. Futurian members Damon Knight and Cyril M. Kornbluth became close friends. However, Blish's relationships with other members were often bitter. A personal target
James Blish - Misplaced Pages Continue
2528-767: The 1950s, and the Okie sequence of stories beginning their run, "did it become clear [Blish] would become a [science fiction] writer of unusual depth". The stories were loosely based on the Okie migration following the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and were influenced by Oswald Spengler 's two-part Der Untergang des Abendlandes ( The Decline of the West ) . The stories detail the life of the Okies, humans who migrate throughout space looking for work in vast city-ships, powered by spindizzies ,
2607-559: The Apes (the original), directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and based on the 1963 French novel La Planète des Singes by Pierre Boulle , was released to popular and critical acclaim, its vivid depiction of a post-apocalyptic world in which intelligent apes dominate humans . In 1977, George Lucas began the Star Wars film series with the film now identified as " Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope . " The series, often called
2686-463: The Dirac communicator, introduced in the short story "Beep" (1954). The Dirac is comparable to Ursula K. Le Guin 's ansible . Blish is also credited with coining the term gas giant , first used in the story "Solar Plexus", collected in the anthology Beyond Human Ken , edited by Judith Merril . The story was originally published in 1941, but did not contain the term. Blish reworked the story, changing
2765-583: The Extra-Terrestrial - 1983), war ( Enemy Mine - 1985), comedy ( Spaceballs - 1987, Galaxy Quest - 1999), animation ( WALL-E – 2008, Big Hero 6 – 2014), Western ( Serenity – 2005), action ( Edge of Tomorrow – 2014, The Matrix – 1999), adventure ( Jupiter Ascending – 2015, Interstellar – 2014), mystery ( Minority Report – 2002), thriller ( Ex Machina – 2014), drama ( Melancholia – 2011, Predestination – 2014), and romance ( Eternal Sunshine of
2844-573: The Hugo for best novella. Silverberg won a Nebula award in 1970 for the short story " Passengers ", two the following year for his novel A Time of Changes and the short story " Good News from the Vatican ", and yet another in 1975 for his novella Born with the Dead . After suffering through the stresses of a major house fire and a thyroid malfunction, Silverberg moved from his native New York City to
2923-464: The Spotless Mind – 2004, Her – 2013). Science fiction and television have consistently been in a close relationship. Television or television-like technologies frequently appeared in science fiction long before television itself became widely available in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The first known science fiction television program was a thirty-five-minute adapted excerpt of
3002-559: The States and Empires of the Moon (1657) and The States and Empires of the Sun (1662), Margaret Cavendish 's " The Blazing World " (1666), Jonathan Swift 's Gulliver's Travels (1726), Ludvig Holberg 's Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum (1741) and Voltaire 's Micromégas (1752). Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan considered Somnium the first science fiction story; it depicts
3081-521: The Worlds (1898). His science fiction imagined alien invasion , biological engineering , invisibility , and time travel . In his non-fiction futurologist works he predicted the advent of airplanes , military tanks , nuclear weapons , satellite television , space travel , and something resembling the World Wide Web . Edgar Rice Burroughs 's A Princess of Mars , published in 1912,
3160-487: The aired television episodes. The stories were collected into twelve volumes and published as a title series of the same name from 1967 to 1977. The adaptations were largely written by Blish; however, his declining health during this period proved problematic. His wife, J. A. Lawrence, wrote a number of installments. Her work remained uncredited until the final volume, Star Trek 12 , published in 1977, two years after Blish's death. The first original novel for adults based on
3239-402: The assemblage of its parts, but in the momentum of the ideas embodied in it (albeit sometimes obscurely)." Blish continued to rework older stories, and did so for one of his best known works, A Case of Conscience (1958). The novel originated as a novella, originally published in an issue of If , in 1953. The story follows a Jesuit priest, Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez, who visits the planet Lithia as
James Blish - Misplaced Pages Continue
3318-413: The concept of powered armor exoskeletons . The German space opera series Perry Rhodan , written by various authors, started in 1961 with an account of the first Moon landing and has since expanded in space to multiple universes , and in time by billions of years. It has become the most popular science fiction book series of all time. In the 1960s and 1970s, New Wave science fiction
3397-506: The creation of microrobots and micromachinery , nanotechnology , smartdust , virtual reality , and artificial intelligence (including swarm intelligence ), as well as developing the ideas of "necroevolution" and the creation of artificial worlds. In 1965, Dune by Frank Herbert featured a much more complex and detailed imagined future society than had previously in most science fiction. In 1967 Anne McCaffrey began her Dragonriders of Pern science fantasy series. Two of
3476-476: The description of a large magnetic field to "a magnetic field of some strength nearby, one that didn't belong to the invisible gas giant revolving half a million miles away". The British Science Fiction Foundation inaugurated the James Blish Award for science fiction criticism in 1977, recognizing Brian W. Aldiss. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted him in 2002. Blish's work
3555-439: The episodes, ran from 1959 to 1964. It featured fantasy , suspense , and horror as well as science fiction, with each episode being a complete story. Critics have ranked it as one of the best TV programs of any genre . The animated series The Jetsons , while intended as comedy and only running for one season (1962–1963), predicted many inventions now in common use: flat-screen televisions , newspapers on
3634-494: The few pulp magazines still in circulation. His first story was sold to fellow Futurian Frederik Pohl for Super Science Stories (1940), called "Emergency Refueling". Other stories were published intermittently, but with little circulation. Blish's "Chaos, Co-Ordinated", co-written with Robert A. W. Lowndes , was sold to Astounding Science Fiction , appearing in the October 1946 issue, earning Blish national circulation for
3713-527: The field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech " B-movies " and with low-quality pulp science fiction . By the 1970s, critics within the field, such as Damon Knight and Terry Carr , were using "sci fi" to distinguish hack-work from serious science fiction. Peter Nicholls writes that "SF" (or "sf") is "the preferred abbreviation within the community of sf writers and readers." Robert Heinlein found even "science fiction" insufficient for certain types of works in this genre, and suggested
3792-399: The field that gave him his start, paying far more attention to depth of character development and social background than he had in the past and mixing in elements of the modernist literature he had studied at Columbia. Silverberg continued to write rapidly— Algis Budrys reported in 1965 that he wrote and sold at least 50,000 words ("call it the equivalent of a commercial novel") weekly —but
3871-569: The first of the Majipoor series). Silverberg has attended every Hugo Award ceremony since the inaugural event in 1953. Silverberg was born on January 15, 1935, to Jewish parents in Brooklyn , New York. A voracious reader since childhood, he began submitting stories to science fiction magazines during his early teenage years. He received a BA in English Literature from Columbia University , in 1956. While at Columbia he wrote
3950-762: The first science fiction novel . Some of the stories from The Arabian Nights , along with the 10th-century The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and Ibn al-Nafis 's 13th-century Theologus Autodidactus , are also argued to contain elements of science fiction. Written during the Scientific Revolution and later the Age of Enlightenment are considered true science-fantasy books. Francis Bacon 's New Atlantis (1627), Johannes Kepler 's Somnium (1634), Athanasius Kircher 's Itinerarium extaticum (1656), Cyrano de Bergerac 's Comical History of
4029-520: The first time. Blish was what Andrew Litpack called a "practical writer". He would revisit, revise, and often expand on previously written stories. An example is "Sunken Universe" published in Super Science Stories in 1942. The story reappeared in Galaxy Science Fiction as "Surface Tension", in an altered form in 1952. The premise emphasized Blish's understanding of microbiology, and featured microscopic humans engineered to live on
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#17327729485204108-646: The first true science fiction novel . Jules Verne and H.G. Wells are pivotal figures in the genre's development. In the 20th century, expanded with the introduction of space operas , dystopian literature, pulp magazines , and the Golden Age of Science Fiction . Science fiction has been called the "literature of ideas ", and continues to evolve, incorporating diverse voices and themes, influencing not just literature but film, TV, and culture at large. Besides providing entertainment it can also criticize present-day society and explore alternatives, and inspiration
4187-492: The following year. The fourth entry, "A Time to Survive", was published by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1957. The stories were collected, edited together, and published as the fix-up The Seedling Stars (1956), by Gnome Press. John Clute said all of Blish's "deeply felt work" explored "confronting the Faustian (or Frankensteinian ) man". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction asserts that not until
4266-534: The four stories together into an omnibus titled Earthman, Come Home , published by Putnam. More stories followed: In 1956, They Shall Have Stars , which edited together "Bridge" and "At Death's End", and in 1958, Blish published The Triumph of Time . Four years later, he published a new Okies novel, A Life for the Stars . The Okies sequence was edited together and published as Cities In Flight (1970). Clute notes, "the brilliance of Cities in Flight does not lie in
4345-633: The genre by the standards applied to "serious" literature . He took to task his fellow authors for deficiencies, such as bad grammar and a misunderstanding of scientific concepts, and the magazine editors who accepted and published such material without editorial intervention. His criticism was published in "fanzines" in the 1950s under the pseudonym William Atheling Jr. The essays were collected in The Issue at Hand (1964) and More Issues at Hand (1970). Reviewing The Issue at Hand , Algis Budrys said that Atheling had, along with Damon Knight , "transformed
4424-486: The genre, it describes the history of humanity from the present onwards across two billion years. In 1937, John W. Campbell became editor of Astounding Science Fiction , an event that is sometimes considered the beginning of the Golden Age of Science Fiction , which was characterized by stories celebrating scientific achievement and progress . The "Golden Age" is often said to have ended in 1946, but sometimes
4503-477: The implications of the Internet and the expanding information universe, questions about biotechnology , nanotechnology , and post-scarcity societies . Recent trends and subgenres include steampunk , biopunk , and mundane science fiction . The first, or at least one of the first, recorded science fiction film is 1902's A Trip to the Moon , directed by French filmmaker Georges Méliès . It
4582-405: The interface between technology and society, and climate fiction , addressing environmental issues. Precedents for science fiction are argued to exist as far back as antiquity, but the modern genre primarily arose in the 19th and early 20th centuries when popular writers began looking to technological progress and speculation. Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein , written in 1818, is often credited as
4661-532: The intersection of other more concrete subgenres. Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying "Science fiction is what we point to when we say it." Forrest J Ackerman has been credited with first using the term "sci-fi" (analogous to the then-trendy " hi-fi ") in about 1954. The first known use in print was a description of Donovan's Brain by movie critic Jesse Zunser in January 1954. As science fiction entered popular culture , writers and fans active in
4740-416: The juvenile novel Revolt on Alpha C (1955), published by Thomas Y. Crowell with the cover notice: "A gripping story of outer space". He won his first Hugo in 1956 as the "best new writer". In that year Silverberg was the author or co-author of four of the six stories in the August issue of Fantastic , breaking his record set in the previous issue. For the next four years, by his own count, he wrote
4819-415: The late 1940s and the 1950s are included. In 1942, Isaac Asimov started his Foundation series , which chronicles the rise and fall of galactic empires and introduced psychohistory . The series was later awarded a one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series". Theodore Sturgeon 's More Than Human (1953) explored possible future human evolution . In 1957, Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale by
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#17327729485204898-486: The mid-1960s, many writers in science fiction were moving away from the adventure, hard science fiction and space opera themes that often characterized the early years of the genre, and writing stories with greater literary ambitions, psychological sophistication and experimental methods (see New Wave science fiction ). Frederik Pohl , then editing three science fiction magazines, offered Silverberg creative freedom in writing for them. Thus inspired, Silverberg returned to
4977-478: The novellas included in the first novel, Dragonflight , made McCaffrey the first woman to win a Hugo or Nebula Award . In 1968, Philip K. Dick 's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was published. It is the literary source of the Blade Runner movie franchise . In 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin was set on a planet in which the inhabitants have no fixed gender . It
5056-514: The novels he wrote in this period are considered superior to his earlier work; Budrys in 1968 wrote of his surprise that "Silverberg is now writing deeply detailed, highly educated, beautifully figured books" like Thorns and The Masks of Time . Perhaps the first book to indicate the new Silverberg was To Open the Sky , a fixup of stories published by Pohl in Galaxy Magazine , in which
5135-614: The play RUR , written by the Czech playwright Karel Čapek , broadcast live from the BBC's Alexandra Palace studios on 11 February 1938. The first popular science fiction program on American television was the children's adventure serial Captain Video and His Video Rangers , which ran from June 1949 to April 1955. The Twilight Zone (the original series), produced and narrated by Rod Serling , who also wrote or co-wrote most of
5214-547: The reviewer's trade in this field". He described the persona of Atheling as "acidulous, assertive, categorical, conscientious and occasionally idiosyncratic". Blish was a fan of the works of James Branch Cabell , and for a time edited Kalki , the journal of the Cabell Society. In his works of science fiction, Blish developed many ideas and terms which have influenced other writers and on occasion have been adopted more widely, such as faster than light communication via
5293-622: The series gained popularity through syndication and extraordinary fan interest . It became a very popular and influential franchise with many films , television shows , novels , and other works and products. Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994) led to six additional live action Star Trek shows: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999), Voyager (1995–2001) , Enterprise (2001–2005), Discovery (2017–2024), Picard (2020–2023), and Strange New Worlds (2022–present), with more in some form of development. Robert Silverberg Robert Silverberg (born January 15, 1935)
5372-433: The series was published by Legend in 1991, titled After Such Knowledge . A Case of Conscience won the 1959 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and was collected as part of Library of America's omnibus American Science Fiction: Five Classic Novels 1956-1958 . Bantam Books commissioned Blish to adapt episodes of Star Trek . The adapted short stories were generally based on draft scripts and contained different plot elements from
5451-636: The television series, Spock Must Die! (1970), was also written by Blish, and he planned to release more. According to Lawrence, two episodes featuring popular character Harry Mudd, " I, Mudd " and " Mudd's Women ", were held back by Blish for adaptation to be included in the follow-up to Spock Must Die! . However, Blish died before a novel could be completed. Lawrence did eventually adapt the two episodes, as Mudd's Angels (1978), which included an original novella The Business, as Usual, During Altercations by Lawrence. In her introduction to Star Trek 12 , Lawrence states that Blish "did indeed write" adaptations of
5530-515: The term speculative fiction to be used instead for those that are more "serious" or "thoughtful". Some scholars assert that science fiction had its beginnings in ancient times , when the line between myth and fact was blurred. Written in the 2nd century CE by the satirist Lucian , A True Story contains many themes and tropes characteristic of modern science fiction, including travel to other worlds, extraterrestrial lifeforms , interplanetary warfare, and artificial life . Some consider it
5609-470: The time of writing technologically impossible, extrapolating from present-day science...[,]...or that deal with some form of speculative science-based conceit, such as a society (on Earth or another planet) that has developed in wholly different ways from our own." There is a tendency among science fiction enthusiasts as their own arbiter in deciding what exactly constitutes science fiction. David Seed says it may be more useful to talk about science fiction as
5688-512: The two episodes. The introduction to Mudd's Angels acknowledges this, stating that Blish left the two stories in various stages of completion and they were finished by Lawrence; Blish does not receive author credit on the book. Blish credited his financial stability later in life to the Star Trek commission and the advance he received for Spock Must Die! . Blish was among the first literary critics of science fiction, and he judged works in
5767-555: Was drafted into Army service , and he served briefly as a medical laboratory technician . The United States Army discharged him for refusing orders to clean a grease trap in 1944. Following discharge, Blish entered Columbia University as a masters student of zoology . He did not complete the program, opting to write fiction full-time. In 1947, he married Virginia Kidd , a fellow Futurian. They divorced in 1963. Blish then married artist J. A. Lawrence in 1964, moving to England that same year. From 1962 to 1968, Blish worked for
5846-402: Was doing two [books] a month for one publisher, another for a second publisher, and the equivalent of another book for a magazine... He was writing a quarter of a million words a month" under many different pseudonyms including about 200 erotic novels published as Don Elliott. In a 2000 interview, Silverberg explained that the erotic fiction "... was undertaken at a time when I was saddled with
5925-459: Was fellow member Judith Merril , with whom he would debate politics. Merril would frequently dismiss Blish's self-description of being a "paper fascist". She wrote in Better to Have Loved (2002), "Of course [Blish] was not fascist, antisemitic, or any of those terrible things, but every time he used the phrase, I saw red." Blish studied microbiology at Rutgers University , graduating in 1942. He
6004-404: Was influential on later filmmakers , bringing a different kind of creativity and fantasy . Méliès's innovative editing and special effects techniques were widely imitated and became important elements of the cinematic medium . 1927's Metropolis , directed by Fritz Lang , is the first feature-length science fiction film. Though not well received in its time, it is now considered
6083-484: Was known for its embrace of a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, and a highbrow and self-consciously " literary " or " artistic " sensibility . In 1961, Solaris by Stanisław Lem was published in Poland . The novel dealt with the theme of human limitations as its characters attempted to study a seemingly intelligent ocean on a newly discovered planet . Lem's work anticipated
6162-723: Was published by a variety of publishers in the United Kingdom and the United States, often with variations between editions, and with different titles. Blish also expanded and re-published his older work on numerous occasions. His works continued to be re-published after his death. Very few of Blish's first editions were assigned ISBN numbers. Novels published in complete form, or serialized, in fiction magazines are included for completeness, and to avoid confusion. Novelette, Novella, Novel. Science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to SF or sci-fi )
6241-408: Was the first of his three- decade -long planetary romance series of Barsoom novels , which were set on Mars and featured John Carter as the hero . These novels were predecessors to YA novels , and drew inspiration from European science fiction and American Western novels . In 1924, We by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin , one of the first dystopian novels, was published. It describes
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