James Blish Books In Order

Publication Order of Cities in Flight Books

Publication Order of After Such Knowledge Books

Publication Order of Heart Stars Books

Publication Order of Haertel Scholium Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Star Trek Adventures Books

Publication Order of Star Trek: TOS Adaptations Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Author James Benjamin Blish was born May 23, 1921 at East Orange, New Jersey. Using a hectograph, he self-published a fanzine called The Planeteer which ran for six issues. He attended meetings of the Futurian Science Fiction Society in New York City during this time as well.

From 1947 until they divorced in the year 1963, he was married to a fellow Futurian named Virigina Kidd. He was married to writer Judith Ann Lawrence, his second wife, from the year 1968 until he died. He is also the one credited with coining the term “gas giant” to refer to huge planetary bodies.

James attended Rutgers University, studying microbiology, and graduated in the year 1942. He was drafted into the Army, and served for a brief time as a medical laboratory technician. He was later discharged for refusing orders to clean out a grease trap in the year 1944. Following this, he went to Columbia University as a masters student of zoology. Instead of finishing the program, he opted to write fiction full time.

James won a Hugo Award for “A Case of Conscience” for Best Novel. He was nominated for three Nebula Awards, one for Best Novelette for “The Shipwrecked Hotel”, another for Best Novella for “A Style in Treason”, and another for “Black Easter” for Best Novel.

During the 1940s, Blish published a lot of his stories in the few remaining pulp magazines that were in circulation. The first story he sold was called “Emergency Refueling” to a fellow Futurian named Frederick Pohl for Super Science Stories. Intermittently, he would publish other stories, but with little circulation.

In the October 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, his story “Chaos, Co-Ordinated”, which was co-written with Robert A. W. Lowndes, and it earned him his first national circulation.

He was a practical writer. At times, he would revise, revisit, and sometimes expand on his previously written stories. A story of his, called “Sunken Universe” that was published in Super Science Stories in the year 1942, was reworked into “Surface Tension”. This version of the story was later published in Galaxy Science Fiction in the year 1952.

The premise of the story emphasized Blish’s comprehension of microbiology, and featured microscopic humans that are engineered on a hostile planet’s shallow pools of water to live. It proved one of Blish’s more popular stories. The story had three follow ups, “The Thing in the Attic”, “Watershed”, and “A Time to Survive”. The stories were later collected and edited together before being released as “The Seedling Stars” in the year 1956 as a fix-up by Gnome Press.

James wrote the “After Such Knowledge” series, the “Cities in Flight” series, and the “Haertel Scholium” series. He also wrote under the names of Arthur Merlyn, William Atheling Jr., Marcus Lyons, John MacDougal, and Donald Laverty. His work is from the genres of fantasy and science fiction.

Blish also adapted episodes of Star Trek. The short stories were based off of draft scripts and would contain differing plot elements, and situations than the ones present in the episodes that aired. He also wrote some original novels for the series.

The adaptations were mostly written by Blish, though his declining health during this time, 1967 until 1977, wound up being problematic. A number of the installments were written by J.A. Lawrence, however, much of her work was uncredited until the last volume “Star Trek 12”, which came out two years after Blish died.

He died from complications related to the lung cancer he had on July 30, 1975 at the age of 54. Blish was buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford. The custodian of his papers is the Bodleian Library at Oxford, who has a complete catalog of his published works.

“Jack of Eagles” is the first stand alone novel, which was released in the year 1952. Danny Caiden is on the run from the SEC, the Mob, the Justice Department, and the FBI. Just recently, Danny was an average New York copywriter, until he realized he had ESP. the knowledge he has about the future is astonishing, and more of Danny’s powers are just the start.

Somebody else wants him as well, an evil band of preternatural guys that are bent on domination of the world. They are going to stop at nothing to capture Danny or destroy him. Why? Only Danny has got the powers to sabotage their diabolic tyranny. During the frenzied final battle, Danny has to summon up all of his powers, or else sacrifice himself, along with the rest of mankind, to satanic slavery forever.

“The Warriors of Day” is the second stand alone novel, which was released in the year 1953. Tipton Bond was a guy that lived for challenges and Earth had run out of challenges for him. On Xota, one of the giants’ faces bent down to him, sardonically benign. He was told he was an Earthman, a little human electron. A denizen of a planet the Warriors of Day are going to reach and engulf in just a thousand years.

Is he really trying to escape them by going to Xota? He just brought himself closer to the thing that he was looking to get away from. You are going to share in the general holocaust when the Wild Star shows up. Giants they may be, Bond found, but they had their own limitations. What could this Wild Star be? he called.

“The Frozen Year” is the third stand alone novel, which was released in the year 1957. If you were trying to find a fallen star, would you go off to the North Pole and dig holes right into the seas-bed, grubbing about for pieces of rock? You wouldn’t? Julian Cole wouldn’t either. He was only dragged there.

Would you pick for your companions a woman who walked in such a way that would get a man itching, a cashiered astronomer whose capacity was just alcoholic? Plus some misfits and failures scooped out of the New York gutters? Julian didn’t either. They picked him.

When this bumbling group of heterogeneous hoboes comes across a world-shattering find, would you actually believe them? Julian was required to. He was there.