james blish

(Posting this in Books rather than Film on the theory that more SFF fans may be familiar with Star Wars than with 1950s novels.) One notable scene in the original Star Wars movie was the "trench run," in which Luke drops a couple of bombs down a shaft in the Death Star. Shutting down his...

Cities in Flight by James Blish is in the SF Masterworks list, so clearly some "leading SF writers and editors" think it is a classic. I’m not sure I agree; it was a mostly enjoyable though somewhat uneven read but I’m not convinced it deserves classic status. The series of four books is...

I think there was another thread but I can't find it; perhaps it got lost when the server went down a while back? Anyway, I've just finished the final part "A clash of cymbals" and I'm glad to say that I enjoyed it. The series as a whole was quite up and down for me. The first part was a mere...

I'm interested in reading his Cities in Flight series and I found a reference to it on Amazon via book mooch, but I'm a little confused. Its an omnibus of 4 books yea? So theres a volume II to look out for too?

A compilation of three novellas ('Seeding Program', 'The Thing in the Attic' and 'Surface Tension') and one short story ('Watershed') all on the same theme: a radical genetic modification programme to produce 'Adapted' humans capable of living in the huge variety of extreme conditions found on...

I've just finished reading this...has anyone else read it? I found it deeply thought provoking and I've not seen any book deal with the religous implications of finding sentient alien life (although please let me know if there are). I suppose I was a little dissappointed by the ending...