Mr Blish was brought up in New York where he became a member of the Futurians, making contacts with writers such as Damon Knight, CM Kornbluth and Isaac Asimov. It was the Okie stories, about the migrating cities of Earth, that made his reputation in the genre. In terms of story writing his most productive period was 1950 to 1958, including "Beep" which is my favourite story of his.
In the later part of his career, Blish became involved in the Star Trek franchise, writing up many of the TV scripts in story form.
As well as writing, Blish was heavily involved in SF critisism from an early period.
Blish was a scholar at heart and he moved to the UK in 1969 in order to be close to Oxford University and many of his manuscripts and papers can be found in the Bodlien Library.
And for more books by James Blish click here!
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