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Reviews by Contributor: Blish, James (2)

At Least It Was Short

The Star Dwellers  (Heart Stars, volume 1)

By James Blish  

15 May, 2022

Because My Tears Are Delicious To You

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James Blish’s 1961 The Star Dwellers is the first volume in the Heart Stars Duology. The Star Dwellers is a young adult novel. 

Humanity has long pondered questions like:

  • Are we alone in the galaxy? 
  • Are amicable relations between aliens and humans possible?
  • How does a novel this terrible not only get published but remain in print for twenty years (more than sixty in the UK)? 

The Star Dwellers answers two of those questions. 

Although he is only seventeen years old, Cadet Jack Loftus has benefitted from educational philosophies far superior to those of the 1960s, ninety years earlier. Good thing for humanity, as Jack will be playing a central role in its destiny.

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all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

Cities in Flight

By James Blish  

24 Jul, 2016

Because My Tears Are Delicious To You

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1970’s Cities in Flight collects revised editions of James Blish’s four Cities in Flight novels, They Shall Have Stars (1956), A Life for the Stars (1962), Earthman, Come Home (1955), and The Triumph of Time (1958), along with Richard D. Mullen’s essay, The Earthmanist Culture. The four novels document the Decline of the West, followed by the eventual rise and inevitable fall of its successor, the Earthmanists. 

It all begins on Jupiter in the far-off year 2013

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