Talk:James Blish

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If you follow that link to amazon I think you'll see why KQ probably changed it--they have it wrong there.

Actually are you sure the book company doesn't have it wrong? The Library of Congress has it "judgment" too: :http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&ti=1,1&FT=james+blish+day+after&PID=15017&CNT=25+records+per+screen&SEQ=20011014130051&SID=4
http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=3&ti=1,3&FT=james+blish+day+after&PID=15017&CNT=25+records+per+screen&SEQ=20011014130051&SID=4
Searching http://www.loc.gov/cgi-bin/formprocessor/copyright/locis.pl shows that it was registered first in serialized form as "The day after judgment":
2. Registration Number:    RE-803-122  
Title:    [Contributions by James Blish] By aJames Blish. 
Note:    Serialized novel. 
In:    Galaxy magazine 
Claimant:    Judith L. Blish (W) 
Effective Registration Date:    14Dec98 
Original Class:    BCONT: Issue Aug-Sept70. The day after judgment. PUB 23Jul70; B604348. Dec70. Dark side crossing. PUB 10Nov70;  B625506.
The registration as "The day after judgement" (with the extra "e" was later:
1. Registration Number:    RE-796-907  
Title:    The day after judgement. By James Blish. 
Claimant:    acJudith L. Blish (W) 
Effective Registration Date:    9Feb99 
Original Registration Date:    15Jan71; 
Original Registration Number:    A210961. 
Original Class:    A 
Claim Limit:    NEW MATTER: additional text.
But oh well. So both are coomon. It's not an issue unless you want an entry on it, then a #REDIRECT from one to the other should probably keep people happy.
I think its a matter of english/american spelling: the English (Penguin books, 1974) paperback that I have has it as judgement, as does the 1st edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (ed. Peter Nicholls & John Clute, both english). It's not worth the argument really, I'll just go and correct a detail i got wrong instead -- Malcolm Farmer

Contents

[edit] POV

This article is currently partially written in the first person, and is highly POV in places. In particular, in a section I just removed, it cited a Blish character talking about playing with differential formalisms as an example of "absurd physics": in fact, this sort of formalism-play is not uncommon in mathematics, and is a useful and fruitful notation. -- The Anome 01:21, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

I cleaned up some of the worst stuff a few days back. Definitely pretty opinionated (and not exactly mainstream opinion, either.) If you (or anyone) think there is more, post it here (I watch this page) and I'll see what needs done, if anything. In the meantime, I've pulled that NPOV flag off. That kind of thing really isn't very useful, except to annoy readers of the article. That's what the talk pages are for. fyngyrz

A section about themes is probably in order.

[edit] Black Easter/The Day After Judgement

Does so much space need to be devoted to these stories here? It's stuck in the middle of the biography section. The article is supposed to be about a prolific author, not about two short novels he wrote somewhere in the middle of his career. 12.22.250.4 18:35, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blish's personal life

Blish is said in the Arrowhead SF article to have been married to Virginia Kidd, the literary agent. The only wife mentioned here is fellow science fiction author J. A. Lawerence. Doesn't some mention of divorce and remarriage need to come in here? I don't want to turn Wikipedia into some sort of trashy tabloid, but isn't this a material fact that needs to be covered? Rlquall 12:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The Virginia Kidd article says they were married 1947 to 1963. -- Beardo 03:58, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Works - Cities in Flight

The 'SF Masterworks' collection gives the year 4104 for the end of the universe, which makes the text concerning 4004 vague and potentially misleading. I do not have knowledge of earlier editions, but perhaps someone more knowledgable could expand the section to give citations relating to a specific edition including the earlier date. Retrograde 01:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pantropy

The first story's main character is named "Steele", at least in the german translation. Somebody changed the name to "Sweeney" in the article though. I suspect that this is the name given to him in the english text then? Can somebody confirm/check this? 84.187.236.130 21:34, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reply to Pantropy; chronology

Yes, it's Sweeney in the English (presumably original) version.

NOTE ON CITIES ON FLIGHT: When referring to the novels as first, second, etc, the writer is referring to the internal chronology, not the order of publication. The order of publication was III, I, IV, II. One jarring result is that the sympathetic hero of II is casually killed off at the beginning of III, though what really happened was that Blish took a minor name from III and built an important character around it. CharlesTheBold 04:56, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spock must die

I undid a change to the article that said:

The text in both this article (James Blish) and the Spock Must Die! article both state that it was the first original SF novel. SO, if you are going to change this information here, you should change it in both places and cite your source on the information please. Thanks. David Reiss (talk) 14:41, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Spock Must Die! is an ungodly mess in need of serious attention, so that's not a good example. However, both articles state that the novel is the first original novel "for adult readers", as Mission to Horatius (published years earlier) was a junior novel. Rhindle The Red (talk) 14:13, 4 March 2008 (UTC)