James Blish was a Prophet

[jharding58]

Perhaps one of my favourite science fiction works is "Cities in Flight" by James Blish. I first read it as individual books and many years ago purchased the compendium. Over the years there have been several returns to the spacefaring gem that is New York, but I just started to read it again. I would offer to you the Prelude of Book One (They Shall Have Stars - 1950) as the most amazingly prescient assessment of the methods of Government and the impact which that has had upon spaceflight.

[artie]

Would that be the same James Blish who took the Star Trek original series episodes and
wrote them in book format?

[jharding58]

Would that be the same James Blish who took the Star Trek original series episodes and
wrote them in book format?

One of the many things hs authored.

[stefanj]

Those Star Trek adaptations were one of the things that got me reading "grown up" SF. Blish tried really hard to make the weird set-ups of the television episodes make sense.

I remember doing a Junior High School book report on Blish's Midsummer Century, set on an future Earth mired in the greenhouse effect.

[dlazarus6660]

I have all those Star Trek books, some original editions.

[Brain]

Indeed... Blish did a great job on those stories. Between my wife and I we probably have original editions of most of those books, if not all.
Alan Dean Foster can be given credit for doing an even better job with his 'novelizations' of the animated series. There's a job for you...