The Haertel Scholium

James Blish's Haertel Scholium comprises:

(i) four stories collected in Galactic Cluster, the first featuring Adolph Haertel;

(ii) five novels - one about Haertel, the others referring to him;

(iii) four more shorter works, three stories collected in Anywhen and the short novel, Midsummer Century.

(i) A linear trilogy:

"Common Time"

"Nor Iron Bars"

"This Earth of Hours"

- and an offshoot, "Beep," which is a further development of the idea of the instantaneous Dirac transmitter which had been introduced in Blish's Cities In Flight Tetralogy.

(ii) (a) Three juvenile novels:

Welcome To Mars, about Haertel;

The Star Dwellers and Mission To The Heart Stars, both about Jack Loftus.

(b) A Case Of Conscience, which is Volume III of the After Such Knowledge Trilogy.

(c) The Quincunx Of Time, a (still short) novelization of "Beep."

(iii) Each of the four remaining shorter works connects with one of the novels:

"No Jokes on Mars" with Welcome To Mars;

"A Dusk of Idols" with The Star Dwellers;

"A Style in Treason" and Midsummer Century with The Quincunx Of Time.

Midsummer Century, written while Blish was expanding "Beep," is a companion volume to The Quincunx... The two volumes cross-refer and are linked by a Dirac message.

Everything comes together.

James Blish And Poul Anderson

I post more about Poul Anderson than about James Blish if only because Anderson had a much bigger output. Blish's main future history series, Cities In Flight, is four volumes or one omnibus volume with a beginning, a middle and an end whereas Anderson's History of Technic Civilization is seventeen volumes or seven omnibus volumes and remained open-ended. Blish's characters face the end of the universe in Cities In Flight, Volume IV, The Triumph Of Time, whereas a different set of Anderson's characters face the same problem in the non-series novel, Tau Zero. Blish's characters fly to the Metagalactic Centre in The Triumph Of Time whereas different sets of Anderson's characters fly between galaxies in the non-series novels, Tao Zero and World Without Stars. Blish's characters live indefinitely prolonged lifespans in Cities In Flight whereas different sets of Anderson's characters live indefinitely prolonged lifespans in the non-series novels, World Without Stars, The Boat Of A Million Years and For Love And Glory and in his Time Patrol series.

However, because of several parallels between these two authors, we frequently refer to Blish on the Poul Anderson Appreciation blog. Currently, see here. More generally, see here.

Narrative Growth

 

A single Okie story became the concluding fourth section of Earthman, Come Home which became Volume III of the Cities In Flight Tetralogy which, in turn, was collected in a single omnibus volume.

A single pantropy story became Cycle One of Book Three of The Seedling Stars, a single volume.

A single theological sf story became Book One of A Case Of Conscience which became Volume III of the After Such Knowledge Trilogy, eventually collected in a single omnibus volume.

A single Haertel overdrive story became the basis of the Haertel Scholium which includes A Case Of Conscience.

James Blish's Main Works

Blish's Four Main Bodies of Work

Cities In Flight

The Seedling Stars

The Haertel Scholium

After Such Knowledge

Haertel Scholium works either feature or refer, directly or indirectly, to Adolph Haertel.

After Such Knowldege, Volume III, A Case of Conscience, is a Haertel Scholium novel.

Blish's main bodies of work can also be listed as three future histories and three (Haertel-related) trilogies.

Future Histories

Cities In Flight

The Seedling Stars

The Haertel History

Trilogies

The Heart Stars Trilogy

The Quincunx Trilogy

After Such Knowledge

4004 Or 4104

In successive versions of the Chronology of Cities in Flight:

John Amalfi died in a hunting accident in 4004;

the universe ended in 4004;

the universe ended in 4104.

That last event and date remained in the text but the Chronology was left out of the omnibus edition.

The hunting accident, appearing in the Chronology but not in any text, was just meant as a reminder that even people with antiagathics will eventually die by accident or violence. When Blish did come to write an ending, he had his characters living until the end of the universe which, however, was brought unexpectedly close to the present for narrative purposes.

Two Boxed Sets?

Three Future Histories
Cities In Flight
The Seedling Stars
The Haertel History

Three Trilogies
Heart Stars
Quincunx
After Such Knowledge

You might have to read or reread previous posts to see what I am getting at here.

The future histories culminate respectively in:

Volume IV, The Triumph Of Time;
Book Four, "Watershed";
"This Earth of Hours."

Citiess In Flight, Volume III, is Earthman, Come Home, a title that could be applicable in different ways to both "Watershed" and "This Earth of Hours."

And After Such Knowledge

I should have said six volumes here. After Such Knowledge, which has been collected in a single volume (see image), begins with the discovery of scientific method by Roger Bacon in Doctor Mirabilis and climaxes with an unexpected outcome of the supernatural conflict of Armageddon in The Day After Judgment.

Schematically, Black Easter and its sequel, The Day After Judgment, considered as a single work, comprise Volume II of the After Such Knowledge Trilogy with A Case Of Conscience as Volume III. In this order, the three volumes correspond to past, present and future, respectively, and also form a Hegelian triad of historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction, sf synthesizing the realism of historical fiction with the counter-factuality of fantasy.

However, Volume II, written last, is surely a dramatic climax, realizing the apocalyptic apprehensions of Volumes I and III?