Unity

James Blish's Haertel Scholium presents not a linear narrative but four alternative futures, characterized respectively by:

microcosmic and interstellar telepathy;

the extrasolar Lithians;

star-dwelling energy beings called "Angels" and the Heart Stars federation;

the Dirac transmitter by means of which a message transmitted in 25,000 A.D. in Midsummer Century is received in 2091 A.D. in The Quincunx Of Time.

Garrard, test flying the Haertel overdrive in "Common Time," lives in a time common to the four futures. Before Garrard's test flight, Mars had been explored by Haertel in Welcome To Mars and colonized in "No Jokes on Mars" and the Martian dune-cats had been mentioned in an earlier draft although not in the final text of "How Beautiful With Banners." Fictional realms include those that were envisaged but did not make it into print - or onto screen in the case of proposed film adaptations (scroll down) of Welcome To Mars and Cities In Flight.

A Case Of Conscience, about the Lithians, is Volume III of Blish's After Such Knowledge Trilogy about the question whether the desire for secular knowledge is evil. Volume I, Doctor Mirabilis, is a historical novel about Roger Bacon, the discoverer of scientific method, who is thus the precursor of later scientists including Einstein, Haertel and Thor Wald, the inventor of the Dirac transmitter. Volume II, Black Easter and The Day After Judgment, is a contemporary fantasy about magicians conjuring demons.

In The Beep, I contrast Wald and his colleagues with the magicians.

In Angels And Demons, I compare "Angels" with demons.

In Communication, I summarize the theme of communication in the Haertel Scholium, Cities In Flight and The Seedling Stars.

In Darkness And Optimism and Darkness And Optimism II, I compare the conclusions of the works in the Haertel Scholium.

What emerges is a sense of the unity of Blish's major works.