Bliss Wagoner

In James Blish's They Shall Have Stars (IN Cities In Flight, London, 1981):

"PRELUDE: Washington," set in the winter of 2013, describes a conversation between Senator Bliss Wagoner and Dr Guiseppi Corsi;

in "INTERMEZZO: Washington," Wagoner reads the report of the investigating sub-committee of the Senate Finance Committee on the Jupiter Project, which includes the questioning of Dr Corsi;

"ENTR'ACTE: Washington" is a letter dated 4th January 2020 from Wagner to Corsi;

in "CHAPTER NINE: New York," Wagoner meets Paige Russell, the viewpoint character of the odd numbered "New York" chapters;

in CHAPTER TEN: Jupiter V," Wagoner and Russell meet Robert Helmuth, view point character of the evenly numbered "Jupiter V" chapters;

in "CODA: Brookhaven National Laboratories (the pile-dump)," Wagoner writes on the wall of his cell on the last day.

Thus, Wagoner is a unifying character like Guion in Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time. His name suggests Blish and Wagner? Wagner is mentioned in the text (p. 104), Wagoner's sections have musical headings, Blish mentioned Wagner in an Introduction to one of the Cities In Flight volumes and there is an echo of Wagner in an earlier version of the Chronology of Cities In Flight when John Amalfi is said to have died not at the end of the universe but in a hunting accident.

Brian Aldiss wrote that Blish's The Quincunx Of Time really is about the future. Not only is it set in our future but also its characters receive messages from different periods of their future. Similarly, They Shall Have Stars really is about science. Wagoner's letter to Corsi outlines the scientific methods that are used to discover the anti-agathics and antigravity that are the science fictional premises of the novel.

Revisiting The Series

Reflecting on They Shall Have Stars in a recent post recalled the complicated relationships between James Blish's several science fiction series. This ground has already been covered in previous posts on this blog but I find it endlessly fascinating to revisit it.

Anti-agathics are discovered in "At Death's End," which was incorporated, as the "New York" chapters, in They Shall Have Stars;

antigravity is derived from observations made in "Bridge," which was incorporated, as the "Jupiter V" chapters, in They Shall Have Stars;

the instantaneous Dirac transmitter is developed in "Beep," which was expanded as The Quincunx Of Time.

(Thus, so far, three stories have become two novels.)

They Shall Have Stars is the prequel to two volumes in which interstellar traders called "Okies" use anti-agathics, antigravity and the Dirac transmitter, then to one further volume in which the Okies' successors, the New Earthmen, use these technologies;

The Quincunx Of Time is linked to Midsummer Century by a peculiar application of the Dirac transmitter that was first revealed in "Beep" but is never discovered by Okies or New Earthmen.

Thus, despite the common reference to Dirac transmitters, these six volumes comprise two series. In fact, the kind of antigravity used in The Quincunx Of Time is that discovered not by the Bridge gang in They Shall Have Stars but by Adolph Haertel in Welcome To Mars. In the first case, flight to the Jovian system is necessary for the discovery of antigravity. In the second case, the discovery of antigravity initiates the first flight to Mars. In both cases, interplanetary travel is a prelude to faster than light interstellar travel.

When "Beep" was expanded as Quincunx, the new material included a Dirac message linking this work to the otherwise independent story, "A Style In Treason." Thus, the Dirac transmitter, having first appeared in what became the Cities In Flight (Okies) Tetralogy, span out of that series, in the process generating a second tetralogy:

Welcome To Mars
The Quincunx Of Time
"A Style In Treason"
Midsummer Century

Haertel, young in Welcome To Mars, is old in "Common Time," the opening story of a short trilogy in the collection, Galactic Cluster. And there are other connected but non-linear works that I have listed previously.

Blish was against my suggestion that a single long future history series might comprise the entire output of a science fiction writer's career. (This has never happened in practice.) First, during a writer's lifetime, scientific advances will invalidate the premises of his earlier stories. Secondly, any writer needs to be free to develop ideas in different directions which Blish clearly did, in the process generating several short cross-referring series.

As is legitimate in these circumstances, he commented on his main predecessor among future historians:

" 'Breeding for longevity in humans isn't practicable...' " (Cities In Flight, London, 1981, p. 74)

"A Higher And Greater Star Trek"

At a Memorial Evening for James Blish in London many years ago, Charles Montieth of Blish's British publisher, Faber & Faber, described Blish's main science fiction series, Cities In Flight, as "a higher and greater Star Trek."

This comparison was made because of Blish's involvement with Star Trek which involved not writing TV scripts but adapting those scripts as short stories for book publication and writing one original novel, Spock Must Die!, which must be regarded as non-canonical because it ends the Klingon Empire which continued to exist in the films and in many novels by other authors.

Star Trek has made some attempts to show viewers how things started:

first interstellar flight;
First Contact with Vulcan;
the Enterprise crew when young;
etc.

Poul Anderson does this for his History of Technic Civilization in a few short stories and Blish did it for Cities In Flight in They Shall Have Stars. In the Okie series, collected as Earthman, Come Home, Mayor Amalfi and Manhattan-in-Flight parallel Captain Kirk and the Enterprise. Amalfi has a city manager instead of a Science Officer. The Vegans are approximate equivalents of the Klingons. Okies meet human colonists instead of implausible humanoids.

Star Trek continues into a further future with its three sequel series as the Okie series does with its sequel, The Triumph Of Time. I agree with Montieth's characterisation of Cities In Flight and it is unfortunate that plans to film it did not materialise.

The Structure Of They Shall Have Stars

BOOK ONE
PRELUDE: Washington (set in 2013!)
CHAPTER ONE: New York
CHAPTER TWO: Jupiter V
CHAPTER THREE: New York
CHAPTER FOUR: Jupiter V

BOOK TWO
INTERMEZZO: Washington
CHAPTER FIVE: New York
CHAPTER SIX: Jupiter V
CHAPTER SEVEN: New York
CHAPTER EIGHT: Jupiter V

BOOK THREE
ENTR'ACTE: Washington
CHAPTER NINE: New York
CHAPTER TEN: Jupiter V
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Jupiter V
CODA: Brookhaven National Laboratories (the pile-dump)

The short story, "At Death's End," featuring Colonel Paige Russell of the Army Space Corps and dealing with biology, is incorporated as the New York chapters.

The short story, "Bridge," featuring Robert Helmuth, foreman of the Bridge gang, and dealing with Jupiter, is incorporated as the Jupiter V chapters.

New material featuring Senator Bliss Wagoner and dealing with politics is presented in the Washington and Brookhaven sections. The characters meet in Chapter Ten which is narrated from Helmuth's point of view since it is set on Jupiter V.

The novel is a prequel to the Okie series, collected as Earthman, Come Home. The interstellar traders called "Okies" use anti-agathics, developed in New York, and antigravity, based on equations confirmed on Jupiter.

Blish establishes a future history background in a few pages. The Prelude is a conversation between Wagoner and Dr Corsi of the AAAS. They mention MacHinery of the FBI. Russell, waiting for an interview in Chapter One, sees celebrities including Wagoner, Corsi and MacHinery pass by. He himself mentions being on " '...Jupiter V, right in the shadow of the Bridge gang's shack...' " (Cities In Flight, London, 1981, p. 20) before we first encounter the Bridge, a classic sf setting, in Chapter Two. It is a pity that the Bridge makes such a brief appearance in just six short chapters, or one short story, but it serves its purpose and cannot long survive in the Jovian environment.

Three On Jupiter

I refer to three fictitious accounts of the exploration of Jupiter:

James Blish, Cities In Flight (London, 1981);
Clifford Simak, City (London, 1965);
Poul Anderson, "Call Me Joe," IN The Dark Between The Stars (New York, 1981).

In Blish, Robert Helmuth on Jupiter V dons a helmet and perceives the Jovian environment through instruments on a car that moves along the Bridge that is being built on the Jovian surface;

In Anderson, Edward Anglesey on Jupiter V dons a helmet and perceives the Jovian environment through the central nervous system of an artificially grown quadrupedal organism that has been sent to the Jovian surface;

In Simak, Kent Fowler in a dome on Jupiter is transformed into a quadrupedal organism and sent out onto the Jovian surface.

Thus, Anderson's account is intermediate between Blish's and Simak's. Anglesey and Fowler wind up happy in their Jovian bodies whereas Helmuth hates that environment and wants to get away from it. Blish told me that he could not have described Jupiter as a comfortable place. His "Bridge" came from an experience under a New York bridge that shook as a train passed overhead.

Your New God III

In James Blish's The Day After Judgement:

after the original God has apparently died or possibly withdrawn, the new God, Satan, addresses the last magicians in the great hall of Pandemonium in the Citadel of Dis.

In Mike Carey's Lucifer:

after the original God has withdrawn, the new God and Lucifer address the angelic host, the Hellkin and the Army of the Damned in a great amphitheatre of the fallen Silver City.

Despite the many differences between these two scenes, I have tried to bring out some parallels:

in both cases, the original God is no longer around;
but, also in both cases, He has been replaced;
His replacement addresses the main movers;
the Devil plays a key role - in the first case, he is the replacement whereas, in the second case, he has prepared her;
the address occurs in a suitable location, either in Hell or in the fallen Heavenly City.

Collecting Blish Series

OK. This is the way to do it (a "Why didn't I think of this before?" moment):

I. The Haertel Scholium Prelude: the early interconnected stories and the Galactic Cluster Trilogy.
II. The Heart Stars: the Jack Loftus novels.
III. After Such Knowledge.
IV. The Seedling Stars.
V. Cities in Flight.
VI. The Quincunx Tetralogy.
VII. The Haertel Scholium Coda.

Thus:

"Haertel Scholium" volumes would open and close the sequence;
the "Coda" would be read at the end where it belongs instead of in the opening volume;
"The Haertel Scholium" and "The Heart Stars" form a fortuitous verbal sequence;
the latter is an appropriate title for the diptych, The Star Dwellers and Mission To The Heart Stars;
The Heart Stars would also be a companion title to The Seedling Stars.