James Blish (1921–1975)

Set in the very earliest 20th century Congo, this white man at home among Africans tale is almost worse because it is trying not to be racist af while still basically racist af - after all it was written for a market of white men. There are dinosaurs, hidden valleys, a python that takes our hero as a pet, a witch doctor that conjures a storm, but the most outrageous piece of fantasy is that a man would be expelled from the US for an affair with a 14yr old girl, and have to live his life as a show more king in the Congo. Yes, there is the compulsory red haired green eyed beauty for our hero. show less

Although first issued and mostly reprinted under science fiction imprints, Blish's Doctor Mirabilis is a quite conscientiously historical piece of fiction set in the thirteenth century. Although it's written in modern English, there are enough Middle Englishisms in it that it might seem like a chore to those who have no prior familiarity with the language of the period, and there are a few short passages of untranslated Latin. It was a fast, enjoyable read for me, but I can't second-guess show more how it might read to someone who hadn't formally studied medieval history. The book stands as part of an alleged "trilogy" (with one of the three parts most often published as two volumes) joined only by theme, rather than plot, character, or even style. This one is probably the strongest, though least-read, book of the set.

The chapters are episodic, and the plot has the nature of a biography, covering the whole of Roger Bacon's adult life. Other characters are filled out credibly, particularly Adam Marsh, but it's mostly just Roger's story. Many 21st-century magicians might be satisfied to read only the chapter about Roger's alchemical investigations in Paris, if they want to maximize entertainment for time spent.

Blish's picture of his central character is decidedly that of a scientist--not an inventor/technologist, but a researcher trying to understand the world, and to empirically verify or disprove the ideas about it that have been supplied to him in the hard-to-obtain "commmon" knowledge of his medieval university world. Even without the mass of clinical notions developed since the writing of this book in the 1960s, Blish also effectively presents Roger as a very high-functioning inhabitant of the "autism spectrum." He's passionate about knowledge, good with words and numbers, and terrible with people. The upshot of this condition is something nobler than an idot-savant: a tragic hero.

My previous reading on Roger Bacon had never suggested any connection to the Spiritual Franciscans and Joachimism, but Blish is certainly within his rights to imagine one, inasmuch as the conflict within the Ordo Fratrum Minorum could not have been invisible to Roger. The attraction of apocalyptic thinking for pioneering English men of science is well attested in such other cases as John Dee and Isaac Newton, and Blish doesn't go so far as to make Roger into a Fraticello, but simply one who staunchly credits the possible validity of Joachimist prophecy.

Another feature of Blish's Roger Bacon is his lifelong dialog with his personal genius, or "demonic self." This aspect, along with the attention to historical context and the emphasis on the spiritual value of knowledge about the world, makes the book an admirable piece of creative hagiography, especially for adherents of the Gnostic Catholic Church whose canon of saints includes the Doctor Mirabilis. show less

5/5

A masterful exploration of how religion, specifically Catholicism, would reconcile with novel alien life. It's truly amazing the depth of theme and philosophy exploration that Blish was able to pack into two small novellas. A group of human men, which includes a priest from Peru, are tasked with deciding if a planet populated by sentient lizards is deserving of a place within the galactic federation of humanity. While the other men in the group want to, in various forms, exploit the show more planet for its resources, the priest insists that the planet should be quarantined, as he sees the life and ideas on it to be the work of Satan.

Blish was one of the early hardliners when it came to scientific accuracy in science fiction. It's clear from his work that he practiced what he preached. There is a fair amount of logical scientific explanation, and other arguably dry topics, and yet Blish was able to hold my attention easily throughout. The novel comes off as being extremely well researched, as if it was poured over to hone every sentence as best he could. This effort extends to the world building and aliens themselves. The culture of the Lithians is surprisingly deep and well explored, including their specific scientific advancements, and behavioral customs. The context surrounding human life is similarly interesting, with most life on earth existing in derelict bunkers from a prior age, that are straining the social condition of society at large. Blish is also prescient in his comments on planned obsolescence, and the power that corporations like DuPont and Monsanto will have.

The clear meat of the story revolves around the religious concerns that Father Sanchez works through in his head. Is it possible to be moral and secular, in the specific way that Christians are moral? If God and Satan are real, can Satan directly create physical phenomenon or life in the universe? Is there a difference between divine intervention and physics as we understand it / if a phenomenon is explainable by scientific standards, does it make something less divine or less like the hand of god moving through the world? These questions are explored wonderfully. There's also a satisfying conclusion that perhaps helps to answer them, but is clearly ambiguous enough that the reader is expected to do a lot of thinking on their own.

There is a brief sag towards the beginning of the second novella, when some of the titular characters spend time observing social behaviors at a party, that I struggled to get through. Other than that the novel is well paced and perfectly sized to accomplish it's goals. I compare it a lot to The Canticle for Lebowitiz, another religiously themed novel that I also greatly enjoyed. It's really hard to say which is definitively better, but they both certainly deserve a place in the highest echelons of science fiction literature. show less

Great concept (Cities. In. Space!), flawed execution. It has a genuinely epic scope, and it was quite fascinating to see which aspects of his vast future history the author chose to explore. Thumbs up also for including economics in this, and for intelligently considering some of the implications of humankind essentially conquering aging. Nevertheless, this is *extremely* didactic old-school science fiction, in which people stand around earnestly explaining political philosophy and show more scientific theories to each other. The characterisation is pretty thin at best, and I found the central character increasingly unsympathetic. I was also extremely aware that this is a future universe still ruled primarily by white heterosexual males; women have immensely restricted roles (even when the narrative obviously fancies that they're "emancipated") and I can recall only one person of colour at all who wasn't classed as a "savage". While this isn't uncommon for works produced in the 50s and 60s, I found it particularly grating here. Of all the books in the SF Masterworks series that I've read over the past year, this one has probably dated the most, and it ended up being quite a struggle to finish it (but seeing as it has been sitting on my shelf for nearly twelve years, waiting to be read… it had to be done!). show less