James Blish was one of the Department, and among them one of the less fortunate. His debut came in 1940, at about that time that saw the beginnings of the careers of all Futurians , the fan group of young New Yorkers quickly turned into writers, editors and various experts in the field of sf, and which included, in addition to Blish, Isaac Asimov, Fred Pohl, Cyril Kornbluth, Damon Knight, Don Wollheim. To cite the most famous. In the late '40s and one of the following decade Blish spent her season creative happier, especially for the high quality achieved by its narrative; season that culminated in 1958 with the publication of his novel rightly best-known and reputed: A Case of Conscience (translated into Italian under the title idiot War on Big Nothing , the novel is the expansion of a novel written before). The novel received the Hugo Award the following year and is often cited as one of the best examples of religious fiction. What is true but does not exhaust the interest of a work that also explores the best results with the issues of knowledge, a subject dear to the most, and puts in stage of consciousness that case relied on by the original title with a strong moral tension. A case of conscience is also the first step of a three / quartet focusing on the themes of knowledge and conducted through the literary genres: Doctor Mirabilis, the next novel is in fact a historical novel about the life of Roger Bacon, while the two more novels, Black Easter and The Day After Judgement that Blish considered a single work, are essentially fantasy.
happy at the time of his career and life back Blish also Galactic Cluster, the anthology of 1959 that includes his best short fiction of the decade and in which there is the tale Beep. The anthology has been translated in Italy by Fanucci in 1977 with the title prison without bars, presenting the third (and so far I know last) publication of Beep in our country, for the first time with the title changed in a more Italian Biip .
With the 60 Blish's career began to decline, although occasionally continued to produce as tight as his fiction stylistically and intellectually, those stories so bold and relentlessly accurate and logical. It has continued to rewrite what he had already written, in an effort maniacal precision and perfection: Blish, who as William Atheling Jr. has been one of the most implacable critics of the field, always reserved to himself (even in the first place to himself) that relentlessness. The cancer that struck him first and then the throat to the lungs, and would have led to the death and the propensity to alcohol made more bitter than those due to his later years.
Beep is a wonderful example of science fiction blishiana, even affected the styles of the time and not so brilliant in some hard-boiled fiction (the story is structured like a spy-story ). Although the characters of the tale are little more than mannequins, mere agents of the plot is to say, overall, the tale does not suffer. In fact, it gives an account could not be better as the definition of science fiction as a narrative of ideas. And an idea of \u200b\u200bgreat intellectual force although it is nothing new, is at the heart of the story. And history. In el día que hicimos the transición, the story I wrote in my previous post, the discovery of time travel creates the infinite multiplication Timelines; in Beep , Blish is followed instead to explore the possibility of knowing the future of the seal of certainty that time is immutable, the future that all written and played until the end of time. A time that now seems non-linear, synchronous. The presence (in fact it is here that the discovery) of the Dirac transmitter, through which you may receive communications from the future, assign Beep to a series of stories, including many of the best of the author, which make up a tenuously linked to the future history of humanity, a trait common to many other Blish great authors of his generation, notably Heinlein, Asimov e Anderson.
Illustrazione di Ed Emshwiller per la prima pubblicazione di Beep (Galaxy del febbraio 1954)
Il Trasmettitore Dirac, permettendo di ricevere comunicazioni dal più lontano futuro pare realizzare il sogno dell’onniscienza. Ma essa continua a sfuggire tra le dita dell’uomo (ed è un bene, immaginiamo, per quanto in tale situazione possa risultare frustrante): non è ovviamente possibile, infatti, conoscere ciò che non viene registrato dal Trasmettitore. Tanto l’idea di questa onniscienza frustrata quanto il ferreo determinismo di un tempo which is nothing if not an immutable destiny are conceptually fascinating. Determinism, on the other, which breaks one of our most decisive mental coordinates: the relation of cause and effect, although determinism apparently (or really?) Incomplete, since that is not registered by the Dirac equation remains unknown and therefore apparently (or really ?) delegated to the free human will. If time is already determined once and for all, there are no causes or effects, but only events: on which the human will has no power (but those that remain unknown?), Whereas our consciousness observes and developing the compulsive events rational justification for them in the shape of Cases (And effects). As Dana says Lje, the discoverer of how to use the transmitter which Dirac eye on the future, you can "invent" as many excuses as to why she has been to discover the mechanism and the Service (secret), but the only true is that she found out ... because he has discovered. And the service has not discovered why he has not discovered. Again, Beep, however, as in the story of Romero and de la Casa, is the discovery in some way to determine the future. If the story of two English authors it involves pulverization of the future tense in an infinite number of possibilities and the need to preserve the unique past of its rewriting Blish in the tale of it not only opens up the future (part of the future) knowledge, but he established the need (in the sense of inevitability) of the continued exploration of the future for it, having already given, can only be brought about by humanity through the knowledge they obtain from the Dirac Transmitter. Dana Lje service delivery to his knowledge the day and time in which it was planned to happen, and the service become apparent guardian of humanity, its expansion in space and its success in one of the opening scenes of the story Service rejected a massive alien invasion of the Galaxy with ridiculous ease: nothing strange if think that for centuries were aware of this event. In fact, the service does not perform other activities that a notary to certify the accuracy of what is already written in the future. A notary apprehensive that you care to verify the exact place of every single event recorded in the Dirac Transmitter, no matter how trivial it is. Why, as one of the characters, Krasna: Our Interests as a government depend upon the future. We made as if the future is as real as the past, and so far we Have not Been disappointed: the Service is 100 per cent successful. But Is not That very success without ITS warnings. What would happen if we stopped supervising events? We do not know, and we do not to take the chance. Despi The Evidence That the future is fixed, We have to take on the role of the caretaker of Inevitability. We Believe That nothing can possibly go wrong. . . But We have to act on the philosophy That history helps only Those who help themselves. It 'really so certain deterministically the future? ;-)
Blish's prose, where fashion does not give hard-boiled painting characters glamorous as the unlikely Dana Lje and putting in their mouths words and phrases that play today quite silly, is careful, measured and sometimes solemn. The inserts science should be read fluently, although they need the proper attention. Blish was training a biologist specializing in zoology, but at ease with science in general and as a skilled writer to draw stories that combine a talented visionary with uncommon rigor of the scientist. It is a beautiful testimony to the volume The seedling stars collecting some stories of exploration and human adaptation in the most different environments, among which there is a story Surface tension, one of the best results in the career of James Benjamin Blish .
Beep be read in English at: http://www.arthursbookshelf.com/sci-fi/blish/james 20blish%% 20 -% 20beep.pdf
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