History Creator / JamesBlish

** The main conflict in ''A Case of Conscience'' depends entirely on the "fact" that the Catholic church rejects evolution. In fact, the Catholic Church recently (in the 1940's) said the theory and religion are not mutually exclusive and that the church has no problem with the theory. Compared to certain Protestant sects Catholicism has taken a very moderate stance of the controversy - they were originally neutral on the subject but later came down in favour of it (in fact, English Protestants both supported and rallied against the theory in more or less equal measure-'Darwin's Bulldog' was a Christian). The church made no official pronouncement about the subject at all until Pius XII adopted a neutral attitude.

* {{Heavyworlder}}: Malis in "Mission to the Heart Stars" has a gravity about 1.6 times that of Earth, and its inhabitants are eight-foot high giants.

* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace: "Literature/CommonTime": A person travelling in "over-drive" first experiences his mind (and therefore his perception of time) operating thousands of times faster than his body, and later experiences his body operating vastly faster than his mind - both potentially fatal conditions. (Several earlier expeditions failed to return). It then gets [[MindScrew weirder]], and the whole thing is possibly [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Time#Symbolism kinky]].

* EmpathicShapeshifter: In ''The Duplicated Man,'' the eponymous [[CloningBlues duplicates]] are formed by a machine that is controlled telepathically by its operators. The operators are displeased to discover that all the duplicates come out ''wrong'' because each of the operators has his own imperfect, thoroughly subjective ideas of what the original guy is like, both in his personality and his appearance.

* ArtisticLicenseReligion: The main conflict ''A Case of Conscience'' depends entirely on the "fact" that the Catholic church rejects evolution. In fact, the Catholic Church recently (in the 1940's) said the theory and religion are not mutually exclusive and that the church has no problem with the theory. Compared to certain Protestant sects Catholicism has taken a very moderate stance of the controversy - they were originally neutral on the subject but later came down in favour of it (in fact, English Protestants both supported and rallied against the theory in more or less equal measure-'Darwin's Bulldog' was a Christian). The church made no official pronouncement about the subject at all until Pius XII adopted a neutral attitude. This is more a case of Theology Marches On than a pure example of this trope, but the central character is a Catholic priest who is freaked out by the existence of an alien species that appear to be without sin yet have never known Christianity: in RealLife, the Vatican recently issued a statement to the effect that it was definitely possible humanity would find such a species out there in the universe, and the idea of sinless aliens actually works within Catholic theology since they would not share Adam's curse. ([[FridgeLogic Wait]], would that mean that humanity's [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is sin?!) [[note]] [[Literature/SpaceTrilogy Yes.]] [[/note]] Also, the idea of moral perception without revelation (i.e. by the perceiving mind's own powers) has been last considered novel by Catholics in ''XII century'' (see Thomas Aquinas).
* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: Doubly subverted in the very dark ''The Day After Judgement'' (a.k.a. the second half of ''The Devil's Day''). TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt has taken place. {{God}}, it turns out, really did die. {{Satan}} (who is [[SatanIsGood not so bad]]) shows a viewpoint character the Crystal Spires and Togas-future which would have come about had he not destroyed everything and then reveals that compared to such a soul-less living death, the Apocalypse would seem preferable.

* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: Doubly subverted in the very dark ''The Day After Judgement'' (a.k.a. the second half of ''The Devil's Day''). TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt has taken place. {{God}}, it turns out, really did die. {{Satan}} (who is [[SatanIsGood not so bad]] shows a viewpoint character the Crystal Spires and Togas future which would have come about had he not destroyed everything and then reveals that compared to such a soul-less living death, the Apocalypse would seem preferable.

* GeneticAdaptation: The stories in ''Literature/TheSeedlingStars'' are all about adapting humans for new planets. For example, in "Surface Tension," humans colonize a mostly water-covered planet by creating a race of humanoids out of their own genes hand-crafted to best suit this planet, and leaving all their knowledge, up to and including how to build spaceships, in form of tablets to be read when they develop enough to manage to do so. The driving point of the story is that being made to perfectly suit the world in question includes being ''microscopic''.

* WaterIsAir: The {{Novella}} "Literature/SurfaceTension" [[AvertedTrope averts this trope]] by having Blish's microscopic water-dwellers live in a "universe" with three "surfaces": the bottom, where the water ends; the "sky", the top of the water, which (as the title suggests) they cannot penetrate; and between these, the thermocline, the division between the sunwarmed upper layers and the cold deeps.

* ArtisticLicenseReligion: The main conflict ''A Case of Conscience'' depends entirely on the "fact" that the Catholic church rejects evolution. In fact, the Catholic Church recently (in the 1940's) said the theory and religion are not mutually exclusive and that the church has no problem with the theory. Compared to certain Protestant sects Catholicism has taken a very moderate stance of the controversy - they were originally neutral on the subject but later came down in favour of it (in fact, English Protestants both supported and rallied against the theory in more or less equal measure-'Darwin's Bulldog' was a Christian). The church made no official pronouncement about the subject at all until Pius XII adopted a neutral attitude. This is more a case of Theology Marches On than a pure example of this trope, but the central character is a Catholic priest who is freaked out by the existence of an alien species that appear to be without sin yet have never known Christianity: in RealLife, the Vatican recently issued a statement to the effect that it was definitely possible humanity would find such a species out there in the universe, and the idea of sinless aliens actually works within Catholic theology since they would not share Adam's curse. ([[FridgeLogic Wait]], would that mean that humanity's [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is sin?!)

** ''Literature/BlackEaster''
** ''Literature/TheDayAfterJudgement''

* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace: Creator/JamesBlish's "Literature/CommonTime": A person travelling in "over-drive" first experiences his mind (and therefore his perception of time) operating thousands of times faster than his body, and later experiences his body operating vastly faster than his mind - both potentially fatal conditions. (Several earlier expeditions failed to return). It then gets [[MindScrew weirder]], and the whole thing is possibly [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Time#Symbolism kinky]].

* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace: In "Common Time" (from the collection ''Galactic Cluster''), a person travelling in "over-drive" experiences first experiences his mind (and therefore his perception of time) operating thousands of times faster than his body, and later his body operating vastly faster than his mind - both potentially fatal conditions. (Several earlier expeditions failed to return). It then gets [[MindScrew wierder]], and the whole thing is possibly [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Time#Symbolism kinky]].

* "Literature/GettingAlong" (can be found in ''Literature/AgainDangerousVisions'')

** ''So Close to Home'' ([[{{Anthology}} collection]])

* ''Literature/TheQuincunxOfTime'' (expansion of the novella ''Beep'')
* ''Literature/TheSeedlingStars'' ([[{{Anthology}} collection]] of related stories: "Seeding Program", "The Thing in the Attic", "Surface Tension" and "Watershed")