Title of James Blish (non-Star Trek) novel?
July 30, 2024 5:27 AM Subscribe
Contemplating the possible side-effects of 'forever chemicals', remembered a James Blish novel (details below). Tried Googling a list of his novels, but not finding anything that I recognized. Maybe it had been classed as a novella and published as a paperback.
Chapter 1 started with a 50th anniversary celebration of the discovery of 'x', an impermeable and indestructible material easily manufactured and since its discovery ubiquitous - roads are paved with it, apartment buildings are constructed out of it.
Shortly after the anniversary celebration, a explosion goes off in the museum housing the first sample of 'x'. A second sample explodes shortly after. It turns out that 'x' is stable for a specific interval (approximately 50+ years) then decays explosively.
Chapter 2 opens on a starship in a fleet of ships escaping the devastation of their home world and looking for a new world to settle.
The fleet spreads out in different directions - and when our characters find a potentially habitable world decades later, their ship is alone. There are humanoids on this planet who resemble our characters.
There is an event on ship involving something like a snake, and something like an apple.
Potential spoiler: this world is Earth in the early stages of civilization. There is a coda with a Chinese astronomer describing the Crab Nebula nova (possibly the original planet blowing up) with a note that it 'portents miracles' - and the narrator says the miracle was already embedded in his chromosomes.
Chapter 1 started with a 50th anniversary celebration of the discovery of 'x', an impermeable and indestructible material easily manufactured and since its discovery ubiquitous - roads are paved with it, apartment buildings are constructed out of it.
Shortly after the anniversary celebration, a explosion goes off in the museum housing the first sample of 'x'. A second sample explodes shortly after. It turns out that 'x' is stable for a specific interval (approximately 50+ years) then decays explosively.
Chapter 2 opens on a starship in a fleet of ships escaping the devastation of their home world and looking for a new world to settle.
The fleet spreads out in different directions - and when our characters find a potentially habitable world decades later, their ship is alone. There are humanoids on this planet who resemble our characters.
There is an event on ship involving something like a snake, and something like an apple.
Potential spoiler: this world is Earth in the early stages of civilization. There is a coda with a Chinese astronomer describing the Crab Nebula nova (possibly the original planet blowing up) with a note that it 'portents miracles' - and the narrator says the miracle was already embedded in his chromosomes.
Response by poster: That does sound like the story I remember - but the catastrophic decay of material 'x' is something I remember also. I suppose I might have conflated two stories - and now I'm wondering where I got the first half of that memory.
Which is too bad - I was looking for a metaphor for 'forever chemicals' (although we don't expect them to literally blow up) and this morning I thought I'd find it in a James Blish story. Now I don't have a clue where I got that. I pretty sure the first chapter set up a story about a space migration.
posted by rochrobbb at 3:10 PM on July 30
Which is too bad - I was looking for a metaphor for 'forever chemicals' (although we don't expect them to literally blow up) and this morning I thought I'd find it in a James Blish story. Now I don't have a clue where I got that. I pretty sure the first chapter set up a story about a space migration.
posted by rochrobbb at 3:10 PM on July 30
If you think you will recognize the title when you see it, check out Fantasticfiction.com for a list of all his books.
posted by Enid Lareg at 3:39 PM on July 30
posted by Enid Lareg at 3:39 PM on July 30
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Note: It was a short story first (not read, this may be the difference in the opening) and was originally going to be published as a novel under the title Crab Nebula (according to this blog post).
posted by Hartster at 6:15 AM on July 30