more on James Blish

[Dan Goodman]

> Date:    Sat, 20 Jul 2002 13:30:36 EDT
> From:    "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
> Subject: Re: Horsethieves (was  Matrushka; Hryvna: more)
>
>> Now for an interesting piece of Blish trivia.  His "Year 2018"
> contains an acid and unflattering portrait of an FBI director who is
> obviously modelled on J. Edgar Hoover---then alive and at the height
> of his reputation. Randall Garrett wrote a potboiler "The Hunting
> Lodge" which among other tired stereotypes had a benign and farsighted
> FBI director.

I'm not sure "benign" is the word for a man who's ordering the
killing of near-immortals
with too much political power.  Farsighted, yes -- he says that he
himself will need to
be eliminated at some future time.

> This says a lot about those two writers, doesn't it?

> Not quite, because Blish later wrote about Garrett, "there is imbedded
> in Mr. Garrett's several million words of trash one superb story ("The
> Hunting Lodge")". (William Atheling, Jr (pseudonym for James Blish)
> "The Issue at Hand", Chicago: Advent Publisher, 1964, page 31n.)