by James Blish
And so, by winning all, All have I lost.’
(The great hall of Pandemonium dissolves, and with it the Citadel of Dis, leaving the four men standing in a modern road in the midst of the small town of Badwater. It is early morning in the desert, and still cold. All traces of the recent battle also have vanished.
(The four look at each other, with gradually growing wonder, as though each were seeing the others for the first time. Each one finally starts a sentence, but is unable to complete it):
FATHER DOMENICO: I think.
BAINES: I believe ....
WARE: I hope ....
(They look about, noting the disappearance of the battlefield. After all else that has happened, they do not question this; it does not even surprise them.)
GINSBERG: I ... LOVE.
CURTAIN
Author’s Afterword
This novel, though it is intended to be able to stand as an independent entity, is a sequel to another with nearly the same cast of characters, called Black Easter or Faust Aleph-Null. These two books, considered as a unit, in turn make up the second volume of a trilogy under the overall title of After Such Knowledge. The first volume is a historical novel called Doctor Mirabilis; the last, a science-fiction novel called A Case of Conscience. These two volumes are independent of each other and of Black Easter and The Day After Judgment, except for subject matter; that is, they are intended to dramatize different aspects of an ancient philosophical question which is voiced by Baines in Chapter VIII of the present work.
As before, the books of magic cited in the text all actually exist (although mostly in manuscript), and the magical rituals and diagrams are all taken from them (although in no case are they complete). The characters and events, on the other hand, are entirely my own invention, as are all the details about the Strategic Air Command.
—James Blish, Harpsden (Henley), Oxon., England, 1970
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Also by James Blish
A Case Of Conscience
A Torrent Of Faces (with Norman L. Knight)
And All The Stars A Stage
Black Easter
Doctor Mirabilis
Cities in Flight, comprising:
∼ They Shall Have Stars
∼ A Life For The Stars
∼ Earthman, Come Home
∼ A Clash Of Cymbals (The Triumph Of Time)
Fallen Star (The Frozen Year)
Jack Of Eagles
Midsummer Century
Mission To The Heart Stars
More Issues At Hand
The Day After Judgement
The Duplicated Man (with Robert A. W. Lowndes)
The Issue At Hand
The Night Shapes
The Quincunx Of Time
The Seedling Stars
The Star Dwellers
The Tale That Wags The God
The Warriors Of Day
Titan’s Daughter
Vor
Welcome To Mars!
Dedication
To Robert A.W.Lowndes
James Blish (1921-75) studied microbiology at Rutgers and then served as a medical laboratory technician in the US army during the Second World War. Among his best known books are A Case of Conscience, for which he won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1959, and the Cities in Flight sequence: They Shall Have Stars, A Life for the Stars, Earthman Come Home and A Clash of Cymbals (published in the US as The Triumph of Time). He also wrote almost a dozen books adapting episodes of the Star Trek television series, and the first original spin-off novel, Spock Must Die!
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © James Blish 1971
All rights reserved.
The right of James Blish to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 10402 0
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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