The Seedling Stars

The Seedling Stars

Dust-jacket from the first edition
Author	James Blish
Cover artist	Lionel Dillon
Language	English
Genre	Science fiction
Publisher	Gnome Press
Publication date	1957
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (hardback)
Pages	185
OCLC	7013015

The Seedling Stars is a 1957 collection of science fiction short stories by American writer James Blish. It was first published by Gnome Press in 1957 in an edition of 5,000 copies. The stories concern the adaptation of humans to alien environments (a process Blish called pantropy).

Contents

• "Seeding Program" (F&SF 1956)
• "The Thing in the Attic" (If 1954)
• "Surface Tension" (Galaxy 1952)
• "Watershed" (If 1955)

"Seeding Program" was originally published under the title "A Time to Survive". "Surface Tension" was revised from its magazine publication, and here incorporates material from Blish's earlier story "Sunken Universe", published in Super Science Stories in 1942.^[1] The four stories are termed 'Book One', 'Book Two', etc. and some editions refer to this as a standard novel in four sections, rather than an actual short story collection.

Reception

Galaxy reviewer Floyd C. Gale praised the collection as "a thought-provoking job".^[2] Anthony Boucher also received the book favorably, saying it "nicely illustrat[ed] the characteristic Blish balance between thinking and storytelling, with each reinforcing the other".^[3]

References

1. Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections
2. "Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf", Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1957, p.105
3. "Recommended Reading," F&SF, July 1957, p.92.

Sources

• Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd. p. 306.
• Contento, William G. "Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections". Retrieved 2008-03-04.

External links

• The Seedling Stars title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Pantropy series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database