Anderson And Blish

Poul Anderson, The Enemy Stars.

A Poul Anderson novel set in interstellar space is bound to be rich in descriptions of stars and galaxies, e.g.:

"The farther stars blended into the Milky Way, a single clotted swoop around the sky, the coldest color in all reality. And yet farther away, beyond a million light-years, you could see more suns - a few billions at a time, formed into the tiny blue-white coils of other galaxies." (9, p. 63)

This galactic setting and also some technical details recall James Blish. Maclaren, explaining conditions around the dead star, says:

"'Blackett effect...Magnetic field is directly related to angular velocity.'" (8, p. 58)

In Cities In Flight, Blish rationalizes antigravitic FTL with:

"...the Blackett-Dirac equations, which as early as 1948 had proposed a direct relationship between magnetism, gravity, and the rate of spin of any mass."
-James Blish Cities In Flight (London, 1981), p. 237.

When spaceship repairs are necessary, Ryerson complains:

"'...we don't have four spare kilos of germanium aboard.'" (9, p. 65)

Blish's Acreff-Monales explains:

"Long before flight into deep space became a fact, [germanium] had assumed a fantastic value on Earth. The opening of the interstellar frontier drove its price down to a manageable level, and gradually it emerged as the basic, stable monetary standard of space trade. Nothing else could have kept the nomads in business."
-op. cit., p. 240.

Anderson has interstellar Nomads in his Psychotechnic History and the opening of an interstellar frontier early in his Technic History.

Cities In Flight addresses many familiar Andersonian themes:

Jovian surface conditions
power politics
a rationalization of FTL
anti-agathic drugs
an interstellar frontier
economic decline on Earth
one installment with a juvenile protagonist
extrasolar colonies
interstellar trade
interstellar empires
hostility between the authorities and the nomads
battles in space
a future history
references to a theory of history
the rise and fall of a civilization
a problem-solving hero
theological questions
intergalactic travel
other universes
cosmic destruction and creation
a cosmic climax

In other works:

historical fiction
theological fantasy

Anderson and Blish: read both.