Anderson, Blish And Al-Khalili

For British TV presenters that have been relevant to this blog, see:

Jim Al-Khalili (scroll down)
Tony Robinson (scroll down)
Alice Roberts
Michael Portillo
Simon Schama (scroll down)

Last night, Al-Khalili presented a program showing how Robert Boyle transformed alchemy into chemistry. Similarly, astrology became astronomy and, more generally, science replaced magic.

I have just been through quite a performance, looking for a book that does not exist. I misremembered Poul Anderson as having written a book on the origin of science whereas what I was really remembering was his Is There Life On Other Worlds?, Chapter 8, "On the Nature and Origin of Science." Nevertheless, he did write about that. James Blish wrote Doctor Mirabilis, a historical novel about Roger Bacon, a forerunner of modern science.

Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson and Black Easter by James Blish are fantasy novels by sf writers based on the premise that magic really did work. These authors' works of hard sf show mankind venturing into the universe by applying scientific knowledge in future periods. Blish's After Such Knowledge packs these three themes into a single trilogy with Doctor Mirabilis as Volume I, Black Easter and its sequel as Volume II and a futuristic sf novel as Volume III.

My rereading of Operation Chaos approaches the climactic invasion of the hell universe.