James Benjamin Blish was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is best known for his Cities in Flight novels, his series of Star Trek novelizations written with his wife, J. A. Lawrence, he is credited with creating the term "gas giant" to refer to large planetary bodies. Blish was a member of the Futurians, his first published stories appeared in Super Science Stories and Amazing Stories. Blish wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen name William Atheling Jr, his other pen names included Donald Laverty, John MacDougal, Arthur Lloyd Merlyn. Blish was born on May 1921 at East Orange, New Jersey. While in high school, Blish self-published a fanzine using a hectograph, called The Planeteer; the fanzine ran for six issues. Blish attended meetings of the Futurian Science Fiction Society in New York City during this period. Futurian members Damon Knight and Cyril M. Kornbluth became close friends. However, Blish's relationships with other members were bitter. A personal target was fellow member Judith Merril, with.

Merril would dismiss Blish's self-description of being a "paper fascist". She wrote in Better to Have Loved, "Of course was not fascist, antisemitic, or any of those terrible things, but every time he used the phrase, I saw red." Blish studied microbiology at Rutgers University, graduating in 1942. He was drafted into Army service, he served as a medical laboratory technician; the United States Army discharged him for refusing orders to clean a grease trap in 1944. Following discharge, Blish entered Columbia University as a masters student of zoology, he did not complete the program, opting to write fiction full-time. In 1947, he married a fellow Futurian, they divorced in 1963. Blish married artist J. A. Lawrence in 1968, moving to England that same year. From 1962 to 1968, Blish worked as a writer and critic. Much of his work for the institute went uncredited. Blish died on July 1975 from complications related to lung cancer, he was buried in Oxford. The Bodleian Library at Oxford is the custodian of Blish's papers.

The library has a complete catalog of Blish's published works. Throughout the 1940s, Blish published most of his stories in the few pulp magazines still in circulation, his first story was sold to fellow Futurian Frederik Pohl for Super Science Stories, called "Emergency Refueling". Other stories were with little circulation. Blish's "Chaos, Co-Ordinated", co-written with Robert A. W. Lowndes, was sold to Astounding Science Fiction, appearing in the October 1946 issue, earning Blish national circulation for the first time. Blish was what Andrew Litpack called a "practical writer", he would revisit and expand on written stories. An example is "Sunken Universe" published in Super Science Stories in 1942; the story reappeared in Galaxy Science Fiction as "Surface Tension", in an altered form in 1952. The premise emphasised Blish's understanding of microbiology, featured microscopic humans engineered to live on a hostile planet's shallow pools of water; the story proved to be among Blish's more popular, was anthologized in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964, edited by Robert Silverberg.

The world of microscopic humans continued in "The Thing in the Attic" in 1954, "Watershed" the following year. The fourth entry, "A Time to Survive", was published by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1957; the stories were collected, edited together, published as the fix-up The Seedling Stars, by Gnome Press. John Clute said of all of Blish's "deeply felt work" explored "confronting the Faustian man"; the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction asserts that it was not until the 1950s, the Okie sequence of stories beginning their run, "did it become clear would become a writer of unusual depth". The stories were loosely based on the Okie migration following the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, were influenced by Oswald Spengler's two-part Der Untergang des Abendlandes; the stories detail the life of the Okies, humans who migrate throughout space looking for work in vast city-ships, powered by spindizzies, a type of anti-gravity engine. The premise and plot reflected Blish's feelings on the state of western civilization, his personal politics.

The first two stories, "Okie", "Bindlestiff", were published in 1950, by Astounding. "Sargasso of Lost Cities" appeared in Two Complete Science-Adventure Books in April 1953. "Earthman, Come Home" followed a few months published by Astounding. In 1955, Blish collected the four stories together into an omnibus titled Earthman, Come Home, published by Putnam. More stories followed: In 1956, They Shall Have Stars, which edited together "Bridge" and "At Death’s End", in 1958, Blish published The Triumph of Time. Four years he published a new Okies novel, A Life for the Stars; the Okies sequence was published as Cities In Flight. Clute notes, "the brilliance of Cities in Flight does not lie in the assemblage of its parts, but in the momentum of the ideas embodied in it." Blish continued to rework older stories, did so for one of his best known works, A Case of Conscience. The novel originated as a novella published in an issue of If, in 1953; the story follows a Jesuit priest, Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez, who visits the planet Lithia as a technical member of an expedition.

While on the planet they discover a race of bipedal reptilians that have perfected morality in what Ruiz-Sanchez says is "the absence of God", theological complications ensue. The book is one of

Taeniolabididae is one of the two multituberculate clades within Taeniolabidoidea. Synonymous with Taeniolabidoidea, it has more been found to be a specific clade including Kimbetopsalis and some former members of the Catopsalis wastebasket taxon, as opposed to Lambdopsalidae, which includes most other genera outside of Valenopsalis and Bubodens, both of which more basal taxa. Unlike the longer spanning lambdopsalids, taeniolabibids remained exclusive to the Puercan of North America and did not live longer nor spread into Asia, nor did they develop some of the more sophisticated dental speciations to cope with grass, they were, large herbivores, being among the first mammals to attain large sizes after the KT event. Indeed, this culminated with Taeniolabis setting the record for being the largest multituberculate of all time, at around 100 kg

The Legend of Qin 3D Ancient Dragon Spirit is a 2014 Chinese animated fantasy adventure wuxia film written and directed by Robin Shen, creator of the Qin's Moon TV series. An unlikely quartet - a boy, a young rebel and descendant of a reviled war criminal, a mysterious girl and descendant of the Divine Dragon and the kingdom's greatest warrior - cross the desert to find the hidden kingdom of Loulan to prevent Emperor Qin from awakening an ancient weapon that will return China to war; the events in the film take place before the events in The Legend of Qin. Thousands of years ago, the supreme Goddess forged a fallen meteor into a powerful sword, to be used by Chi You to bring peace; however he became corrupted by a terrible war broke out. The land was devastated by the now fearless warlord Chi You. A young and courageous man, Huang Di led his people against Chi You with the help of the Supreme Goddess, he wielded the power of the Dragon and won the war. The Supreme Goddess sealed Huang Di's ultimate weapon, a gem called the Dragons Soul, in Loulan in far western China.

Now the Qin Emperor seeks the Demon Robot, the last of 81 bronze giants created by Chi You. In a remote border town, the rebel Shaoyu and his troops are observing the actions of the Qin army. A mischievous young boy, Tianming is entrusted with a metallic ball by his Uncle Lu, machinery expert. However, he is under observation by the Qin and is attacked by the Yin Yang Priestesses of Birth and Dearth, accompanied by Gongshu Chou and his miniature machinery lizards. Tianming is saved from the Qin soldiers by Ge Nie and his sword Rainbow Abyss. Wei Zhuang and his Quicksand Group arrive to seize the metallic ball, but Ne Gie enables Tianming to escape. Tianming encounters Shaoyu and they fight over the metallic ball which transforms into the tiny metal-eating dragon Pi Xiu. While trying to catch Pi Xiu, its owner, the mysterious Xiao Li arrives, she wears a necklace containing a blue gem called the Tears of a Goddess. All three are captured by Qin troops. Pi Xiu frees the boys, Xiao Li rescues them on a flying machinery dragon, but it crashes in the desert.

Pursued through the desert by a Qin General and the Quicksand Group, the three are saved by Ne Gie. They accidentally find the secret entrance to Loulan through underground rivers in the desert. In Loulan, the High Priestess says, she denounces Xiao Li as a descendant of the treacherous Lord Chi and she is imprisoned with the boys and Ge Nie. The Quicksand Group arrive and seize the powerful Chi You sword while Gongshu Chou gets the Dragons Soul gem which gives him control over the Demon Robot. Meanwhile Tianming and Xiao Li escape and climb inside the robot to stop it. Ne Gie takes the sword. With the help of Pi Xiu, Xiao Li uses the sword to save Loulan. Ne Gie reveals to Tianming that the boy's father asked Ne Gie to protect him; as Xiao Li' body fades away, the Priestess realizes that she was the physical embodiment of the Tears of the Princess. For detailed descriptions of the characters, see the List of The Legend of Qin characters; the film earned CN¥59.984 million in China