American science-fiction author (1921–1975) who adapted the episodes of the original Star Trek as short stories and wrote Spock Must Die!, the first original Star Trek novel for adult readers.
James Blish was an American science-fiction writer and critic, winner of the Hugo Award for the novel A Case of Conscience and author of the Cities in Flight sequence.
From 1967 he adapted the scripts of the original series into short stories for Bantam Books, in a run of paperback collections titled simply Star Trek. He often worked from draft scripts, so his versions sometimes differ from what was broadcast. The final volumes were completed with J.A. Lawrence after his health failed.
In 1970 Blish published Spock Must Die!, in which a transporter experiment creates a duplicate Spock. It was the first original Star Trek novel written for an adult readership and opened the way for the long line of tie-in fiction that followed.