Jack Of Eagles by James Blish (book review)
I’ve been meaning to read ‘Jack Of Eagles’ by James Blish for some time. Don’t treat the cover as representative of the contents. It isn’t. No one leaves the planet, at least not by spaceship. This edition came out in the middle of the time when putting anything spaceship on the cover would increase sales.
Danny Caiden is a precog working as a writer for the Food Chronicler. He doesn’t fully realise his ability and puts a prediction that Wheat International is going to go bust at the end of the week. It gets him the sack because it’s not likely to happen and a severance cheque. A friend, editor and artist, Sean Hennessey, who supports him also finds himself sacked but can easily find work elsewhere. Caiden talks to a broker and uses his severance pay to buy shares and sell them before they go down at the end of the week. Although his initial horse betting is a failure, Caiden decides he needs to get advice and goes to a seer, whom he discovers to be a fraud but gets the interest of her niece, Marla, who tracks down his flat and waits for him. In the meantime, Caiden has been in contact with ESP specialist Professor Todd at the university.
Apart from finding Marla in his flat and upsetting the other residents insisting to their landlord to kick him out, Caiden finds he’s upset a lot of people as to how he realised that Wheat International was going to fall and making a profit. The FBI says he has to stay put on an open arrest while they investigate. He contacts Todd who gives him a list of equipment so he can be studied in the flat. Caiden uses Marla, predicting a betting pattern that will provide both of them with a lot of money, much of it to pay for the equipment. Todd arrives and, as they are building it up, the criminal fraternity gets in and leaving Marla and Todd tied up, take Caiden because it was their betting pattern he predicted and cost them a lot of money. He survives that only to be caught by a fraternity of existing people with psionic abilities.
From here on, much of it is spoiler as Caiden finds his abilities expanding and other people come back into his life and you need a check card and wonder why their roles were expanded and in different directions to what they were when they were first introduced.
I should point out that the eagles were a fifth suit in a pack of cards until it was taken out. Caiden was essentially the lowest of the royal suit before rising to king.
James Blish puts in a lot of existing science related to ESP into this story. There’s even a brief reference to Alfred Korzybski, the designer of General Semantics, which was still referenced at the time and even to a couple formulas from his book ‘Science And Sanity’ further in.
It does become pretty obvious that Blish is doing a homage of sorts to AE van Vogt. You have a super-human developing and finding his place in an odd society who is out to stop him sorting out the mess its in. It doesn’t mean Blish is as good as van Vogt. The last sequence is more like a roller-coaster towards a happy ending than making as much sense as it should. As such, it probably means Blish’s interpretation of van Vogt than playing with how he would do better. It makes for an interesting story for much of the time but with a book over 50 years old, any comments now won’t change anything.
GF Willmetts
January 2026
(pub: Arrow Books, 1975. 256 page paperback. Price; varies. ISBN: 0-09-909710-9. There are later reprints)
