Beyond Apollo eBook Barry Malzberg
Download As PDF : Beyond Apollo eBook Barry Malzberg 
A two-man mission to Venus fails and is aborted; when it returns, the Captain is missing and the other astronaut, Harry M. Evans, is unable to explain what has happened. Or, conversely, he has too many explications; his journal of the expedition--compiled in the mental institution to which NASA has embarrassedly committed him--offers contradictory stories he murdered the Captain, mad Venusian invaders murdered the Captain, the Captain vanished, no one was murdered and the Captain has returned in Evans' guise.
As the explanations pyramid and the supervising psychiatrist's increasingly desperate efforts to get a straight story fail, it becomes apparent that Evans's madness and his inability to explain what happened are expressions of humanity's incompetence at the enormity of space exploration. The novel, published by Random House as its inaugural work in a proposed new science fiction program, was controversial and became even more so when it won the first John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel. Many felt that the award, regardless of the novel's accomplishment, was an insult to Campbell (1910-1971), the great editor of Astounding Science Fiction Magazine whose name had always been synonymous with the wonder and complexity of space exploration. Campbell, some argued, would never have published a novel given an award in his name; others responded that Campbell had always honored controversy and the expansion of familiar means of thought, a category into which Beyond Apollo certainly fell. Beyond Apollo has been in and out of print in the thirty years since its publication, but an edition has always been available in the USA or in one or more of the 12 European and Scandinavian countries to which it was sold.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barry N. Malzberg is the author of some 40 science fiction novels and collections since his first publication in Galaxy Magazine in 1967. Some of the science fiction novels are Galaxies(noted in the book by David Pringle,The One Hundred Best Science Fiction Novels), The Men Inside, Guernica Night, Tactics of Conquestand The Remaking of Sigmund Freud. Malzberg has also written extensively on the field of science fiction itself, both in novels (Herovit's World, about a discouraged science fiction writer) and essays collected in The Engines of the Night(Locus Award, 1982). He has also written mysteries and suspense novels (some in collaboration with Bill Pronzini) and several novels for the Olympia Press USA, of which Screen (1969) is the best known.
Beyond Apollo eBook Barry Malzberg
This book is a great example of why I read science fiction.Many types of fiction provide opportunities for writers to experiment with odd types of stories and imaginative ways of telling them. There are certainly many, many examples of traditional, even boring story telling in science fiction, but the very nature of the thing seems to lend itself to experimentation.
You can read this book just as an entertaining story, a kind of mystery about why an exploratory mission to Venus, as the first step toward colonization, failed, with its Captain dead and the surviving crewmember, Evans, seemingly deranged. The story then becomes Evans' repeated attempts to either explain what happened, or avoid explaining what happened.
But, along the way, Malzberg gives us more to think about. Evans, who refers to himself sometimes in the third person and at some remove from himself as narrator, talks of the book he will write about the mission he is on. That sets in place a doubt in the reader's mind about whether or not we are reading a true account or a concoction. And within the story, there are certainly concoctions, as Evans is questioned about what happened on the mission and how the Captain died. It's as if the truth is too hard to describe, or as if a mere factual account would fail to do justice to the question.
I liked the adventure, but it's also this inability to find a firm footing for truth in the story that I found fascinating and that made the book, for me, more than just a fun read.
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Beyond Apollo eBook Barry Malzberg Reviews
I began reading author Barry Malzberg during his brief, Kohoutek-like fluorescence(and eventual disappearance)during the early to mid 1970s. While on a vacation trip in Florida in 1976, I remained indoors for a full day, totally absorbed in reading an Ace paperback copy of "Beyond Apollo". Outside my motel room, I skipped a visit with friends to a nearby Gulf coast beach and even ignored the well-oiled, bikini-clad college girls milling around the pool in the courtyard beyond my motel room. Ha, what a nerd I was! Years later, now, I still remember "Beyond Apollo" and those flickering, kinetic shadows of bikini-women in the raw sunlight.
There's something deceptive in the way Barry Malzberg books are marketed. Publishers seem unable to describe what the book is actually about and what they settle on seems to fall very wide of the mark. Both with this book and "Galaxies", the descriptions on the back cover emphasize aspects of the book that are really insignificant in the story itself and give sort of a false impression of what the book is really about. This even extends to the cover, which can be called "trippy" at the very least and seems to hint that enjoyment of the book involves a psychedelic experience. It's not necessary to do these things, since Malzberg's books don't really need any extra selling, even if they are hard to classify. This novel takes a fairly simple premise (men venturing into an unexplored planet) and uses it as a launching point to both belittle SF and the space program. Two astronauts go out on a trip to Venus, only one comes back. What happened to the other, the survivor will not say, nor will he say what happened on the planet itself. Malzberg dodges the issue expertly, never letting on if the main character is crazy (and if he is, did he start out that way?) and it's impossible to say which of his narrative is true, if any. The ultimate truth is elusive, a rarity in writing, where readers like everything to be spelled out. Told in brief bursts of short chapters this is a book that reads quickly and like most of Malzberg's books there's not a wasted word, he makes his point and moves on, leaving the reader to figure out the rest. Nor does he makes his comments in broad strokes, his criticisms are always incisive and focused and in a sense are still relevant today. Absolutely unlike any of the SF of the day, it was a deserved winner of the John W Campbell award when it came out, that didn't help it remain in print and used is the way to go with this one even today. But regardless of what the cover art looks like or what the stuff on the back cover tells you, this is one of his greatest novels and a fascinating example of thought-provoking SF in its own right.
Based on the previous reviews and stars awarded (or not) this book here, great to see that Malzberg's "Beyond Apollo" is still just as divisive as it was when it was first published and outraged, shook-up and was awarded a top honor by the science fiction world. I found the book a relatively easy read, particularly thanks to the metafictional moments that tell us exactly how to read this book and why it's structured the way that it is. I'm perfectly comfortable with a book that never settles down into a specific fictional reality, and this one never does. At any rate, it's good to have a book shake up the field and challenge our ideas about what science fiction can be, as well as our prejudices about what the genre should be. As a fan of Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany, Harlan Ellison, Joanna Russ, Brian Aldiss, and others of the New Wave, etc., etc., I'm delighted to have finally found Barry Malzberg. I look forward to reading more by him.
The concept of going out to other planets was great, but the writing was just so atrocious i couldnt get past the first 20 pages.
I bought this book to protest the SFWA's treatment of the author. Wish I hadn't. I prefer more science, less psycho. This book reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut's books - excessive weirdness only tangentially related to science. There's a reason nobody mentions this author in the same breath as Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke.
I mostly bought this because the author is one of the targets of the witchhunts that are taking place in the SFWA. It's a good novella. A little too 'literary' (ie John Updike BS) for me, but given the time period it was written in I can accept that. It could use a better resolution.
I did not enjoy reading Beyond Apollo. Each time I returned to it was with the hope that I would gain more clarity on its meaning ... which I must confess, I never fully did. I was relieved to finish it. However, fans of post-modern fiction may embrace this book. It just wasn't for me.
This book is a great example of why I read science fiction.
Many types of fiction provide opportunities for writers to experiment with odd types of stories and imaginative ways of telling them. There are certainly many, many examples of traditional, even boring story telling in science fiction, but the very nature of the thing seems to lend itself to experimentation.
You can read this book just as an entertaining story, a kind of mystery about why an exploratory mission to Venus, as the first step toward colonization, failed, with its Captain dead and the surviving crewmember, Evans, seemingly deranged. The story then becomes Evans' repeated attempts to either explain what happened, or avoid explaining what happened.
But, along the way, Malzberg gives us more to think about. Evans, who refers to himself sometimes in the third person and at some remove from himself as narrator, talks of the book he will write about the mission he is on. That sets in place a doubt in the reader's mind about whether or not we are reading a true account or a concoction. And within the story, there are certainly concoctions, as Evans is questioned about what happened on the mission and how the Captain died. It's as if the truth is too hard to describe, or as if a mere factual account would fail to do justice to the question.
I liked the adventure, but it's also this inability to find a firm footing for truth in the story that I found fascinating and that made the book, for me, more than just a fun read.
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