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Beyond Apollo Kindle Edition

by Barry Malzberg (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

3.0 47 ratings

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Winner of the first John W. Campbell Memorial Award. “A mind-bending read . . . certainly entertaining, often very funny and very thought-provoking.” —Medium

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’s 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.

“Barry Malzberg’s dark, bleak vision of the future is one of the most terrifying ever to come out of science fiction.” —Robert Silverberg

“Beyond Apollo is a masterpiece; a multi-faceted rumination on repression; a virulent critique of the space program and America’s obsession with space.” —Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations

“A light shone through a crystal. The reader never gets to see the crystal or the light, only the resulting refraction . . . a very satisfying work of post-modern science fiction.” —Speculiction

“Veins of gold . . . a beautiful and heart-breaking book.”—Fantasy and Science Fiction

“Written with wit . . . the most original and pleasing SF novel of the last five years.”—Brian Aldiss, New Review

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Barry Nathaniel Malzberg is an American writer and editor, most often of science fiction and fantasy.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08KH33PBC
Publisher ‏ : ‎ RosettaBooks (June 29, 2010)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 29, 2010
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2613 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 177 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #691,300 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #973 in Colonization Science Fiction
- #1,947 in Alien Invasion Science Fiction eBooks
- #1,985 in Space Exploration Science Fiction eBooks

Customer Reviews:
3.0 47 ratings

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Barry N. Malzberg
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James Reich
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James Reich is the author of the novels 'Soft Invasions' (December 2017), 'Mistah Kurtz! A Prelude to Heart of Darkness' (March 2016), 'Bombshell' (July 2013) and 'I, Judas' (October 2011) published by Anti-Oedipus Press and Soft Skull Press. James is a regular contributor to The Rumpus, and Fiction Advocate, and his work has been published by Salon.com, International Times, Deep Ends: The J.G. Ballard Anthology, Sensitive Skin, The Nervous Breakdown, Bold Type and others. He served as Chair of Creative Writing and Literature at Santa Fe University of Art and Design. James was born in England in 1971, and has been a resident of the US since 2009.
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3 out of 5

47 global ratings

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Vicki D. Rock

An acquired taste

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2014

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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.

2 people found this helpful

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Doctor Moss

More Than Fiction

Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2013

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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.

4 people found this helpful

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Michael G Kurilla

60's hangover that hasn't aged well

Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2021

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Beyond Apollo by Barry N Malzberg seems a worn out, drug induced hangover from the waning days of the Apollo space mission. Projecting a near future with NASA attempting to resurrect its glory days, a manned mission to Venus (followed a failed manned mission to Mars) not only fails miserably, but returns with one missing crew (presumed dead) and the sole survivor suitable for a straightjacket. What transpires is stream of consciousness with a continually changing story (the captain died, the captain committed suicide, the captain was murdered, the captain was killed by Venusians, et.). The sole survivor also drones on about his lousy marriage, his homosexual tendencies, his qualifications for the mission, as well as fantasies about his current state, including his psychiatrist.

There is no grounded reality, no resolution, and no sense of what is actually true versus pure psychotic dissociation from the real world. This is less sci-fi and more spending time in the head of some with a severe mental illness.

One person found this helpful

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Joe Doakes in Como Park

Vonnegut, Kerouac, Thompson, 60's silliness

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2013

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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.

5 people found this helpful

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maniac

Good

Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2013

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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.

One person found this helpful

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Mr. Flint

Beyond Malzberg

Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2013

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.

4 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Awful. Interesting concept, HORRIBLE writing.

Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2013

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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.

2 people found this helpful

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DLD

Per Ardua Ad Astra

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2009

Barry N Malzberg is one of the most criminally underrated metafiction writers in America and possibly the most underrated writer in the American literary fraternity. This is largely because he was lazily categorised as a science fiction writer by critics who didn't know what to make of his genre transcending novels at the time that he rose to prominence. 'Beyond Apollo' is probably his most well known novel and really is a fascinating schmorgasboard of his concerns, themes and obsessions. Essentially, the novel documents the psyche of Harry M Evans, astronaut and sole survivor of an abortive mission to explore Venus, as he struggles to deal with a schizoid break, imprisonment in a lunatic asylum, repeated interrogations by the authorities to establish what happened to the only other occupant of the craft and the dissolution of his marriage. Its almost impossible to describe Malzberg's style - though it shares much in common with the likes of Kurt Vonnegut, J.G. Ballard, Ken Kesey and Chuck Palahniuk while retaining an authorial voice that is all his own. The book achieves in a scant one hundred and thirty eight pages the kind of dizzying multifaceted metatext which writers such as Don Delillo have been unable to achieve in one thousand. Though references to the Apollo program date it somewhat, I highly recommend it and if you find Malzberg to your taste, I also recommend Herovits World by the same author and James Blinn's superb The Aardvark Is Ready for War .

6 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Richard Fahey

Think it is only for Malzberg fans.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 16, 2015

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This was a disappointing novel.Although it was a smart,readable piece of entertainment,it didn't deliver what it seemed to promise in the earlier chapters.Less than halfway through the book,it started to meander,and later became fussier and incoherent,and I couldn't wait to finish it.Fortunately,at less than 140 pages,it was quite short.

This is a shame however,as it seemed to have the potential for an excursion into what could have been a very good existential novel.It approaches the theme of insanity from the viewpoint of Harry Evans,the lone survivor of a doomed mission to Venus,whose memory is obviously impaired,but the development of his character and obvious plight,is vague and uninteresting.He emerges as just someone who's mad,with no real revelation of the truth,that he painstakingly tries to put together.I didn't expect any ultimate answers,as that would have distracted from the purpose of the novel,but nothing challenging or complex emerges.

The whole book just disintegrates into oblivion.What was supposed to be a radically different novel,became just a bland chronicle of space exploration and astronauts,done-up in a novel guise.

R. A. Harris

So Good it almost hurts

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 1, 2013

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Barry Malzberg instantly became one of my favourite authors after I read this book. No, that is a lie, he became one of my favourite authors pretty much after I read the first paragraph of this book. Hilarious, dark and real. Sci fi / literary fiction doesn't get better than this.

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