Benchmarks: Galaxy Bookshelf

Author: Algis Budrys

There wasn't much in the way of serious criticism of science fiction until a trio of authors started writing reviews for the magazines. The three were James Blish (see The Issue at Hand below), Damon Knight (In Search of Wonder) and AlgisBudrys. From 1965 until 1971 he reviewed regularly for Galaxy and these reviews were subsequently gathered into this collection. Because he understood writing from the inside, his reviews were incisive and precise. He was never afraid to criticise a well-regarded novel or to highlight the qualities of an unpopular work. Through the pages of Galaxy he provided sharp critical commentary on many of the most important books of the late 1960s, from Dune to Flowers for Algernon, from Bug Jack Barron to Ringworld. In the 1970s he moved to reviewing for F&SF, and those reviews have also now been collected in three volumes, Benchmarks Continued, Benchmarks Revisited and Benchmarks Concluded. It has to be admitted that the later reviews grew increasingly eccentric, but at his best he was still one of the finest book reviewers in the business. Much of the early criticism of science fiction was done through book reviews, but it took the great triumvirate of Blish, Knight and Budrys to really show how it should be done. And Benchmarks deserves a place of honour in anyone's library of books about sf.