Beyond Apollo -

Author: Barry N Malzberg

How do you turn a technology-heavy subject like the expansion of the manned space programme beyond Apollo, into an unreliable new wave text? By turning it into a novel within the novel. Harry Evans, the only survivor of the first manned expedition to Venus, is writing his memoir as if it were a novel. But it soon becomes clear that he isn't exactly a reliable narrator. Details keep changing, his account of conversations with the Venusians is coloured by a deep paranoia, and before too long we are starting to suspect that Harry actually murdered his fellow astronauts. Beyond Apollo won the very first John W. Campbell Memorial Award, though it is hard to imagine any novel more antagonistic to the ideals of John Campbell. It is a deeply cynical and pessimistic novel in which technology is seen not as extending human capability but as inimical to humanity. Why it's on the list: The new wave was practically over by the time this novel appeared, indeed we could see it as one of the first post-new wave works. It has imbibed the lessons of the new wave and taken them forward into a new form. Malzberg's long, elaborate sentences certainly run counter to the more fragmented prose that is often typical of the new wave, but his ideas about the unreliability of reality and how we constantly remake our own world are clearly derived from the best of the new wave.