Two astronauts travel on the first manned expedition to the planet Venus. When the mission is mysteriously aborted and the ship returns to Earth, the Captain is missing and the First Officer, Harry M. Evans, can’t explain what happened. Under psychiatric evaluation and interrogation, Evans provides conflicting accounts of the Captain’s disappearance, incriminating both himself and lethal Venusian forces in the Captain’s murder. As the explanations pyramid and the supervising psychiatrist’s increasingly desperate efforts to get a straight story falter, Evans’ condition and his inability to tell the “truth” present terrifying expressions of humanity’s incompetence, the politics of space exploration, and the intricate dynamics of psycho-sexual relations.

Originally published in 1972, Beyond Apollo sparked controversy, polarizing critics and fans despite winning the first John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Always disinclined to sell out or compromise his vision, Malzberg became disillusioned with the SF genre, which purported to be the genre of innovation. Paradoxically, many SF editors and publishers worried about unsettling readers’ comfort zones and insisted that authors write in accordance with a set of rules, formulas, and codes. Malzberg would neither heel nor kneel; he unofficially retired from the genre in the late seventies and hasn’t looked back. What he produced as a SF writer, however, remains among the best published during the twentieth century—important in its historical context, but also entertaining and thought-provoking in its own right.

Dark, acerbic, funny, and smart, Beyond Apollo might be Malzberg’s finest accomplishment. This special anti-oedipal edition includes an introduction by novelist James Reich.

BARRY N. MALZBERG is an American writer, editor and agent. His prolific career has spanned numerous genres, most notably crime and science fiction. Malzberg was particularly active in the SF scene of the early seventies, although he became disillusioned with the market forces defining the field and has rarely published SF works since. His most recent activity in the field has been in the form of advice columns for writers in the quarterly magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Malzberg won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel Beyond Apollo in 1973. Over the years, his writing has been shortlisted for the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, among others.