Galaxies

by Barry N. Malzberg

The diabolically clever Bureau had superbly trained their space pilot, beautiful Lena Thomas. Nothing could go wrong in an age where science had conquered the universe. In one of their fifteen faster-than-light ships, Lena would reach beyond the over-populated Milky Way, carrying her grotesque cargo: seven programmed prosthetic engineers to give advice and comfort, and 515 dead men sealed in gelatinous fix. Exposed to the unskilled ultraviolet of space, they would gradually become the living again!

But the omniscient Bureau was not aware of the black galaxy in Lena's charted path. And Lena's ship fell into it, fell through twenty-five billion miles of hyperspace, into the lifeless, timeless expanse of the dreadful pit...

The cyborg engineers couldn't help Lena now. She was totally alone except for the awakening dead! If she geared the ship up to tachyonic drive, would she break out of the terrifying black hole? Or would she destroy the universe?

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Collections, Speculative Fiction, Novels, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fantasy

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1975

About the author

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

He had also published as:
Mike Barry (thriller/suspense)
K.M. O'Donnell (science fiction/fantasy)
Mel Johnson (adult)
Howard Lee (martial arts/TV tie-ins)
Lee W. Mason (adult)
Claudine Dumas (adult)
Francine di Natale (adult)
Gerrold Watkins (adult)
Eliot B. Reston

Reviews

[Tom Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ceci n'est pas une pipe - This is not a pipe.

And Galaxies is not a book. Or, rather, it is a book. But it is not a book you or I can read. It is a hypothetical book. And so Galaxies, the one that we are reading, is a meta-book. Malzberg is writing a book about writing a book. And playfully, deliberately, and entirely as expected, he spends so much time talking about how he plans to write it properly that he never really gets around to actually writing it. And yet at the same time he does - it is written, often artfully so, but interwoven with authorial commentary throughout.

So, this is a meta-book. And I am not clever enough to present a meta-review of it. Suffice to say, though: fans of science fiction and postmodernism like myself will absolutely adore this skewering of the writing process and particularly the sci-fi genre itself in such sly academic ways.

5 stars out of 5. Compelling and rich with a wonderfully philosophical mien.

[Nate D · Rating 3 out of 5]

First thoughts: So this is totally the glorious wild genre deconstruction that was promised to me.

Later: alright Malzberg, I know you admitted up front in one of your narrative-puncturing authorial address sections that it wasn't your thing, and I really don't care about "hard sf" either, but I at least need to know your working model for how a black hole acts with a little more specificity. They're inherently fascinating and your conception is just a little too spongy: it's an unending limbo, the living and the dead become interchangeable, leaping out of it is potentially universe-breaking? Amazing. Now please give some slight lead on why we're to believe these things.

And then: This is very nearly a critical essay on genre fiction form, and framing such as a narrative novel, or mixing the two so thoroughly, is actually pretty elegant.

And: I know you're aware of it, since you interject descriptions of how to get a word count up when needed, but I'm pretty sure you're stalling...

And: ...especially since the conflict, stated at the very start, is a pretty simple "the problem has only one possible solution, which theoretically is impossible. OR IS IT?" deal, which you've weirdly fleshed out with very vague philosophical discussion rather than any kind of systematic working-through of the theoretical outcomes based on the physics that supposedly inspired this.

And finally: Audacious success of a deconstruction of a sci-fi novel + not-so-compelling narrative drive / conflict / character = I'm realizing a not so atypical Malzberg system, more theoretically engaging than actually, but still an odd and interesting appropriation of the willingness of sci-fi publishers to print practically anything if the cover copy sounds okay. Which I have to love.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but as a novelty rather than as a novel. Malzberg states at the beginning that it's his attempt to set down notes towards a novel, and I believe he intended it as a satire of the hard sf of the time. He does provide a plot and characters and setting, but rather than incorporating them into a traditional narrative he surrounds them with philosophical musings and psychological analyses. It's an interesting exercise, a very ambitious book, but I think the novelette length that was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction was far more effective. His prose is quite well crafted, and I always particularly loved the closing of the book: "For how can this be? How can it be? That from all the Ridgefield Parks of our time we will assemble to build the great engines which will take us to the stars... and some of the stars will bring death and others will bring life and then there are those which will bring us nothing at all, but the engines will continue, they will go on forever.
And so, in a fashion, after our fashion, will we."

[Graham P · Rating 4 out of 5]

With GALAXIES, legendary misanthrope Barry Malzberg turns in his meta-rumination on the SF genre as a construct, particularly the space opera opus, unraveling and re-wiring the golden-age conventions to power his rusted pandora's box, an anti-novel also called GALAXIES. However Malzberg-as-writer-as-pseudo-subject can't seem to figure out the clearest and most linear method to tell his story of an interstellar coffin ship sucked into the black rip of a neutron star, where its lone captain, Lena, can't seem to figure out what's reality and what's reconstruction. Of course, in the timeless limbo, Lena becomes victim to her own timeline (30,000 years, 1000 lives in tandem), her own identity losing shape as the coffin ship descends into what just may be the original black nothingness of the universe. Poor Lena becomes both the sieve and the sponge, the lone speck failing in both time and space while the junkheap cyborgs assisting her journey become nothing more than steel effigies force-fed dialogue programmed from the great Universal Corporation, The Bureau.

This is like the cyanide-pill version of Lem's SOLARIS as told by an aggravated New Yorker ready to sell off his science fiction collection for sanity alone. Nuance is no longer welcome.

"So there for all of you, so there. All of the pain, the struggle for acquisition, the explanation and metaphor for nothing. A burst of epiphany and then obliteration."

Not by any means an easy read, this is more like a farewell eulogy to the genre, and we feel Malzberg's alter-ego stammering away at the typewriter in the suburb of Ridgefield Park, New Jersey ready to deep-six the genre and bury it off-site like someone who never paid their bills on time. Malzberg is the prodigal son of the cynical American New Wave, trying to be inside the circles of Saul Bellow or Philip Roth, but only confining himself well outside the literati, well beyond ragged demarcations of yet another acidic space opera full of ribald sex, cruel hallucination, and of course, the all-consuming ruckus some call Entropy.

The book is dense, Malzberg's anti-climactic swan song to science fiction. All the perverse pyrotechniques of BEYOND APOLLO and THE FALLING ASTRONAUTS step back for the ruminations of both mapping the universe as an insane and fatal concept, while laying out the groundwork of the failing SF writer who suddenly finds himself hollow, the copperheads of his creation no more than lifeless serpents sucking their own tails and calling it a day.

Oddly enough, there is a light at the end of this salty masterpiece. But knowing Malzberg, it could just be something else altogether, a light as trustworthy as the phosphorescent lure of a deep-sea angler fish.

****

[M- S__ · Rating 4 out of 5]

i like this book. i love the idea of this book. galaxies is, as you have read in all the other reviews here, not really a novel. it's the sketch of a novel. it's a criticism of science fiction. it's a literary essay. it's a one sided dialogue with the trends in seventies fiction. it is riveting, but tied to its time. it is self aware, and it is an interesting story. but it's also just a little too pretentious for me to give it 5 stars. malzberg obviously had/has a very interesting mind, but galaxies just rides a little too hard on the gimmick. still, some of the writing legitimately sent me into a little bit of a self reflective tailspin. this book, more than most conventionally science fiction, encourages you to engage not just with the story but with the few very big questions only science fiction writing can properly ask.

[Neale · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a way, Barry Malzberg’s science fiction is closer to criticism than it is to ‘literature’. The way that his books interrogate and deconstruct the genre matters almost more than ‘plot’ and ‘character’. It’s just as well that he is such a good writer. And that he so obviously loves what he is compelled to destroy. ‘Galaxies’ is the textbook example.

You could say that ‘Galaxies’ is the book that he had to write. Its structure is one that actually underlies most of his books, simply made more prominent in this case. It is a science fiction story – a solitary, troubled female astronaut ferrying a ship full of dead people into a black galaxy – in which the author keeps stepping forward to discuss what he is writing. Not so much a story as notes towards an unwritten story, with a running commentary on the futility of it all (not just the subject matter but the act of writing itself). It’s the kind of trick that a writer can only pull off once in a career. As a story, it's not one of his best - but the structure rescues it. Frustrating, necessarily incomplete, but - if you are interested in the nature of science fiction and the process of writing - clever and often wickedly funny...

[David Agranoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Barry Malzberg graduated from Syracuse University he joked about not wanting to become an unpublished English professor. That is one reason he "fell into Science Fiction" as he put it. As he started publishing he bounced back and forth at jobs between reading slush piles at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency and ACE books under a brief mentorship of DAW books founder Don Wollheim. Enough so he told us during a (during Dickheads podcast interview) a story about being in the room when Wollheim blew a gasket over Man in the High Castle (a novel he passed on) getting a Hugo nomination. SMLA represented both PKD and Arthur C. Clarke among others. The dude read tons of manuscripts. In that era, he probably read more wretched SF than good.

I think that is one of the most important factors to consider when thinking about this uh novel, I mean I will call it a novel for lack of a better word. Let's talk more about Malzberg because it is meaningful. While he comes off as a grump and he certainly takes shots at the genre in this book he really loves the history of the genre. If it should please the court I offer two key points of evidence. Malzberg wrote fiction faster than PKD on pills. The dude had so many pen names in part because he was writing dirty erotica books (I am told a few classics in the genre) but also because he was publishing more SF than one name could handle. Two of his most beloved stories Final War and Gathering at the Hall of Planets were released under the name"K. M. O'Donnell", a tip of the hat to the surnames of Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore, and their joint pseudonym "Lawrence O'Donnell." If you Barry he will tell Henry Kuttner was the best, or at least his favorite. The second piece of evidence would be his collection of essays on the genre, anyone interested in the history of the genre must read “Breakfast in the Ruins.”

When I interviewed him he pointed out that he got really good at reading the slush pile. That is important because he was reading the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the genre during the period when the Golden Age faded to New Wave. That makes Barry Malzberg a one in million critical eye on the genre that makes this book stand out. NO ONE. Not any other human being was in a position to comment on Science fiction in this era.

Barry N. Malazberg and his multiple Science Fiction personalities were on the frontlines as eras shifted from Asimovian ideas to a counter-culture middle finger held high novels filled with sex, drugs, and political points of view. There were a few authors who bridged the eras Leigh Brackett, John Brunner, and Philip K. Dick. Malzberg who is still rocking as the grumpy old man of Science Fiction in the 2020s can feel like he was born a grumpy old man, but he was a radical young voice. In the era when Astronauts were golden boys he wrote several novels critical of the space program including his masterpiece Beyond Apollo. At the time that was a punk rock move for a young SF writer.

Here is the point where if you trust me and want to go unspoiled is where I suggest you order the re-print from AOP and come back to read the rest of the review…

Malzberg was always a writer going for deeper, more serious meaning. I expected something deeper and cooler than your average SF novel but knew nothing going in. Galaxies is a novel I had been saving, knowing that my friend whose taste I respect D.Harlan Wilson went to the length of putting this novel back into print. I knew it was important. I am glad that the meta-commentary was not spoiled for me.

I want to quote David Pringle’s Ultimate guide to SF entry about Galaxies. “Mock hard-SF tale in which heroine flies her spacecraft into a ‘black galaxy.’ The author interweaves many sour comments on the nature of SF as a genre. Witty, self-reflexive, occasionally irritating.” Despite that three-star review later Pringle would list it in his Science Fiction: 100 best novels. “Galaxies is a love/hate letter to all readers and writers of Science Fiction, a witty criticism of the genre and its aspirations.”

It kinda makes sense that this novel would pull two very different takes from the same person. Galaxies is a tough novel to judge. It has flashes of genius and moments that could easily be nitpicked. to me the genius outweighs the moments that had me stratching my head. The story follows Lena Thomas a starship captain in the 40th century on the verge of her ship falling into a black hole and creating time-warping effects that cause her to trip through infinite lifetimes, talk to the dead, and live in the subconscious of the author writing this very science fiction novel. Personally, I pictured Barry typing away in an office piled up with slush piles at SMLA in 1974. I gotta write a novel before lunch!

I think in most authors' hands this novel would start entirely in the 40th century and Lena would discover The author and the existence of the novel as a twist. I am not sure that version wouldn’t be better but that is not the point here. Malzberg is not messing around with that stuff, he tells you the score in the first sentence. “To define the terms at the outset, this will not be novel so much as a series of notes towards one.” On the first page, he makes fun of pulpy SF by saying “…it will be as much a novel as the Rammers of Arcturus or Slinking Slowly on the Slime Planet’s Sludge, titles which flank this to the left and right.”

The first fifteen pages are a commentary on the genre, and in that sense, Malzberg warned the reader that these were notes, at some point the novel starts. The thing is it is more of a novel at that point but no one would fool themselves that this is a traditional narrative.

The author talks to us, to his characters, and along the way comments on the genre, he has a love/hate relationship with. I personally think this novel is a 128-page reaction to the years of his life spent reading the slush pile. David Gerrold recently told me on my podcast that Malzberg fought for his now classic time travel novel “The Man Who Folded Himself,” after the editor he was working for declared it nonsense.

Eventually, Malzberg would publish essays on the topic, but in 1974 if he wanted to express an opinion it was unlikely to find a home. So blending it in with a novel was not only subversive but smart. My dude was taking a chance to teach history “ Consider Science Fiction since its formal inception as a romantic subgenre in this country in 1926 with the publication of the first issues of Hugo Gernsbeck’s Amazing Stories has been known for its simple and melodramatic plots which demonstrate man’s mastery (or later on loss of control of technology.”

That is not the introduction that is in the novel. The direct commentary and notes start to fade away as the novel continues. We get commentary on the lack of sex in novels and BM makes clear they do it in the future. One of my favorite asides happens on page 27. “Thirty-Nine zero two. There has yet been no contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life, although humanity has colonized many planets and investigated several thousand more. This seemingly exclusivity of human intelligence baffles cosmologists and mathematicians while pleasing theologians.” I love those bovine animals of Sirius who turned out to be intelligent. This doesn’t forward the narrative, but it is an example of how asides in this novel take little funny shots at SF in general.

The story once it gets humming takes advantage of high-concept ideas of black holes and time dilation. Lena starts to feel time and space stretched and manipulated. “But it can be said that the black galaxy not only repeats and intensifies time but also compresses so that although seventy-thousand years are in one sense quite extended, in another, they are short enough for Lena all the various sensations of her various lives.”

Part of the novel’s mission statement is expressed after Lena knowing she is trapped to falling into the black galaxy calls on cyborgs to discuss her problem. She suggests the dead have overcome death.

“They have not. It is all in your imagination. There are places man was not meant to go, objects he was not meant to touch, and emotions beyond his ability to interpret. And this is all of them. You must yield. You must face the futility of the situation. I would recommend that you look for a religious solution. That would probably serve you better than anything at this time.”

Malzberg’s Beyond Apollo is about the madness of going out into the universe, in this moment he is saying to his main character in the face of the black galaxy there is nothing to do but surrender. Unlike other novels, Malzberg has the excuse and right to just talk about the meaning of the novel directly.

“The material would indeed have to be handled carefully and with an awareness of how easily it might descend into riotous. Pain would have to be wrenched out of it; the reader would have to feel with the characters. Not only intellectual content but levels of the ambiguous would have to woven through less Galaxies become merely an attack upon the technological, a curse against the absurdity. Nothing, surely, could be further from the intent of the novel.”

Galaxies is a work of genius. It won't work for everyone. It is a bit of satire, tongue-in-cheek commentary on the genre. It is not the kind of novel that would ever get attention for awards like Hugos or nebulas. A good number of SF readers probably are never going to vibe with it. Had PKD or LeGuin written something like it, it would be taught and studied widely.

It wasn't written by those titans, I mean Malzberg is that important to a few of us, and I suppose it is our mission to get more eyeballs to this book and the author in general.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the ironic, cyclical nature of this "novel," I imagine it only fitting that it ended the way it began, both in terms of the way it's presented, as well as my own feelings towards it.

It began with the author stating his intentions for a novel that would at its completion be called Galaxies. Of course it went meta, the author inserting himself, his thoughts, into almost every chapter. Many, it could go this way, or it could go that way, or maybe even this way.

At some point, it became an amusing, at times highly amusing comment on how novels, particularly sci-fi novels are written.

What eventually turned this novel upon itself was the repetition of scenes. There are 49 chapters, many two or three pages at most, the occasional lasting a hearty 8. Out of these 49, at least a dozen involved the "main character" and several subordinates having the same argument. Over and over. The same dialogue. Maybe to prove a point. The cyclical nature. But dammit to hell it was boring.

Ideas were pretty good, but even at 55,000 words (the author's estimation), it was 30,000 too many

[Peter Landau · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is how every novel should be written and how every novel should not be written. To be fair, it's stated at the beginning that it is not a novel at all, but notes towards a novel. Those notes collect the basic elements of story -- plot, character, setting -- and set them aside more philosophical musings and other mental droppings. It's entertaining, and new and even exciting for a while, then I found myself wanting to read a novel, not the notes towards one, or at least notes that veered closer to novel than novelty. Yet, it is I who have demanded novels be more novel, and here I am presented with one that is novel to a T: light-speed space travel defined and debated; a ship with a cargo of the dead who earn speaking roles later on in this slim volume, a big-breasted protagonist (though the "author" writes the real protagonist is the black hole that sucks the woman pilot and her dead cargo into a 70,000 year sinkhole of time and space); the Three Stooges of cyborgs; and more. I'd probably give this more stars someday, I want to read it again (I liked it, I really did, but I feel as if we missed each other on the course of the page to my brain) but for now I just wanted to finish it and move on to a book of poetry, which Barry N. Malzberg almost achieved here, but almost only counts in Horseshoe Nebulas.

[Chad Gayle · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an intellectual exercise or a postmodern exploration of the sci-fi tropes of 1960s and 70s, Galaxies is interesting at times and often stimulating, but Malzberg's prose, which can run in delightful circles, also exhibits a certain kind of deadness, a flattening out of effect that sucks all of the joy from the telling of his story. (What there is of one: he eschews plot here as he does in Herovit's World.)

No characters to speak of really, which wouldn't be a crime if he was constructing some sort of fictional edifice that resembled the masterworks of the writers he idolizes, like Borges, but their absence makes this short book tedious to read.

Nonetheless, this book shouldn't be taken out of context; when it was written, the world of science fiction and literature in general was very different from what it has become today. So I'm not knocking Galaxies per se, just pointing out that it doesn't actually achieve what it sets out to achieve. If you get past the second chapter, you'll see what I'm driving at.

[Ratko Radunović · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overlay (1972) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Herovit’s World (1973) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Underlay (1974) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Galaxies (1975)

* Četiri koliko-toliko reprezentativna i u potpunosti distinktivna romana iz Malzbergovog opusa.
* U vezi naslova Herovit’s World na raspolaganju će biti vidno skraćena verzija recenzije Harlana Elisona, objavljena u časopisu Fantasy and Science Fiction (maj, 1974).
* Poslije kratkih recenzija i Elisonovog uvida, slijedi kratki info-dump o autoru.


Galaxies, ukratko.
Metafiktivni roman o piscu – ili temi? – ili žanru? – koji odlučuje da svoj planirani tekst ipak prepriča u vidu scenosljeda, odnosno “radnih bilješki”, jer ne osjeća da je dovoljno kompetentan da odradi takvu temu sa određenim apstraktnim aspektima svemirskog putovanja.

Ovime Malzberg ujedno daje sebi dozvolu da žanr, razotkrivajući njegovu infrastrukturu, i kritikuje i da mu se ironijski obraća, ali i da na mahove pokaže i narativne i filozofske domete na kojima mogu pozavidjeti njegovi dragi pisci poput Barta, Bartelmija, Rota i Mejlera... Ujedno je ovo tekst kojim se Malzberg manje-više i oprašta od žanra. Ta pojedinost objašnjava ovakav pristup.

U jednom trenutku čitamo da u sličnoj vrsti proze neutronska zvijezda lako može postati jedan od protagonista, “jer se tom gravitacionom polju rijetko koji pisac SF-a može oduprijeti”. Drugim riječima, “ako želite da pišete o ljudima, bolje vam je da se klonite ovog formata”. Tako nas savjetuje sasvim pribrani Narator.

Organizator rizičnog putovanja u prostore izvan Zemlji poznatog svemira, o kome ćemo u stvari saznati u romanu Galaxies, jeste izvjesni “Biro”. A po onome što nam je objašnjeno u vezi Biroa, kod Malzberga se to lako čita kao metafora za ondašnje izdavače koji su od svojih jadnih pisaca tražili da pišu o svakojakim svemirskim kerefekama o kojima ni naučnici nisu znali dovoljno, očekujući, štaviše, da na kraju dobiju inteligentno i zabavno štivo za ljude kojima u stvari samo treba malo eskapističke literature smještene u dalekom svemiru, i možda, pride, koji vanzemaljac.

Samim tim, godina je 3902. Zemlja je kolonizovala poznati svemir i upropastila ga svojim lošim sjemenom. Potrebne su im nove granice, novi prostori za isto sjeme. Kapetan(ica) broda “Skipstone”, kom se u tovarnim prostorima nalazi hiljade mrtvih ljudi (sa još uvijek aktivnim umovima), upada u “crnu galaksiju” (crnu rupu?), gdje, uprkos haosu van broda, vrijeme otprilike staje.

Uz nekoliko kiborga za ispomoć, ona je jedini ljudski član posade.

Na sreću, nova vrsta Biroovih brodova posjeduje specijalni neistraženi pogon: FTL (brže od brzine svjetlosti) A FTL, iako zvuči kao sjajan pogon, zapravo niko i ništa na brodu ne zna kako će to djelovati kada se konačno i uključi. Ljudi i roboti i mrtvi umovi mogu samo da spekulišu o tome.

Stoga će trebati da prođe i 70.000 godina prije nego što ne baš bistra kapetanica ukapira da je vrlo moguće namjerno puštena u taj dio svemira da bi je progutala crna rupa, a ona bila primorana da pritisne dugme za tahionski pogon.

U trenutku kada to napokon želi da učini, prvo će umovi mrtvih ljudi pokušati da je odgovore od nauma jer im odgovara ta umirujuća vječnost crne rupe, a onda će na red doći i kiborzi.

Na kraju bi se reklo da je narator i te kako kompetentan da ispovijedi ovako apstraktnu priču o putovanju kroz svemir.

*****


MALZB (trolopijanski mini-esej)

MALZBERG, BARRY N(ATHANIEL) [1939-2024], američki pisac, vjerovatno najliterarnija i apsolutno najkontroverznija ličnost u SF žanru tokom 1970-ih. Mejnstrim pisac koji je doslovno zalutao u žanr, gdje je našao da je taj milje daleko lukrativniji i dostupniji.
–The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1988), ed. James Gunn

Za one koji očekuju eskapizam urolan u oblandu hard SF fazona, Malzberg će garantovano biti neprohodan; nepristupačan. Menjstrim autor zaglavljen u žanru, odvajkada je bio unesrećen onim što je postigao, ili nije postigao, u spisateljskoj karijeri i do samoga kraja sebi nije uskratio tu slobodu da bude cinik.

Obrni-okreni, u pitanju je jedan od najliterarnijih pisaca SF-a u prvoj polovini 70-ih, doslovno u rangu Balarda, Elisona i Diša, a po inventivnosti i Dika, Prista i Sladeka.

No, tu i tamo, katkada bi do čovjeka doprli sunčevi zraci.

U nekom intervjuu izjavio je da mu je najžalije što je istinu o kvalitetu 14 svojih krimića o “Lone Wolf” osvetniku napisanih za godinu i po dana, i objavljenih pod pseudonimom “Mike Barry” saznao tek 40-ak godina kasnije, kad su nanovo objavljeni u kući Stark House Press. Tada je, po svemu sudeći, morao ponovo da ih pročita i aminuje tekstove, možda da ispravi grešku-dvije?...

Apropo toga, Malzberg je bio poznat po tome što je izdavaču na prelom obično slao prve draftove, iz jednostavnog razloga što nije imao vremena za finese.

Naročito pisci znaju koliko ovakva konstatacija velikoj većini njih zvuči gotovo bezumno. Prvi draft bi trebalo da bude samo uvod u ili postavka za daleko bolji tekst, zar ne? Ali ne i za Malzberga i tu vrstu “tezgaroša” iz 60-ih i 70-ih.

Elem, ono što je pročitao od svojih krimića, prilično mu se dopalo, uprkos anksioznom načinu na koji su nastajali, gotovo jedan preko drugog.

U dobu kad ih je pisao, mislio je da štancuje grozne i doslovno nečitljive stvari.

Malzberg, ukratko.
Već je na početku karijere dosegao momentum, izjavivši da je apsolutno znao šta radi narednih sedam-osam godina, počev od 1968, dok je pisao kao čovjek pozajmljen iz nekog drevnog mita.

Prethodno je htio postati Mejler – zvijezda vodilja – možda Filip Rot; htio je da dobije Nobela za fikciju (za razliku od pomenute dvojke), ali sve što je ispalo od tolike nakupljene ambicije bilo je da je prilično brzo razjasnio sebi da od planirane karijere mejnstrim pisca neće biti ništa.
Otkud Malzberg u SF-u?

Radio je u spisateljskoj agenciji “Skot Meredit” (za 90 dolara sedmično) koja je predstavljala žanrovske pisce, pa je imao uvid u ono što se prodavalo i motalo po komercijalnom tržištu. Njegov posao je bio da preporučuje tekstove za koje je mislio da posjeduju potencijal. Poređenja radi, za pripovijetku koju je prodao časopisu Fantasy and Science Fiction, “Closed Sicilian” (2600 riječi), dobio je 80 dolara.

Nekoliko godina kasnije je za 4 dana istu priču preradio u roman od 55,000 riječi, The Tactics of Conquest, i za taj napor je zaradio 4,000 dolara.

Najveći avans koji je dobio u karijeri.

Momentum, ukratko.
Između 1968. i 1975, vodeći se striktno prema kvantitetu, imao je unikatnu karijeru. Pisao je sve iz čega je mogao izmusti novac: filmske novelizacije, pornografiju, krimiće, SF…

Za tih sedam godina, napisao je 25 SF romana i oko 200 pripovijetki.

Tokom perioda 1973-74. napisao je 16 romana (većinom pomenute “Lone Wolf” krimiće, imitacije Pendltonovog akcionog fenomena sa imenom Mek “Executioner” Bolan), 30 pripovijetki i jednu poemu. Za 14 “Lone Wolf” romana je Malzbergu dato 27,500 dolara; a samo za premisu serijala na pet strana mu je plaćeno gotovo 7,000. Već tada mu je karijera bila u silaznoj putanji. Ali je prihvatao svaki izazov.

1970. godine je napisao 14 romana; 1971. 6 romana; 1972. napisao je 9 romana. Raznih žanrova, naravno. Najtačniju bibliografiju ćete naći na posljednjim stranama reprinata izdavačke luće Stark House Press, kojoj se najviše može zamjeriti što nisu utilizovali veći font, međutim, lako je zaključiti da su njihova korisna izdanja od one jeftinije fele.

Svoju omiljenu priču, “Uncoupling”, Malzberg je napisao u subotu veče 14. januara ‘73. godine, između 20:15 i 20:50, dok je čekao da mu se supruga spremi za parti.

Priča ima 4,200 riječi i napisana je za 35 minuta (u “the best of” zbirci iz 1976. broji 13 stranica). Dok su izlazili iz kuće, imao je dovoljno vremena da kovertu sa “Uncoupling” ubaci u poštansko sanduče kojih je tada bilo na svakome ćošku.

Još više neispunjeniji nego na početku karijere… 1976. je rekao zbogom SF-u, pa je, i dalje u žanrovima, počeo pisati druge stvari u saradnji sa drugim autorima (Ket Kodžom, Bilom Pronzinijem, Majkom Reznikom).

Posljednji njegov SF roman mu je ujedno i najduži, Remaking of Sigmund Freud iz 1985.

Malzberg ima i tri knjige sasvim azdovoljavajuće nebeletristike, mahom recenzija, samorefleksivnih tekstova o književnosti i stanju žanra, i kritičkih osvrta: Engines of the Night (1982), Breakfast in the Ruins (2007) i Bend at the End of the Road (2018). Želja mu je oduvijek bila da ima svoju nonfict-zbirku poput Advertisements For Myself.

Odatle su preuzeti ovi podaci.

[Roddy Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anguished by hyper-lucidity, a disembodied science-fiction writer taps out the letters “LENA THOMAS” and instantly finds himself “warped” to the female astronaut’s domain of the 40th century. Lena and the writer’s subconscious then develop a strange intimacy while they attempt to explore a mysterious “black galaxy”. But theirs is a fleeting and rarefied relationship, constantly hounded by greedy, homicidal bureaucrats committed to the expansion of bureaus and tormented by the idea of fragmentation.

Blurb from the 1989 Carroll & Graf ‘Masters of Science Fiction’ paperback edition.

Malzberg is nothing if not irreverent, and no doubt shocked some of his erstwhile colleagues of the time with this book in which the author takes us behind the scenes to give us the process, or at least his process, of writing a Science Fiction novel.
The author, in loquacious detail, gives us his notes on a posited novel, to be entitled ‘Galaxies’ in which Starship Captain Lena Thomas, on a mission to discover new Earth-type worlds for colonisation, is trapped within a ‘black galaxy’ (i.e., the event horizon of an enormous neutron star which has also trapped the light of an entire galaxy) with a cargo of dead passengers, who may or may not be revived when she reaches her destination. (Their money has paid for the mission).
Whether this story is important or not is one of the issues the disillusioned author agonises over as he lectures us on the predictability of Science Fiction readers and the fallibility of his fellow authors.
In one sense this is Malzberg himself raging at the complacency of SF writers of the Nineteen Seventies.

‘There are a few among us who know science. and a few more who understand fiction, but there is not a single science fiction writer who can do both.’ (p 13)

And so Malzberg tells us that he has decided to rise to the challenge and write ‘Galaxies’ which was inspired by two articles by John W Campbell in ‘Analog’
It is in turns, witty, despairing, charming, sometimes even pleading to readers and writers of the genre to take a good hard look at themselves and what they are reading and writing.
It may be that the dead in Lena’s ship are a metaphor for Malzberg’s readers. They after all, are the ones who paid for the trip, but in the end, despite everything that is said to them, they do not listen. How can they? They are dead. The prostheses (who are computerised personalities installed in the ship to offer somewhat limited advice) may be metaphors for other SF writers. And if Lena is a metaphor for the writer himself then the black galaxy is SF itself and Malzberg can only escape by risking everything and leaving.
Despite its perhaps misplaced nihilism (They may be few but there are contemporary scientists who write very good SF) ‘Galaxies’ is a tour-de-force of public rebellion.
Shortly after this novel was published, Malzberg announced that he was giving up writing SF, and abandoned the genre.

[Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Note: I am not worrying about spoilers in a book from 1975. If they worry you, don't read this review.)

This is a book that lies on many levels, as does this sentence.

The squib on the front cover, the blurb on the back cover, and the inside-the-cover first page blurb all give the impression that _Galaxies_ is a science fiction novel set in the year 3902.

This is a lie.

It is not, and Malzberg makes this clear in the book's first sentence. "To define terms at the outset," he writes, "this will not be a novel so much as a series of notes toward one."

This too is a lie.

_Galaxies_ is a "realistic" or "mainstream" novel. More specifically, it is a deconstructive novel, which comments on itself, on science fiction, on writing, and on its purported author (more about that in a moment) as it goes along, mostly acerbically, though in all cases with a certain affection.

The conceit, the plot if you will, of this novel is the story of an unnamed science fiction writer, who has a contractual obligation to a publisher to write a novel called _Galaxies_, and is unable to do so -- because, he explains, the novel could not even be written until the fortieth century.

The forty-nine "notes" (in a 128-page novel that begins on page 7, so they average a bit over two pages apiece) summarize, with occasional flashes of detail, the story of Lena, the only crewmember of _Skipstone_, an experimental craft with a "tachyonic" FTL drive and a cargo of dead people, packed in gelatinous stuff, in the hopes that the radiations (he uses the term "ultra-violet" for these, but there are many questionable scientific terms here, so let it pass) will restore them to life. They were all very wealthy in life, and in their wills established and funded The Bureau, the closest thing to a government the human race has in 3902 CE; the Bureau's mission is to resurrect them.

The ship accidentally falls into a "black galaxy" -- a huge black hole, in other words. Ignoring the tidal forces that would tear it, its cargo, and Lena to atoms, Malzberg (or the fictional author of _Galaxies_; let us call him M, as he does once in a discussion of other writers like A, B, and C) describes, in the notes, how Lena reacts to the ongoing fall: by suffering, mostly, but also by going, perhaps, a bit insane. She experiences (or seems to) one thousand consecutive lives, from all over human history, thus subjectively experiencing seventy millenia of time, at the end of which she has come, more or less, to grips with her situation.

Malzberg, it must be noted, wrote -- masterfully -- a kind of science fiction that dwelt less on the wonders of Technology and of the Future and of the Universe, and more on the internal workings of the people who lived with these things. He was, in the first half of the 1970s, possibly the most controversial writer in science fiction: some praised him to the stars, and nominated him for awards, thinking him, perhaps, the next logical step after SF's "New Wave" of the '60s; others lambasted him for what they saw as morbidity and perversion (many of his novels had sex in them, which was still pretty rare in SF in 1975). In no way could he have been called an upbeat writer. In _Galaxies_ he examines the psyche of a writer who may or may not be very much like himself, his sense of superiority and unjust failure, his grappling with the story he cannot write, and his innate pessimism. Along the way, M describes the mechanics by which he would, could he actually write it, propel the novel from its (very early) crisis to its conclusion, as well as tactics for padding out the story to the required word count.

Malzberg, then, dwells on M's dwelling on Lena's dilemma in a way that he simply _could not_ have done in a more mimetic or traditional style of novel. He gives us numerous facts about Lena, but never really gives us her interiority. Though he gives a few flashbacks, much of we know of her personality (and M freely admits that it is in some ways a very shallow personality, designed not to take attention off the novel's central conceit and conflict) is what she says about herself, but is she to be trusted? She may be mad, she is _probably_ mad. She is hearing the voices of the dead in the cargo hold, as if the difference between life and death has been erased in this place that is not a place. She awakens some of the ship's "cyborg" engineers -- really pure machines, but with the memories of actual humans: the first one turns out to "be" her former mentor and lover. He advises her to accept her situation, and commits suicide by staring out the porthole into the twisted or absent spacetime inside the black galaxy. Then she awakens three more, who -- as M is careful to tell us -- are linked thematically to the "comforters" of Job, who also, ultimately, suicide.

But there is much more. There is a great deal of excuse-making by M, explaining what _Galaxies_ might have been like had he been able to write it. He comments on the lack of literary value of his fellow SF writers' work. He tells how the idea for _Galaxies_ came from a pair of articles He explains the techniques he would have used, had he used them, to tell Lena's story. He gives significant background information about how the Bureau -- and humanity -- became what they have become in the fortieth century. He provides whole chapters of expository lump, describing (M's understanding of) the science behind black galaxies, pulsars, and other things.

And again, any and all of these things may be lies. It is difficult to sort out where M is being truthful and where he is being disingenuous and self-serving or simply defensive. The whole novel is, after all, M's _apologia_ and excuse-making for not writing the novel he has contracted to write.

In the end, Lena consults the dead -- not for advice, but in hope of gaining their approval of what she has already decided to do. Because the gravitational forces of the black galaxy will not allow the ship's conventional drive to accelerate to the speeds at which the tachyonic drive is intended to be engaged, she will engage it directly, without that acceleration. She has no way of knowing what will happen; the "cyborgs" and the dead have suggested that she may simply destroy the Universe, or, failing that, may come out anywhere and anywhen in spacetime.

When she does so, M provides, then rejects several possibilities for denouements, finally settling on this: the ship appears over Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, and the consciousness of Lena and the dead are sublimated into that village's fifteen thousand humans, and there the notes end, on a note as gnomic as they began: "...from all the Ridgefield Parks of our tim we will assemble to build the great engines which will take us to the stars . . . and some of the stars will bring death and others will bring life and then there are those which will bring us nothing at all, but the engines will continue, they will go on forever.

"And so, in a fashion, after our fashion, will we."

When I first read _Galaxies_ (Malzberg's novel, not M's unwritten novel) shortly after it came out in 1975, I thought that this was a hopeful ending. Today, I think it hopeless -- but I am not sure of this.

[Jlawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars.

A cocktail that mixes meta-commentary on science-fiction cliches with its own existential tale of a female astronaut trapped in an eternal fall into a black hole. The conceit and Malzberg's sharp thought is quite exhilarating at the beginning, but I actually wish he'd pushed the meta-exploration further (eg how about showing examples of alternate versions of the story based on different market pressures/different approaches instead of sticking to its one repetitive scenario -- the story of our trapped astronaut stays consistent despite the narrator interruptions), and some of the novel's in-story stabs at profundity fall ridiculously flat (though with some of them it's hard to tell if its intentional parody of overwrought existential inertia?).

All in all intriguing and I'd like to sample a bit more Malzberg (though the summaries of some of his other works makes it sound like he may too often re-use the scenario of "scientist/astronaut trapped in a situation where they can do nothing but wax existential dread" as his counter to the old "technological hero solves problems with reason" trope of science fiction.)

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Galaxies is a metafictional novel, or should I say "novel"? Comprised of digressions, asides, aphorisms, explanations of authorial intent, and, when it gets round to it, a plot, it is a "novel" only in the same sense that Nietzsche's Menschliches, Allzumenschliches is a "work" of philosophy: kind of, but not really.

Conceiving, writing, and executing such a metafictional work is a bit of a high-wire act, and one runs the risk of having the whole thing reek of an academic exercise rather than the engrossing and engaging piece of literature or entertainment that the reader might legitimately expect.

But regardless of the height of one's brow, it has to be said that Galaxies is ultimately unsuccessful, as it is not only quite a chore to engage with as any sort of narrative enjoyment, but also not quite intellectually stimulating enough to keep the philosophical parts of the brain satisfactorily engaged. Which isn't to say that it's totally without merit, but rather that on balance, one's time is better spent elsewhere.

[T. Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meta! Not a novel, but a set of notes for one from the character of a stuffy, bloodless science fiction author trapped in suburbia and desperate to use grand themes and be taken seriously like his literary heroes Cheever and Barthelme. Occasionally funny, sometimes annoying, his stilted, abstract dialogue plays like a low-rent Waiting for Godot. Not bad, not great, but like all science fiction, the hook is in the concept, not the characterization!

Confused the hell out of me as a teen, especially as the cheap paperback cover & blurb looks plays it like a straight sci-fi novel. Now coming back to it after some years I can get it.

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unusual book from 1975. The whole thing is in the form of 'novel notes'. I guess it's supposed to be partly telling a story and partly providing a glimpse into the mind of the writer as he works. Or something.
I felt like Malzberg mostly pulled off what would have been just a gimmick for a lot of writers. Spacecraft in the year 39xx is pulled out of hyperspace by a galaxy-sized black hole. The expedition is financed by the estates of dead people whose bodies are on board in the hopes of a resurrecting effect that occurs in hyperspace.
Not his best work but worth reading.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's no story here--and that's the point. This book is a criticism of the standard science fiction of the 50s and 60s ( it was published in 1975). That's fine, but what got to me was the constant repetition. We could have gotten the point in less than half of the 128 pages. I did like Malzberg's "Beyond Apollo" and I like the short stories of his I've read--and I would have liked this much better as a short story...

[Scott Golden · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a bit of "inside baseball," this novel in which the third-person narrator periodically suspends the telling of the story in order to talk directly to the reader -- as 'author' rather than 'narrator' -- about the nature of science fiction storytelling. Malzberg pulls it off brilliantly.

[Umberto Rossi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating experiment, I don't know--maybe can't say--how successful, but probably something that should be written. Maybe more a reading for science-fiction scholars (and writers) than something for the ordinary reader. Maybe not. It surely leaves you with a lot of questions and objections.

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heh...as usual, Malzberg takes traditional expectations of a novel and shreds them apart...this book consists of notes by the author for a book...and thereby the tale is told.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

This should have been right up my alley, but somehow wasn't.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining and laugh out loud funny at times.

[B · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most interesting and unique books I've ever read. It is a 4th wall breaking explanation of what the book titled Galaxies would entail. I really enjoyed it

[P Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Remarkable, but flawed

I first read this book when I was 15 - many years ago. I loved it at the time and have remembered it fondly for all these years. Alas, now that I've decided to reread it again, I kinda wish I hadn't. My tastes, apparently, have changed.

The book itself is not really a book so much as it is his description and notes for a novel idea that he wanted to write but was unable to. This in itself is a great concept. As a kid it excited me greatly to think that maybe someday I (or some other young author) could become good enough to take his notes and finish what he couldn't do. I honestly wish that other authors would publish similar things. I'm sure that some of my favorites have ideas that have haunted them for years but somehow they just didn't have the inclination, time, and/or necessary research skills to complete. Publishing the incomplete work as a challenge to future generations is a noble and innovative way to keep these broken concepts from being lost altogether. I like the idea of it, but it does come with the unfortunate drawback that many (possibly most) of these unworkable ideas are actually unusable for reasons that can't be fixed at all.

The story of this story (so to speak) is that it needed to be a "hard-SF" story when Malzberg was not versed in modern science enough to work in that genre. While he claims that it will be thousands of years before we know enough to write this, the truth is that a hard SF contemporary of his, like Larry Niven or many others, could have done it even at the time of publishing. And, worse yet, modern understanding of science has now progressed to the point where the central premise of the book would not hold up in the eyes of even a moderately rigorous SF reader any more. The Tachyon drive is not a problem; it could be replaced by whatever the current most fashionable FTL option might be. But our knowledge of black holes has progressed now beyond the possibility of accepting them as mere doorways to alternate realities. And the idea that radiation alone could awaken the dead is now absurd to the point of being laughable. The story itself is therefore unworkable as hard fiction, and also without sufficient drama to suffice as standard SF.

All This Being Said, I still possess fond enough memories of my first reading that it would be a pleasurable reread, except for the interminable glimpses into the author's character that the notes often seem to give. He rails with self pity at how boring the book seems at times and how a discerning reader would lament at having chosen to read it. At other times he brags with obvious self-delusion at how well he understands writing, entertainment, sex, and the human condition. I have doubts that he was even barely adequate at understanding any of these now. He makes casual offhand statements about the readers of sci-fi that I personally find insulting.

Honestly I just wish I'd never read this. I'm off now to bury my head in some magical, farcical fantasy in search of healing.

Namaste 🙏

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I hate writing and it isn't worth it but I still desperately want to be good at it" -Malzberg, probably (I have never read any of his interviews or essays)

This reminded my a lot of when I saw Seven Psychopaths where McDonagh spends the entire narrative putting his flaws/inadequacies as a director on display and dismissing them, as if the juxtapositional irony is enough to absolve him. NO. But that movie has Sam Rockwell and Christpher Walken. And Colin Farrell. Galaxies has no actors to independently redeem the authorial vision. As the author admits, Lena doesn't have much going on.

I do, as always, love Malzberg's pessimistic visions and multilayered metaphors. I wish the dialogue wasnt so terrible so that the interaction between characters felt like it enhanced the theme rather than exist as a bonus. Like carting around the dead as the inertial weight of SF storytelling history to overcome, but the conversations with the dead are dependent on the context of developing SF at the time. And Starwars obliterated any way to reorient ourselves to that moment in time.

Malzberg always writes bad sex. At least this time its 110% clear its intentional, though no more bearable. I think it was funnier in Beyond Apollo, which is a much better book. I would only recommend this book to people who have enjoyed reading 3-5 other Malzberg books first.

Why is this 4 stars? Because I did enjoy reading 5 other Malzberg books before this one, and even this one for all of its flaws. I will still look forward to finding another one at a used bookstore. Each book affirms that taste is not only a matter of quality.

[Jim Mann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Galaxies, as the author states, is basically set up as notes toward a novel, with fragments of a novel intermixed with statements by the author about science fiction, writing, and characterization. Malzberg basically deconstructs a science fiction novel, musing on both the power and limitations of the genre and its readers. Parts of it are quite good, but frankly many of the parts that are the "novel" rather than the notes toward it, seem to drag on (despite the fact that the book is only 128 pages long). I think this would have been more successful had the discussions between the pilot and the cyborgs and the pilot and the dead cargo (the ship is financed by and carrying the bodies of many rich people) were trimmed.

Also, I know that in this kind of novel, hard science isn't that important, but what Malzberg does include could have come from overhearing bits and pieces of science discussion at a part and not really understanding it. For example, he consumes neutron stars and black holes. He also seems to think (and he's not alone in this, as it seems to be a trope in especially much of media SF) that a black hole (or neutron star) has such strong gravity that it will eventually suck in the whole universe. This becomes irritating when he does info dumps on it as if he was citing scientific fact.

Overall an interesting if not always successful literary experiment. (I'd probably have rated it 3.5 if I could have given half stars.)

[Brown Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

More metafictional shenanigans from the wise troll.

I cannot recommend the book, as it is an overlong essay of no consequence, unless you are a fan of space exploration. If you are, let me save you time and trouble:

Human beings are not designed to thrive in the free space outside the living envelope of Earth. In order to hope to leave this "womb" successfully, human beings will have to abandon everything which makes them human.

Human beings evolved over millenniums, and are a specific sort of mammal. We have to fight every fibre of our psychogenetic inheritance to "improve" ourselves, and in the end, our progeny will be alienated, maladroit psychopaths.

While I agree that humans must adapt in order to explore the universe, I do not agree that this adaptation will render those post-humans "mal" anything. Only different. "Artificial selection" or auto-evolution is an extreme response to conditions, but not "un-natural.". We already see the effects of it around us. Our species--provided we avoid self-destruction--is in the process of evolving away from our origins. It is awkward. It may result in extinction for H Sap or H Postsap, or both.

Anyway. Malzberg wants to troll sf readers and space buffs. Let him. I recommend reading something else.

Read Space by Tom Wolfe, or Pale Blue Dot by Sagan. Don't let nobody troll you.

[Sue Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure I can recommend this book to other readers. It’s like recommending cilantro or anchovies. Some people love them, others can’t stand them. I liked this novel, but, but it’s a niche piece, and you very reasonably might not.

The book is actually notes for a novel, not a novel, as Malzberg says right at the beginning. We learn a lot about the struggles of the author, who ponders what to include and what not, and how to approach various tropes and expectations. The book addresses issues like sex and death from a nervous 1970s perspective, returning to these issues from several angles. The science, however, which involves a black hole, was squishy even for its time.

Here is an example of the text:
“We are upon the conclusion and that conclusion, obviously, is open-ended. Cunningly it has been built into the construct from the very outset. It is a characteristic of a certain kind of well-structured fiction that it will lead toward a resolution which in retrospect may appear inevitable...”

Despite all these caveats, I found the conclusion satisfying. I’m glad I read this book. Maybe I found it interesting because I am a writer, and it dealt with many writerly concerns, handling them with wit. However, you may prefer a more conventional book, and I won’t blame you.

[No Longer Active · Rating 2 out of 5]

As an intellectual exercise or a postmodern exploration of the sci-fi tropes of 1960s and 70s, Galxies is interesting at times and often stimulating, but Malzberg's prose, which can run in delightful circles, also exhibits a certain kind of deadness, a flattening out of effect that sucks all of the joy from the telling of his story. (What there is of one: he eschews plot here as he does in Herovit's World.)

No characters to speak of really, which wouldn't be a crime if he was constructing some sort of fictional edifice that resembled the masterworks of the writers he idolizes, like Borges, but their absence makes this short book tedious to read.

Nonetheless, this book shouldn't be taken out of context; when it was written, the world of science fiction and literature in general was very different from what it has become today. So I'm not knocking Galaxies per se, just pointing out that it doesn't actually achieve what it sets out to achieve. If you get past the second chapter, you'll see what I'm driving at.