Literary Significance and Criticism
Like much of Malzberg's work, Beyond Apollo was extremely controversial at the time of its publication, receiving both praise and scorn from literary critics.
Harlan Ellison was one of Malzberg's greatest defenders, and noted that "Beyond Apollo put me out of commission for three days after reading it".
On the other hand, Bob Shaw said in Foundation "Malzberg's Beyond Apollo is, to me, the epitome of everything that has gone wrong with sf in the last ten years or so".
The novel won the first John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, presented in 1973.
The novel is now being made into a movie but will appear in 2013: The first two-man mission to Venus is aborted in mid-flight and abruptly returns back to Earth. When rescue crews go to retrieve the space capsule, they make a startling discovery: The Captain is missing - there is no sign of his body whatsoever - and strangely enough, the lone surviving astronaut has no clue about what took place. Beyond Apollo tells the riveting story of when that astronaut, Harry Evans, returns to earth and must answer to the authorities about what really happened on board the doomed flight to Venus. His mind-bending struggle to figure that out is a harrowing journey through the possibilities: Was the Captain murdered? Did he commit suicide? Or were alien beings responsible for his demise? The answer, as Evans will eventually discover, is far more terrifying than anything he could possibly imagine. Based on the award winning book by Barry N. Malzberg, Beyond Apollo captures the eerie isolation of delving into the unknown, begs us to ask the unanswerable, and marks the separation between the real, unreal and surreal. Written by Bill Pullman)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2403823/plotsummary
Read more about this topic: Beyond Apollo
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