Out From Ganymede

by Barry N. Malzberg

Introduction (Out from Ganymede) • (1974) • essay
Out from Ganymede • (1972) • short story
November 22, 1963 • (1974) • short story
Still-Life • (1972) • short story by K.M. O'Donnell
The Conquest of Mars • (1972) • short story
Some Notes Toward a Useable Past • (1972) • short story
Linkage • (1973) • short story
The Union Forever • (1973) • short story
The Yearbook (aka Yearbook) • (1971) • short story
Inter Alia • (1972) • short story
Allowances • (1972) • short story
The Helmet • (1973) • short story
Breaking In • (1972) • short story
Pater Familias • (1972) • short story with Kris Neville
Causation • (1971) • short story
A Short Religious Novel • (1972) • short story
Report of the Defense • (1972) • short fiction
Notes for a Novel About the First Ship Ever to Venus • (1971) • short story
Beyond Sleep • (1970) • short story
The Interceptor • (1972) • short story
Agony Column • (1971) • short story
The Sense of the Fire • (1967) • novelette

Genres: Science Fiction Fantasy

188 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 12, 1974

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

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of twenty-two short works by Malzberg, at least one of which was first published under his almost-equally-famous pseudonym, K.M. O'Donnell. One novelette was first published in a men's magazine in 1967, but the rest are short stories that all appeared in the early 1970's genre magazines and anthologies. Some are thematically similar and examine different facets of the same situations (Kennedy and astronauts and alienation, depression, paranoia, etc.), but the shorter lengths allowed him to present his range of ideas without the grating and almost repetitive quality that plagued some of his novels. Malzberg was an important voice of the New Wave minority of the time, and these carefully-crafted pieces contain some of his best work.

[iambehindu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Out From Ganymede is a great place to start when approaching Malzberg’s work. Malzberg was very much an artist who approached the same set of ideas from different angles, and here you get a buffet of sorts. All these stories align with the themes of his novels—it’s enjoyable to see slivers of ideas that would later be explored at full length.

Malzberg’s ideas are impressively succinct and pertinacious in execution. His stories are hallmarked by that characteristic psychotic apperception that pervades his protagonists. A recurring theme emerges: every effort toward truth-seeking is immediately shut down by straw-man fallacy responses. At all times, Malzberg’s tyrannical characters answer long inquiries with something that amounts to: “That is impossible. You will never understand our reasons. Can you not see that I am also a victim, just like yourself? You must understand that this is hardly my fault.” Psychologically, this has an interesting effect on the reader. As you attempt to follow the logic of the truth seeker, your own internal postulations and criticisms are immediately met with vague exactitudes, causing the investigative mind to glitch in a haze of doubt and confusion. The tyrannical structures in Malzberg’s worlds perpetuate themselves into an ever-ascending tower, the top obscured by storm clouds—or perhaps not there at all.

Stories like The Helmet and Breaking In align conceptually with In The Enclosure. Two Odysseys Into The Center and Notes For A Novel About The First Ship Ever To Venus serve as outlines for what Malzberg later explored in Herovit’s World and Galaxies. These stories function both as templates for science fiction novels and as meta-narratives that satirize not only the writer but also the editorial machine of the industry—and even the readership. Stories like Still-Life, Inter Alia, and Out From Ganymede document sadomasochistic and mentally broken astronauts, all on par with what was explored in Beyond Apollo and The Falling Astronauts. Of course, there are more subtle themes, but I’ll leave those to the reader.

At the end of the collection, you even get some ragingly violent mystery and thriller stories. Standouts for me include: The Helmet, Breaking In, Pater Familias (with Kris Neville), Causation, A Short Religious Novel, The Union Forever, Yearbook, Agony Column, and The Sense of the Fire, which closely parallels the themes Kubrick later explored in Full Metal Jacket (1987).

[Scott Golden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prior to Barry N. Malzberg, the field of psychology was little utilized as the focus for a science fiction story. This book gives ample evidence as to why this fact is both a shame AND perfectly understandable. It's a tricky thing; and while Malzberg pulls it off more often than not, there is an undeniably grating & depressive tone to some of these stories that does not make for pleasant reading. Also, three separate stories about astronauts that suffer delusions in which they encounter aliens is a bit much for one book. Recommended if you're adventurous enough to try SF of a different stripe.