ChadGayle reviewed Galaxies by Barry N. Malzberg
Review of 'Galaxies' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
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 …
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.