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Algis Budrys

Benchmarks Continued

Benchmarks Revisited

Beyond the Outposts

Budrys Ebooks

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Benchmarks Concluded:
F&SF “Books” Columns 1987-1993

Algis Budrys

Benchmarks Concluded 1987-1993 by Algis Budrys

Ansible Editions/Lulu.com, 2013
ISBN 978-1-291-45527-4
6" x 9" trade paperback, 271 pages
Ebook ISBN 978-1-913451-02-8

The cover illustration – showing Budrys in the 1980s – is based on the F&SF “Books” column masthead drawn by Tom Bevans, then art director for Simon & Schuster. This masthead appeared from January 1985 to August 1987.

Edited by David Langford and Greg Pickersgill.

Benchmarks Concluded: F&SF “Books” Columns 1987-1993 is the final instalment of a three-volume collected edition of all Algis Budrys’s classic SF review columns for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Published: 1 July 2013. Ebook edition February 2014 (see Ebooks link at left). 161,500 words with index.

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“The idea that speculative fiction is a genre has hard sledging against the fact that its polar counterpart, descriptive or ‘Mainstream’ fiction, is younger and contains many sub-categories itself. In fact, if we look at the history of the literary art, which began with attempts to dramatize the ways of the supernatural toward mankind, then descriptive fiction is an offshoot of speculative fiction – i.e., a genre.”

Algis Budrys, April 1987 column

“Even when he’s reviewing books you’re not interested in, Budrys is always funny and fascinating and insightful ... Budrys’s highly entertaining review essays constitute a priceless how-to source for science fiction writers.”

Tim Powers, 2013

“There have been three fathers of sf criticism, Damon Knight, James Blish, and A J Budrys. More than any of their heirs, they knew sf inside out, from the 1940s onward. They all wrote well, and more than well. AJ also wrote vastly: authoritative, loose, sharp, casual, tough; and with all the past at his command. He told us everything he could. This 460,000 word trilogy is only a part of that gift. Feast well. We shall see nothing of its like ever again.”

John Clute, 2013