<br><b>Beyond the Outposts: Essays on SF and Fantasy 1955-1996</b> brings together a great many of Algis Budrys's standalone essays, reviews, appreciations, state-of-the-art reports, personal memoirs and thoughts on the mechanics of writing.
<br><br><i>Beyond the Outposts</i> includes the introduction and five essays published in the long-out-of-print and now very scarce Budrys collection <i>Outposts: Literatures of Milieux</i> (Borgo Press, dated 1996, released 1997). Those items form only a small part of this very substantial compilation of the author's writings on sf and fantasy, most of the rest never having been previously collected. Except for part of one <i>Galaxy</i> magazine article that Budrys chose to reprint – in edited form with a new commentary – there is no overlap with the two long series of review columns for <i>Galaxy</i> and <i>F&SF</i> collected in <i>Benchmarks: Galaxy Bookshelf</i> (1985), and the three-volume Ansible Editions set <i>Benchmarks Continued</i> (2012), <i>Benchmarks Revisited</i> (2013) and <i>Benchmarks Concluded</i> (2013).
<br><br>Among the major pieces here are "Paradise Charted", a tour-de-force potted history of the science fiction genre that filled some seventy pages of the special SF issue of <i>TriQuarterly</i> magazine; "Literatures of Milieux", a highly individual attack on the problem of defining our genre; the long series of "On Writing" columns written for <i>Locus</i> magazine; "Non-Literary Influences on Science Fiction", exploring in disquieting depth how magazine stories were routinely cut, padded or rearranged for production reasons beyond the control of author or editor; and "Obstacles and Ironies in Science-Fiction Criticism", casting a cold eye on the very thing that Budrys did best. Lighter notes are struck by mordant book and film reviews plus touches of sheer personal fun. (Source: Publisher's web site)
