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Algis Budrys (Algirdas Jonas Budry) (January 9, 1931 -) began writing science fiction in the early 1950s and continued to be quite prolific for the next two decades, although his output began to falter during the 1970s and his byline has only appeared intermittently during the 1990s. His most famous single work is perhaps Rogue Moon (1960), in which an enigmatic and deadly object is discovered on the moon, left by an alien race for unknown reasons. The artifact, essentially a maze, is explored by the various duplicates of the protagonist, whose fascination with death and its effect on his interaction with others gives the novel a depth that was rare in SF up until that time, and not common since.

The novel Who? (1958), which was transformed into an adequate movie in 1974, would probably be marketed as a mainstream thriller today. An American spy is recovered from the Soviet Union, but he has been altered in such a way that it is unclear whether he is in fact the missing man or actually a Russian double agent. Other novels of note include The Falling Torch (1959), a thinly disguised allegory about the Soviet domination of what were then its satellite states, and Michaelmas (1977), in which the secret master of the world, an information handler aided by an extremely sophisticated and essentially sentient computer, defeats a secretive effort by aliens to subvert human civilization. His remaining novels like Man of Earth (1956) and Hard Landing (1993), while less impressive, all remain highly readable.

Much of his early reputation was built on short fiction, including such well known tales as "Riya's Foundling" (1953), "The End of Summer" (1954), "Nobody Bothers Gus" (1955), "Silent Brother" (1956), and "The Eye and the Lightning" (1958). He wrote fewer short stories in the ensuing years, but still produced memorable pieces like "The Rag and Bone Men" (1962) and "The Silent Eyes of Time" (1975). As much as his critical and editorial talents are valued, the decline in his writing output was undoubtedly a significant loss to the field.

Starting in the 1980s, Budrys became the editor of the Writers of the Future anthology series, which attempted to cultivate new talent in the genre, but which was viewed with some suspicion because of the publisher's ties to Scientology. During the 1990s he was briefly editor and publisher of Tomorrow magazine, which eventually became electronic before ceasing publication. He was also chief book reviewer for Galaxy magazine for many years, and his nonfiction book Benchmarks collects those columns.

External Links

• Algis Budrys at ISFDB.org

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