The Burning World

By Algis Budrys and John Betancourt

In a post-revolution world, League President Kimmensen and his protege Bendix face a new threat - the charismatic and ruthless Messerschmidt. As Messerschmidt gains popularity, Kimmensen clings to his fraying legacy. When Messerschmidt rigs an election, Kimmensen and Bendix tamper with results. But their world views collide when the Northwesters attack, and Kimmensen resorts to desperate measures to defend the League's fragile freedom. Amid shifting power dynamics and looming war, Kimmensen must decide which sacrifices are justified to preserve his revolutionary ideals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Oct 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667682556

Algis Budrys

Algis Budrys (1931–2008) was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, where his father served in the Lithuanian diplomatic corps. The family came to the United States when Budrys was five years old. A Renaissance man, he wrote stories and novels, and was an editor, critic, and reviewer, a teacher of aspiring writers, and a publisher. In the 1960s Budrys worked in public relations, advertising products such as pickles, tuna fish, and four-wheel-drive vehicles. His science fiction novels include Rogue Moon, Hard Landing, Falling Torch, and many others. His Cold War science fiction thriller Who? was adapted for the screen, and he received many award nominations for his work. Budrys was married to his wife, Edna, for almost fifty-four years.  

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Table of Contents

THE BURNING WORLD, by Algis Budrys

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION, by John Betancourt

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

THE BURNING WORLD,

by Algis Budrys

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2023 by Wildside Press LLC.

Originally published in Infinity, July 1957.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

INTRODUCTION,

by John Betancourt

Algirdas Jonas Budrys (1931–2008)—A.J. to those who knew him—was born in Lithuania in 1931. His family immigrated to the United States when he was a child. From an early age, he was an avid reader of pulp magazines and science fiction. After serving in the Army during the Korean War, he progressed to writing, making his first professional sales in 1952.

As an author, Budrys is best known for stories that blend science fiction with philosophical questions. While he wrote some space adventures early in his career, he was more interested in exploring political and ethical issues through his fiction. Novels like Michaelmas examine identity and conformity in totalitarian futures. (The Burning World touches on this, too.) And throughout it all, his prose was always crisp and his characters fully drawn.

Though less famous than many of his contemporaries, Budrys nevertheless made substantial contributions to the genre. His 1960 novella Rogue Moon was nominated for a Hugo Award and was later anthologized in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two (1973). His Cold War science fiction novel Who? was adapted for the screen in 1974 in a film of the same name starring Elliott Gould. In addition to numerous Hugo Award and Nebula Award nominations, Budrys won the Science Fiction Research Association’s 2007 Pilgrim Award for lifetime contributions to speculative fiction scholarship. In 2009, he received one of the first Solstice Awards presented by the Science Fiction Writers of America in recognition of his contributions to the field.

Budrys left a distinct mark on science fiction primarily through his work as an editor. He worked on popular genre magazines like Galaxy and later edited and published Tomorrow Speculative Fiction (which strove to nurture new writers—though it later came out that he wrote a good number of the stories himself; they appeared under pseudonyms). Even so, he helped discover and nurture many young authors who became major figures in the field, such as Gene Wolfe. His editorials and book reviews were also influential in steering the course of the science fiction field.

Without dispute, he brought literary depth and a spirit of intellectual inquiry to the genre. While interested in big ideas, he never lost sight of the human element.

I only met him a few times, long after his prime days as an author, when he appeared at conventions promoting his magazine Tomorrow. We discussed magazine publishing several times, and his opinions about promotion (none needed), cover art (fairly generic), and the need for marquee names to promote a magazine (not needed) were almost the opposite of my own. I ultimately concluded that Tomorrow wasn’t so much a commercial enterprise as a hobby.

Still, based on his fiction alone, Algis Budrys remains an important, if unjustly overlooked, author.

CHAPTER 1

They walked past rows of abandoned offices in the last government office building in the world—two men who looked vastly different, but who had crucial similarities.

Josef Kimmensen had full lips trained to set in a tight, thin line, and live, intelligent eyes. He was tall and looked thin, though he was not. He was almost sixty years old, and his youth and childhood had been such that now his body was both old for its years and still a compact, tightly-wound mechanism of bone and muscle fiber.

Or had been, until an hour ago. Then it had failed him; and his one thought now was to keep Jem Bendix from finding out how close he was to death.

Jem Bendix was a young man, about twenty-eight, with a broad, friendly grin and a spring to his step. His voice, when he spoke, was low and controlled. He was the man Josef Kimmensen had chosen to replace him as president