 First edition cover | |
| Author | Algis Budrys |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Bob Engle |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Pyramid Books |
Publication date | 1959 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 158 pp |
The Falling Torch is a 1959 science fiction novel by American writer Algis Budrys. A 1999 Baen Books edition was very slightly rewritten, and includes one entirely new chapter.[1]
The novel is about a group of human freedom fighters who attempt the nearly hopeless task of liberating planet Earth from the grip of a race of alien invaders. The story has obvious overtones of freeing the author's homeland (Lithuania) from its Soviet occupiers.
The situation in the early chapters – of the Earth exiles maintaining a government in exile but losing hope of ever liberating their home planet – was clearly familiar to Budrys; his father Jonas Budrys was appointed as the Lithuanian consul general in New York City in 1936, when his son was five years old[2] and continued to hold that position, even though Lithuania was occupied by Nazi Germany and then annexed by the Soviet Union and made into a Soviet Republic. The United States continued to recognize the pre-World War II Lithuanian Diplomatic Service. During most of his adult life, Budrys himself held a captain's commission in the Free Lithuanian Army. Thus he was in a personal situation similar to that of the protagonist Michael Wireman at the outset – though Budrys never tried to infiltrate Soviet-ruled Lithuania and start a rebellion there.
However, in the foreword to the Baen edition, the author firmly denies that such was the primary reason for writing the novel. Instead he aimed to produce a story of a man who, like others such as Timur, were in some way disabled and alienated from society, before coming to dominate it.
- ^ Algis Budrys, "Books", F&SF, April 1991, p.30
- ^ Clute, John (13 June 2008). "Obituaries Algis Budrys: Science-fiction writer and editor". The Independent. Independent Co. UK. Archived from the original on 2022-06-18. Retrieved 13 April 2015.