User:Puddytang/Norman Spinrad

Norman Richard Spinrad (born September 15, 1940) is an American science fiction author, essayist, and critic.^[1] His fiction has won numerous awards, including the Hugo Award and two Nebula Award.^[2]

Born in New York City, Spinrad is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science. In 1957 he entered City College of New York and graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Science degree as a pre-law major. He has lived in San Fransisco, Las Angeles, London, Paris, and New York.^[3] He married fellow novelist N. Lee Wood in 1990; they divorced in 2005. {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) They had no children. {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) Spinrad served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) from 1980 to 1982 and again from 2001 to 2002. {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) He has also worked as a radio phone show host, a vocal artist, a literary agent, and President of World SF^[4]

Characteristics

In an interview with Locus magazine in 1999, Spinrad described himself as an "anarchist" and a "syndicalist".^[5]

Some critics have noted utopian themes in Spinrad's works.^[6] In a 1999 interview, he talked about the his hopes for the role of science fiction in society:

How much science fiction is being published now that's set in worlds that are better than ours? Not that have bigger shopping malls or faster space ships, but where the characters are morally superior, where the society works better, is more just? Not many. It becomes difficult to do it, and that's a feedback relationship with what's happening in the culture, with science fiction being the minor note. People don't credit it anymore! Not just better gizmos and more virtual reality gear, but better societies. People don't believe the future will be a better place. And that is very scary.^[7]

According to critic Galen Strickland, "Spinrad has never taken the easy course of artistic repetition, nor tailored his thoughts to the dictates of any editor. Each of his books are unique, and explore avenues of thought and speculation few others have traveled. Sex and power are usually his primary themes".^[8]

Controversies

Spinrad has been called "perhaps the most controversial American component of SF's New Wave movement of the mid-to-late '60s, and if such an idea is conceivable, has probably irritated and offended as many readers and critics as has Harlan Ellison", Spinrad's long-time friend.^[9]

Spinrad has often had problems finding publishers for his novels. {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) After failing to find a publisher for Bug Jack Barron as a book, it was serialized by Micheal Moorcock in New Worlds.

Actually, New Worlds published the whole novel in 6 installments, not a shorter version, and it was that serialization which got me denounced in Parliament. The novel was never officially banned in Britain as such, Parliament didn’t have that power. W.H. Smith refused to distribute New Worlds with a middle installment of Bug Jack Barron in it, and the British Arts Council, a government organ which modestly subsidized the magazine, put public pressure on W.H. Smith to rescind the ban, and it worked. And that was what caused “questions” in Parliament, denunciations of the Arts Council, New Worlds, and myself.^[10]

Spinrad could not find an American publisher for his 2007 novel Osama the Gun. "[O]ne rejection letter, foaming at the mouth, declared that no American publisher would touch it." So he decided to self-publish the novel as an e-book.^[11]

Major works

The Iron Dream

The Iron Dream is an alternate history novel, the bulk of which consists of a fictional fantasy classic entitled Lord of the Swastika, written by one Adolf Hitler, who in the novel is a writer rather than a demagogue. The remainder of the book is critical commentary on the text.^[12] According to an article attributed to Spinrad^[13], the book was banned for eight years in Germany, but was finally exonerated after appeals. More accurately, the sale of the book was permitted, but the public display of the book or its covers was prohibited, despite the fact that there were no swastikas on the cover of the indexed first German edition. [[The Iron dream won an Apollo(award), and was nominated for an American Book Award.^[14]

Child of Fortune

Child of Fortune deals with the adventures of a young woman, Moussa, in her search for her true calling. In Moussa's culture, young people of her age and class undertake a wanderjahr during which they wander from planet to planet, free to go wherever and do whatever they wish. While on their travels they are known as Children of Fortune, and are treated with indulgence and kindness by most in memory of their own wanderjahr. The Children of Fortune blend elements of gypsies, hippies of 1960s America, and other groups and legends, including Peter Pan. While some parents give their children a great deal of money for the trip, Moussa's parents believe that she will learn more with a true wanderjahr rather than a subsidized tour, so they give her nothing but a voucher for a one-way ticket home. Moussa becomes a "ruespieler" or storyteller, and takes the name "Wendy" in honor of Pater Pan, the man she meets, loves, and loses during her wanderjahr.

The wanderjahr bears a superficial resemblance to the Grand Tour which many upper-class young men undertook after finishing school, the difference being that Children of Fortune are expected to have explored themselves as well as the world during their travels, and to come home knowing who they are and what place they want for themselves.

Bug Jack Barron

Bug Jack Barron (1969), a pre-cyberpunk tale of a cynical, exploitative talk-show host who gradually uncovers a conspiracy concerning an immortality treatment and the methods used in that treatment, was serialised in the British magazine New Worlds during Michael Moorcock's editorship. With its explicit language and cynical attitude to politicians, it roused one British Member of Parliament's ire at the magazine's partial funding by the British Arts Council. A memorable quote from this novel is, "The saddest day of your life isn't when you decide to sell out. The saddest day of your life is when you decide to sell out and nobody wants to buy."

A World Between

A World Between (1979) tells of a mildly turbulent period on the planet of Pacifica, a eutopic, democratic electronically mediated society, on which lands a ship from each of the two factions in the "Pink and Blue War": the patronisingly paternalistic Institute of Transcendental Science on the one side, and the rabidly man-hating lesbian Femocrats on the other. Nobody suffers a worse fate than political embarrassment, and status quo is restored by the simple fact of Pacifican society being better than that of either of the off-world factions.

The Druid King

The Druid King is a historical novel about the conflict between Vercingetorix and the Roman Empire.^[15]

Film and Television

Spinrad wrote the script for an episode of the original Star Trek television series entitled "The Doomsday Machine" (1967). He also wrote an unproduced Star Trek scriptfor Star Trek: Phase II.

He also wrote episodes for Land of the Lost (1974 TV series) and Werewolf (TV series).

He has been credited as a writer on two feature films, La sirène rouge and The Gaul a.k.a. Druids (film).^[16]

Bibliography

Novels

• The Solarians (1966)
• Agent of Chaos (1967)
• The Men in the Jungle (1967)
• Bug Jack Barron (1969)
• The Iron Dream (1972)
• Passing through the Flame (1975)
• Riding the Torch (1978)
• A World Between (1979)
• Songs from the Stars (1980)
• The Mind Game (1980)
• The Void Captain's Tale (1983)
• Child of Fortune (1985)
• Little Heroes (1987)
• Children of Hamelin (1991)
• Russian Spring (1991)
• Deus X (1993)
• Pictures at 11 (1994)
• Journals of the Plague Years (1995)
• Greenhouse Summer (1999)
• He Walked Among Us (2003)
• The Druid King (2003)
• Mexica (2005)
• Osama the Gun (2007)

Short stories

Spinrad's story "Carcinoma Angels" was the first story purchased by Harlan Ellison for his anthology Dangerous Visions.^[17]

His short story "Down the Rabbit Hole" (1966) was published in the anthology The War Book (edited by James Sallis, 1969).

Collections

• The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde (1970)
• No Direction Home (May 1975)
• The Star-Spangled Future (1979)
• Other Americas (1988)
• Vampire Junkies (1994)

Teleplays

• "The Doomsday Machine" (Star Trek: The Original Series)
• "Tag Team" (Land of the Lost)
• "Grey Wolf" (Werewolf)

Non-fiction

• Science Fiction in the Real World. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990.

Notes

External links

• Norman Spinrad's homepage
• Spinrad Talks about "The Doomsday Machine"
• Norman Spinrad at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Puddytang/Norman Spinrad at IMDb
• Norman Spinrad on the non-making of the movie "Bug Jack Barron"
• Norman Spinrad's Youtube channel
• Complete shareware text of the novel He Walked Among Us