Norman Richard Spinrad (born September 15, 1940) is an American science fiction author. One of his most famous works, Bug Jack Barron, a tale of a cynical, exploitative talk-show host who gradually uncovers a conspiracy around an immortality treatment and the methods used in that treatment, was serialised in the British magazine New Worlds Science Fiction during Michael Moorcock's editorship. It was this novel, with its explicit language and cynical attitude to politicians, that aroused an english Member of Parliament's ire that the magazine was partly funded by the British Arts Council.
His 1972 novel The Iron Dream is an unusual alternate history novel; the bulk of the text is a reprint of a (fictional) fantasy classic, written in a couple of weeks by a famous fantasy writer shortly before his death in 1953 from (it was rumoured) tertiary syphilis. (the book won the 1953 Hugo Award) The remainder of the book is a commentary on the text, pointing out the elements of fetishism, phallic imagery, and paranoia in this most famous and beloved of fantasy epics. The novel is, of course, the 1953 fantasy classic Lord of the Swastika, by Adolf Hitler. As a commentary on and parody of the fascistic undertones in popular fantasy fiction, Spinrad's book was not entirely successful; the book was banned in Germany.
Selected Works
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)
- Pictures at 11 (1994)
- Greenhouse Summer (1999)
Collections
- The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde (1970)
- The Star-Spangled Future (1979)
- Other Americas (1988)
- Vampire Junkies (1994)
Teleplays
External link:
Norman Spinrad's homepage
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/normanspinrad/
