This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points.(September 2021) |
Norman Spinrad | |
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Born | New York City, U.S. | September 15, 1940
Occupation | Novelist |
Education | City College of New York (BS) |
Genre | Science fiction |
Spouse |
Norman Richard Spinrad (born September 15, 1940) is an American science fiction author, essayist, and critic. [1] His fiction has won the Prix Apollo and been nominated for numerous awards, including the Hugo Award and multiple Nebula Awards. [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. [3] He has lived in San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and New York City. He married fellow novelist N. Lee Wood in 1990; they divorced in 2005. Spinrad served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) from 1980 to 1982 and again from 2001 to 2002. He has also worked as a phone-in radio show host, a vocal artist, a literary agent, and President of World SF. [4]
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 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] Consciousness-altering drugs often feature prominently in his stories. According to Spinrad:
If there's one gaping void in the story of American literary history in the second half of the twentieth century as currently promulgated, it's the influence of grass and psychedelic drugs, not only on the lives of writers, but on the content of what's been written, and on the form and style too. It's hard to be critically or biographically courageous when so much creative work was done under the influences of jailable offenses. [9]
Spinrad had difficulty finding a publisher willing to print Bug Jack Barron as a book. Publisher Michael Moorcock printed the novel in installments in the magazine New Worlds . The newsstand company WHSmith refused to distribute one of the issues because of the installment of Spinrad's novel. The Arts Council of Great Britain, which subsidized New Worlds, put public pressure on WHSmith and forced the company to distribute the issue. This led to denunciations of Spinrad, The Arts Council, and New Worlds in the British Parliament. [10] [ better source needed ]
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." He decided to self-publish the novel as an e-book. [10] The book, which features several scenes set in Paris, has been published in French by Flammarion as J'ai lu (2011).
The Solarians (1966), was Spinrad's first published novel. Unlike Spinrad's controversial later work, this novel is a mainstream space opera featuring space battles, faster-than-light spacedrives, and an alien enemy, the Duglaari. The plot of the novel concerns a fleet commander named Palmer who makes contact with a race called the Solarians, who emerge from isolation to help humanity in its long war against the Duglaari.
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.
The Iron Dream (1972) is an alternate history novel, the bulk of which is the middle part consisting of a fictional fantasy classic entitled Lord of the Swastika , written by Adolf Hitler, who took up science fiction after failing as a politician. The first part explains that the deceased author Hitler was a sci-fi writer and that this novel was widely praised by fandom. The third part is a critical review of the novel and its aftermath. [11] According to Spinrad, [12] the book was banned for twenty-five years in Germany, but was finally exonerated after appeals. More accurately, the book was indexed by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons, thus 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 first German edition. The Iron Dream won a Prix Tour-Apollo Award, and was nominated for an American Book Award.[ citation needed ]
A World Between (1979) tells of a mildly turbulent period on the planet of Pacifica, a utopic, democratic electronically mediated society, on which lands a ship from each of the two factions in the "Pink and Blue War": the patronizingly 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 Void Captain's Tale (1983) takes place three or four thousand years in the future in an era called the Second Starfaring Age, a setting Spinrad revisited in the 1985 novel Child of Fortune. The book contains elements of confession, love story, eroticism, and horror.
Child of Fortune (1985) 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 little 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.
The Druid King (2003) is a historical novel about the conflict between Vercingetorix and the Roman Empire. [13]
Spinrad wrote the script for an episode of the original Star Trek television series, titled "The Doomsday Machine" (1967). This episode was nominated for a Hugo Award. He also wrote an unproduced Star Trek script for Star Trek: Phase II , and episodes for Land of the Lost and Werewolf .
He has been credited as a writer on two feature films, The Red Siren and Druids . Universal Pictures bought the film rights to Bug Jack Barron, and Costa-Gavras was slated to direct. Harlan Ellison wrote an early version of the script, but the movie was never made. [14]
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Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, particularly of science fiction and fantasy, who has published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has worked as an editor and is also a successful musician. He is best known for his novels about the character Elric of Melniboné, which were a seminal influence on the field of fantasy in the 1960s and 1970s.
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The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, doing business as Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, commonly known as SFWA is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. While SFWA is based in the United States, its membership is open to writers worldwide. The organization was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America. The president of SFWA as of July 1, 2021 is Jeffe Kennedy.
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John Stewart Williamson, who wrote as Jack Williamson, was an American science fiction writer, one of several called the "Dean of Science Fiction". He is also credited with one of the first uses of the term genetic engineering. Early in his career he sometimes used the pseudonyms Will Stewart and Nils O. Sonderlund.
Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis, commonly known as Connie Willis, is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards for particular works—more major SF awards than any other writer—most recently the "Best Novel" Hugo and Nebula Awards for Blackout/All Clear (2010). She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 28th SFWA Grand Master in 2011.
"The Doomsday Machine" is the sixth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Norman Spinrad and directed by Marc Daniels, it was first broadcast on October 20, 1967.
Peter Soyer Beagle is an American novelist and screenwriter, especially of fantasy fiction. His best-known work is The Last Unicorn (1968) which Locus subscribers voted the number five "All-Time Best Fantasy Novel" in 1987. During the last twenty-five years he has won several literary awards, including a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2011. He was named Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by SFWA in 2018.
The Iron Dream is a metafictional 1972 alternate history novel by American author Norman Spinrad. The book has a nested narrative that tells a story within a story. On the surface, the novel presents a post-apocalyptic adventure tale entitled Lord of the Swastika, written by an alternate-history Adolf Hitler shortly before his death in 1953. In this timeline, Hitler emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1919 after the Great War, and used his modest artistic skills to become first a pulp science fiction illustrator and later a successful writer, telling lurid, purple-prosed, pro-fascism stories under a thin science fiction veneer. The nested narrative is followed by a faux scholarly analysis by a fictional literary critic, Homer Whipple, which is said to have been written in 1959.
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The Final Programme is a novel by British science fiction and fantasy writer Michael Moorcock. Written in 1965 as the underground culture was beginning to emerge, it was not published for several years. Moorcock has stated that publishers at the time considered it was "too freaky".
Lou Anders is a US-based author, known for the Thrones & Bones series of middle grade fantasy novels. Anders is a Hugo Award-winning editor, a Chesley Award-winning art director, a journalist, a children's author, and a tabletop roleplaying game designer. In 2001, Anders launched Lazy Wolf Studios to publish tabletop roleplaying game material set in the world of his novels.
Bug Jack Barron is a 1969 science fiction novel by American writer Norman Spinrad, first serialized in the New Worlds magazine under the editorship of Michael Moorcock. It was nominated for the 1970 Hugo Award. The novel is notable for its lyrical style and unique use of cut-up phrases. In this regard, Spinrad has cited the influence of Beat writers William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac.
Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, An English-Language Selection, 1949–1984 is a nonfiction book by David Pringle, published by Xanadu in 1985 with a foreword by Michael Moorcock. Primarily, the book comprises 100 short essays on the selected works, covered in order of publication, without any ranking. It is considered an important critical summary of the science fiction field.
The Druid King is a 2003 historical novel by American novelist Norman Spinrad. The novel is set during the Gallic Campaigns of Julius Caesar. The main protagonist of the novel is Vercingetorix and the plot follows his rise to power to become king of the Gauls and his eventual surrender to Caesar at the Battle of Alesia. The book is a novelisation of an early version of the script for Vercingétorix, la Légende du Druide Roi, a French language film.
The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde is the first collection of science fiction stories by author Norman Spinrad. It was originally published by Nelson Doubleday in August 1970 with a Science Fiction Book Club edition and by Avon Books the following month.
Child of Fortune is a 1985 science fiction novel by the American author Norman Spinrad. Like his previous book The Void Captain's Tale, Child of Fortune takes place three or four thousand years in the future in an era called the Second Starfaring Age. It is a coming of age story about a young girl's wanderjahr, a rite of passage that all adolescents in the Second Starfaring Age are expected to undertake before they become adults. Critical reaction to the book was mixed, with some critics dissatisfied with Spinrad's long ornate polyglot writing. Others were more positive, finding the difficult language worth the effort.
The Void Captain's Tale is a 1983 science fiction novel by the American author Norman Spinrad. The Void Captain's Tale takes place three or four thousand years in the future in an era called the Second Starfaring Age, a setting Spinrad revisited in the 1985 novel Child of Fortune. The book contains elements of confession, love story, eroticism, and horror.