Norman Spinrad

Norman Spinrad I first heard of in relation to Bug Jack Barron and its appearance in New Worlds - I was too young to know anything about the controversy at the time it happened (I was five, about to turn six!) I did hear about it about ten or eleven years later when I was sixteen. The story that caused W. H. Smiths to ban New Worlds and for questions to be asked in Parliament about why the British Arts Council were financing such works. As Spinrad recently said, "What didn’t they like? Supposedly the explicit sex and the “dirty words.” Seems archaic now, the explicit sex was straightforwardly heterosexual and there for story points, and the “Carlin” words are now everywhere except on broadcast television. But Bug Jack Barron smashed what were then taboos in science fiction and did it in a novel that was forthrightly, specifically, revolutionarily political, and I think those were the real reasons."

This isn't Spinrad's only controversial novel. He wasn't able to find a publisher for his novel Osama the Gun. It appeared in France as Oussama (2010) and Spinrad published it as an e-book in 2011. Plenty more information - including stories of his dealings with the Star Trek universe - at his blog, Norman Spinrad at Large, and at the SF Encyclopedia.

The Solarians (New York, Paperback Library, 1966)
Sphere 0722-18085-3, 1979, 191pp. Cover by Fred Gambino

Agent of Chaos (New York, Belmont, 1967)
New English Library 0450-00987-4, Feb 1972, 156pp, 30p. Cover by Richard Clifton-Dey
Corgi Books 0552-11727-7, 1981, 186pp.

The Men in the Jungle (Garden City, NY, Doubleday, 1967)
Sphere 0722-18086-1, 1972, 285pp.
Sphere 0722-18088-8, 1978, 285pp.
Grafton 0586-20420-2, 1989, 316pp.

Bug Jack Barron (New York, Walker & Co., 1969; London, Macdonald & Co., 1970)
Panther Books 0586-03535-4, 197
----, [?2nd imp.] 1979, 287pp.
Grafton 0586-03535-4, 1988, 384pp.
Toxic 1902-00218-0, 1999, 254pp.

The Iron Dream (New York, Avon, 1972)
Panther Books 0586-04019-6, 1974, 255pp. Cover by Bob Haberfield
Toxic 1902-00216-4, 1999, 253pp.

Passing Through the Flame (New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1975)
(no UK edition)

Riding the Torch [bound with Destiny Times Three by Fritz Leiber] (New York, Dell, 1978; published seperately, New York, Bluejay, 1984)
(no UK edition)

A World Between (New York, Pocket Books, 1979)
(no UK edition)

Songs from the Stars (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1980)
Arrow 0099-28070-1, 1982, 275pp.

The Mind Game (New York, Jove Books, 1980; as The Process, Arrow, 1983)
Arrow 0099-29960-7, 1983, 342pp.

The Void Captain's Tale (New Yor, Timescape Books, 1983)
Panther Books, 1984, 256pp.

Child of Fortune (New York, Bantam, 1985)
(no UK edition)

Little Heroes (New York, Bantam, 1987)
Grafton 0586-20362-1, 1989, 733pp.

Children of Hamelin (Houston, Texas, Tafford Publishing, 1991)
(no UK edition)

Russian Spring (New York, Bantam, 1991)
(no UK edition, Bantam edition shown)

Deus X (New York, Bantam, 1993)
(no UK edition)

Pictures at 11 (New York, Bantam, 1994)
(no UK edition, Bantam edition shows)

Vampire Junkies (Brooklyn, NY, Grayphon, 1994)
(no UK edition)

Journals of the Plague Years (New York, Bantam, 1995)
(no UK edition)

Greenhouse Summer (New York, Tor, 1999)
(no UK edition, Tor edition shown)

He Walked Among Us (as Die Transformation, Heyne Verlag, 2002; as Il est Parmi Nous, France, Fayard, 2009; New York, Tor, 2010 [previously published in an e-book version, New York, eReads.com, 2003)
(no UK edition)

The Druid King (New York, Knopf, 2003; London, Little Brown, 2003)
Time Warner 0751-53530-3, 2004, 564pp.

Mexica (London, Little Brown, 2005; US: e-book, 2011?)
Abacus 0349-11904-X, 2006, 506pp.

Osama the Gun (as Oussama, France, Fayard, May 2010; US: e-Book, July 2011)
(no UK edition)

The People's Police (as Police du peuple , Paris, Fayard, 2014; New York, Tor, 2017)
(no UK edition)

COLLECTIONS

The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde (New York, Doubleday, 1970; London, Macdonald, 1971)
(no UK paperback)

 

No Direction Home (New York, Pocket Books, 1975)
Fontana 0006-14811-5, 1977, 190pp. Cover by Alun Hood

The Star-Spangled Future (New York, Ace, 1979)
(no UK edition)

Other Americas (New York, Bantam, 1988)
(no UK edition, Bantam edition shown)

Deus X and Other Stories (Waterville, Maine, Five Star, 2003)
(no UK edition)

New Worlds Coming (US: e-book, Sep 2010)
(no UK edition)

Raising Hell (Oakland, California, PM Press, 2014)
(no UK edition)