A World Between - Norman Spinrad (1979)

I am continually amazed by the prescience of some science fiction novels and books. It is possible that what I should be amazed by is really the fact that "the more things change, the more they stay the same." A World Between is one of those books that, while written in 1979, could have been written about, say, the 2008 US Presidential race-thus-far. It takes on issues of sexism, political correctness, media culture and media manipulation with side-trips into hetero-sexism and inter-gender relationships, all executed with the deft touch of a master.

Set in the moderately distant future, the plot revolves around the fate of the planet Pacifica, whose role in the interstellar community is that of media producer and information broker. The Pacifican constitution mandates free access of the press and is founded on "electronic democracy." You may begin making Twilight Zone sounds in your head any time now. Into this vibrant culture, where "information wants to be free," two spaceships arrive close on each other's heels, each representing a competing ideology.

First to arrive are the technocratic Transcendental Scientists. This male dominated faction's main crime in the eyes of the Pacificans is that they restrict their advances to their own people rather than engaging in free market trading and sharing; in short, they use technology as a weapon for market trading and sharing; in short, they use technology as a weapon for political purposes.

They are followed by the Femocrats, radical feminists and lesbians in a communistic vein. The scene is set for a clash of titanic proportions. Since faster-than-light (FTL) travel does not exist, the battle will be fought for hearts and minds with propaganda and politics rather than with guns and bombs.

What follows is the struggle of our Pacifican heroes (of both genders) as they try to negotiate a middle path between two extremes. As the TS and Femocrats try to manipulate the Pacifican elections and government, both sides engage in the type of gender politics that have been so prevalent in the past year. Thirty years ago, the book must have seemed like a wild flight of imagination, today in almost reads like a documentary.

Spinrad tackles his subjects with wit and humour, as well as consumate craftsmanship. Admittedly some of the style and conceits seems a little dated, but remarkably few. Some of the characterizations are a little heavy-handed as well, but Spinrad's writing is strong enough to make this a quibble. While this is not Spinrad's best book, it is still a very good book, and the issues he addresses are amazingly timely.

Overall Grade: B+

The Men in the Jungle - Norman Spinrad (1967)

Norman Spinrad is one of the old school of science-fiction writers. Like Harlan Ellison, he wrote teleplays (the Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine" is his), movie scripts, songs, short stories and novels. His books are commentaries, as most good science fiction and indeed most good fiction is, about society, politics and even what it means to be human.

The Men in the Jungle is an early novel, Spinrad's third, written in 1967. It transforms elements of Vietnam, Bolivia, Che Guevara and more, with a dash of Heart of Darkness, into a science fiction story about fomenting revolution on a backward planet. It asks the age old question of how can you kill a monster without becoming a monster yourself? It doesn't give any easy answers to that question of any of the others.

This is a horrible book, by which I mean it contains horrors. It is not a "horror" book, though. The horrors it illustrates are all too human. The society he paints is frighteningly believable from it's specially bred human killing machines to the specially bred human food animals to the institutionalized sadism of the the rules, the "Brotherhood of Pain."

While lacking the sophistication of Spinrad's later work, the book packs a visceral punch that rarely appears in his later work either. It is a difficult book to read, unremitting in its depictions of the depths to which humanity will sink. It would be nice to imagine that this sort of thing is simply a fiction, that no actual person or people would perpetuate such acts on other humans. But the atrocities of Nazi Germany, the genocide in Rwanda, the janjaweed militias and the situation in Darfur all show that reality is much, much worse than any fiction can ever be.

Perhaps that is why good science fiction works so well. By setting events in a different time or on a distant planet or both, the author gives his readers a little distance from the subject, allowing them to consider the horrors with some dispassion. It is to be hoped that by coping with the themes and issues in the abstract, they are better able to address the real issues when they arise. Or perhaps that is merely hopeless optomism.

As I say, this is a difficult book to read, requiring the reader to gaze into, if you will permit the phrase, the heart of darkness. And, even, into his own heart to regard the darkness that lies within. This book is not for everyone.

Overall Grade: B