Norman Spinrad has never been afraid to take risks with his career. He has repeatedly bitten the SF hand that fed him and his attacks on fandom have make him a bit of a pariah. And it's sad, because Norman Spinrad is perhaps the best writer that the genre has ever produced.
Sad, yes, because Spinrad's courage and refusal to play by anyone's rules but his own have cost him the readership that he and his fiction richly deserve.
Despite being known primarily known as a science fiction writer, Norman Spinrad has published other types if fiction. Mainstream, historical and, in the case of Pictures at 11, biting contemporary satire.
Pictures at 11 opens with a typical day at a low rent L.A. TV station. Moldy sitcom reruns, crappy movies and the like, until the live news show at 6 PM. But today the news won't just be delivered by the news team. It will be made by them, when a group of eco-terrorists invade the station and hold the cast and crew hostage. They're called The Green Army Commandos and their goal is not an ambitious one: Merely to save the Planet Earth. Oh yeah, the Commandos are armed with Uzi's and have planted enough explosives and Plutonium to put a major dent in the population of Southern California.
The hostage crisis goes on for days, while something insidious begins to affect the terrorists...media fever. In Pictures at 11, the strings of the government and all its power are pulled by the same puppetmasters that control the very television shows you either love or loathe.
The novel builds to a fever pitch of scathing humor and I laughed out loud several times while reading it...something that is rare for me. Yet Spinrad wisely knows to juggle the caustic wit with with suspense and tension and the finale is both fitting and poignant.
Originally published in 1994, Pictures at 11 unjustly died a quick death. It's one of those tragic cases of a book of genuine brilliance being lost in the shuffle. It was a Bantam Spectra trade paperback, with very nice cover art and graphics. Yet, as in far too many instances, Bantam did little or no publicizing.
Norman Spinrad is one of the most under-appreciated writers of our time and when reading him I am filled with actual awe. There aren't very many others that can move me in such a way. Peter Straub, certainly. Ellison in his prime. Paul Theroux. As many writers that I love, few are in a league with these individuals. Some of his novels are more challenging, difficult, than others. Pictures at 11 is one that is an effortless read and I would recommend it without reservation to any intelligent reader.
Sad, yes, because Spinrad's courage and refusal to play by anyone's rules but his own have cost him the readership that he and his fiction richly deserve.
Despite being known primarily known as a science fiction writer, Norman Spinrad has published other types if fiction. Mainstream, historical and, in the case of Pictures at 11, biting contemporary satire.
Pictures at 11 opens with a typical day at a low rent L.A. TV station. Moldy sitcom reruns, crappy movies and the like, until the live news show at 6 PM. But today the news won't just be delivered by the news team. It will be made by them, when a group of eco-terrorists invade the station and hold the cast and crew hostage. They're called The Green Army Commandos and their goal is not an ambitious one: Merely to save the Planet Earth. Oh yeah, the Commandos are armed with Uzi's and have planted enough explosives and Plutonium to put a major dent in the population of Southern California.
The hostage crisis goes on for days, while something insidious begins to affect the terrorists...media fever. In Pictures at 11, the strings of the government and all its power are pulled by the same puppetmasters that control the very television shows you either love or loathe.
The novel builds to a fever pitch of scathing humor and I laughed out loud several times while reading it...something that is rare for me. Yet Spinrad wisely knows to juggle the caustic wit with with suspense and tension and the finale is both fitting and poignant.
Originally published in 1994, Pictures at 11 unjustly died a quick death. It's one of those tragic cases of a book of genuine brilliance being lost in the shuffle. It was a Bantam Spectra trade paperback, with very nice cover art and graphics. Yet, as in far too many instances, Bantam did little or no publicizing.
Norman Spinrad is one of the most under-appreciated writers of our time and when reading him I am filled with actual awe. There aren't very many others that can move me in such a way. Peter Straub, certainly. Ellison in his prime. Paul Theroux. As many writers that I love, few are in a league with these individuals. Some of his novels are more challenging, difficult, than others. Pictures at 11 is one that is an effortless read and I would recommend it without reservation to any intelligent reader.
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