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An Interview with Norman Spinrad, Anarchist

by Cat Rambo

Norman SpinradAmerican science fiction writer Norman Spinrad described himself as an anarchist and a “syndicalist” in a 1999 interview with Locus. His work challenges and provokes, whether it’s The Iron Dream starring Hitler as a speculative writer or the more recent Osama the Gun. He’s just as outspoken when answering questions, as this interview proves.

Q: The Iron Dream, an alternate history novel about a writer named Adolf Hitler, was banned for eight years in Germany. What drew you to that story and why did you describe the writing of it as “unpleasant”?

NS: Try reading everything Hitler ever wrote for the purpose of being able to channel him and write in his turgid style and see how you like it!  I didn’t really know what I was into until I was into it.  By the time I finished the novel, I hated it.  Only over a few years of awards, world-wide publication, good to rave reviews, did I realize it was the process of writing The Iron Dream that I hated, not the novel itself.

What drew me to write it was that the economic and political reasons for the rise of Nazi Germany never convinced me. Hitler was a media genius, and Nazism a psychosexual phenomenon. … Like a certain species of “heroic fantasy.” Hitler was a big fan of Wagnerian Opera at a time when “Space Opera” had a big fandom too. “Homer Whipple’s” afterward sort of tells the tale, and was the only part of the novel I really enjoyed writing.

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Guest Post: A Viable and Just Business Model For the Ebook Age

by Norman Spinrad
past President, SFWA

Norman SpinradHubris, or not, I’ve been asked to write something like this by diverse interested parties, for the American publishing industry from top to bottom–the writers, the publishers, the points of sale–is in the middle stage of a deep crisis it cannot possibly survive in its current configuration.

The times they are a-changing, the question of when will probably be answered after the next Christmas season as ebooks emerge at minimum as a major market force, over 20% of book sales is a conservative guess, so the answer to that one is soon.

But into what is the existential question–for the writers who create the literary product, for the presently existing publishers and for the remaining traditional retailers at point of sales who rightly fear being evolved out of existence by the Darwinian mojo of corporate Goliaths like Amazon or Barnes and Nobel, let alone Godzilla Google.

But unlike the question of when, the answer to the question of into what is not already pre-determined. What emerges from the shark pond and what sinks into the tar pits is in the process of being decided now, and we do have free will.

That which best adapts survives, but vampire bats and urban sewer rats are as well-adapted as it gets, and the former are blood-sucking parasites, and the latter garbage eaters, and their engine of evolution is their prime directive, all-out slobbering and gobbling greed. Evolution has no moral imperative, it just blindly follows the objective of one bottom line or another, which, I suppose, is as good a definition of greed as any other.

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Quick Updates for 2010-05-23

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Resources

Member News

  • Welcome to SFWA’s newest Active member Robinson Wells author of VARIANT from HarperTeen.
  • Welcome to SFWA’s newest Active member Erin Kellison, author of Shadow Bound from Dorchester.
  • Welcome to SFWA’s newest Active member Carrie Harris, author of BAD TASTE IN BOYS from Random House. She is our 100th new member in 2010.
  • SFWA member Eugie Foster sold Italian, French, & Czech translations of “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest” to Robot, Ténèbres, & Pevnost.
  • Former SFWA president Norman Spinrad had successful surgery for his stomach cancer. Update here.
  • Welcome to SFWA’s newest Affiliate member Malcolm Edwards, Deputy Chief Executive of Orion Publishing Group.
  • SFWA now has 1700 members!
  • SFWA member N.K. Jemisin has sold Polish, Spanish, and audio rights to The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.

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Quick Updates for 2010-05-19

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Resources

  • Fantastic image from NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman on a spacewalk during the current mission.

Member News

  • SFWA Grandmaster Joe Haldeman and China Miéville talking about worldbuilding.
  • Welcome to SFWA’s newest Active member Dan Abnett, author of HORUS RISING from Black Library.
  • Welcome to SFWA’s newest Associate member Gwynne Garfinkle. Read her qualifying story “In Lieu of a Thank You.”
  • SALTATION by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller sold out & went back to press on publication day at Baen. It shot to #4 on WSJ’s Genre Bestsellers.
  • Former SFWA president Norman Spinrad will undergo stomach cancer surgery on Thursday.

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Former SFWA president Norman Spinrad will undergo stomach cancer surgery on Thursday

Former SFWA president Norman Spinrad has been battling stomach cancer for some time now. This Thursday he goes in for surgery to try to remove the mass of tumors blocking his stomach.  In his words, “If nothing is done, this is a slow death by starvation.”

He’s posted about it on Scribd.  We wish him the best of outcomes.

more dire straights

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