Fun with your new head [Hardcover]

Thomas M. Disch (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Doubleday; Book Club (BCE/BOMC) edition (1968)
• ASIN: B000FMIHV2
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,813,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Inexorable the Pursuit, July 26, 2008

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Like the previous reviewer, I rekindled my interest in the works of Thomas Disch after learning about his tragic death in early July 2008. In turn, I was quick to grab this old out-of-print collection of short stories from the mid-1960s upon finding a forlorn copy in a used bookstore. But note that the previous reviewer actually said very little about this particular book. Sci-fi (and to a certain extent, horror) fans with a historical mindset will find Disch's works to be worthy of much more respect and attention. But during the time period covered in this anthology he was not yet in his prime.

Here we find Disch exercising ideas from the new wave of sci-fi that was breaking at the time, exploring sci-fi phenomena in earthly settings with psychological or political themes. Most of the short stories here were built on underdeveloped ideas or were restricted (in length) for magazine publication, and either way Disch was still finding his voice. Civil rights angst and cold war paranoia are common themes here, but Disch didn't explore such themes very fully in under-whelming tales like "The Number You Have Reached" or "1-A," while some supposedly offbeat experiments in style like "Fun with Your New Head" and "The City of Penetrating Light" have aged very badly. Granted, there are a few winners in this collection, such as "Nada," "The Squirrel Cage," and "Casablanca," all of which are given room to develop their ideas and which place Disch firmly in a new generation of 1960s sci-fi talent that would achieve greatness at a later date. But unfortunately, few of the stories in this particular anthology are truly memorable, and it should be tracked down only by collectors. For most interested readers, Disch's underappreciated talents are best found in later novels including "Camp Concentration," "334," and "On Wings of Song." [~doomsdayer520~]

5.0 out of 5 stars Contents Listing, June 22, 2011

By 

Roger Zeus (Richmond, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fun with your new head (Hardcover)

Collection of 17 stories. Thought I'd list them here since Amazon doesn't.

· The Roaches
· Come to Venus Melancholy
· Linda and Daniel and Spike
· Flight Useless, Inexorable the Pursuit
· Descending
· Nada
· Now Is Forever
· The Contest
· The Empty Room
· The Squirrel Cage
· The Number You Have Reached
· 1-A
· Fun with Your New Head (aka Cephalotron)
· The City of Penetrating Light
· Moondust, the Smell of Hay, and Dialectical Materialism
· Thesis on Social Forms and Social Controls in the U.S.A.
· Casablanca

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an amazing and unusual book by a singular writer, July 12, 2008

By 

R. S. Brown "a cobalt wherry lorn" (tofino, canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

thomas disch killed himself last week, july 4, 2008. a critic once called him "perhaps the most respected, least trusted, most envied and least read of all modern first-rank SF writers." he was (surprisingly) best known for writing a popular children's book--"the brave little toaster." but disch--a brilliant crank--wrote pretty much everything; poetry, sci-fi, so-called literature, horror. this book is a prime example of his unlimited imagination, subversive humor and chilling accuracy at capturing humanity in all its ugly glory. my favorite story in this collection is "the roaches."

disch is one of those under-known cult favorites whose status will only grow after his death, i'm sure. i'm sorry he didn't feel the full force of that appreciation while living.