About a hundred years from now, pollution, overpopulation, and ecological disasters have left the rich nations still rich, and the poor nations--the Lands of the Lost--slowly strangling in drought and pollution. New York City is below sea level, surrounded by a seawall. The climate in Paris is much like the twentieth-century climate of long-drowned New Orleans. And Siberia, Golden Siberia, is the crop-land of the world.
Still, for the international corporations and businesses who make a profit on technofixing the environment--the Big Blue Machine--it is business as usual: sell what you can where you can whenever you can. It is better to be rich. But it all may be coming to a terrible end: a scientist has predicted Condition Venus, the sudden greenhouse downfall of the entire planet--but she can't say when.
So now the attention of the world is focused for a week on a UN conference on the Environment in Paris, where all hell is about to break loose.
In Greenhouse Summer, humanity's abuse of the environment has melted the polar ice caps, expanded deserts beyond all 20th-century conceptions, and transformed Siberia into a powerful and agriculturally fertile nation--and the changes aren't over, as Monique Calhoun learns when she is sent to Paris for the United Nations' conference on global warming. The scientists present terrifying evidence that Condition Venus may already have begun. Condition Venus is a climactic change that can quickly turn the Earth as hot and deadly as Venus. The end is truly near. And transnational factions working covertly for their own agendas may only hasten the end of the world and the death of every living creature.
Norman Spinrad is, with Michael Moorcock, Harlan Ellison, and Samuel R. Delany, one of the giants of new wave science fiction. He is the author of many novels, including the notorious Bug Jack Barron, The Iron Dream, The Void Captain's Tale, and Child of Fortune, as well as several fiction and nonfiction collections. --Cynthia Ward--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Spinrad's latest, an uneasy blend of SF, suspense thriller and political commentary, offers grim hope for our planetary ecology. In the future, the United Nations Annual Conference on Climate Stabilization meets in Paris to discuss the possibility that the world's worsening climate may degrade into a chaos of white tornadoes and desert temperatures code-named "Condition Venus." Corporations such as Breads & Circuses, p.r. spinmeisters extraordinaire, will go to any length to learn the truth, and so their operative, sexy Monique Calhoun, is instructed to book the scientists for a dinner on a river boat that's a "data sponge"Ain other words, bugged. In preparation, Calhoun meets the boat's master, ambitious Eurotrash thug Prince Eric Esterhazy. The two fall for one another; and, teaming forces, they discover a diabolical corporate plot. Spinrad remains a whiz with smart dialogue and sharp obsevation of people and place. He buries his theme of biospheric disaster underneath silly spy shenanigans, however, and ends the novel on an unsatisfying note, with the global ecological situation unresolved. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Norman Spinrad's He Walked Among Us - Horror Drive-In
Norman Spinrad's He Walked Among Us
I'm always getting up here and urging you to buy this book, or to go see that movie. Buy a DVD or try a new author. I do it because I'm passionate about this stuff. And I swear to you that, regardless of whether you end up agreeing with me, I am always 100% honest about them.
Coming out on March 30th is what I consider to be the book of the year. It's He Walked Among Us, by Norman Spinrad. I bet it's already shipping now from Amazon.
Maybe you've read some Spinrad. Some pieces here and there. Or maybe you've been trying to make the time to read Bug Jack Barron for decades now. Or maybe you've read some of his books. My own personal favorites are Bug Jack Barron, The Iron Dream, Pictures at 11, Little Heroes, The Mind Game. My previous favorite was probably Norman's mainstream novel of Hollywood, Passing Through the Flame. My favorite now is He Walked Among Us.
Spinrad had trouble getting this book published and it boggles my mind. Here is not only one of the finest science fiction writers that ever published, but one of the most important writers of the modern age. I'm not kidding.
He Walked Among Us was previously published in a typically overpriced and poorly manufactured POD edition in 2004. Norman Spinrad having to put his work out in what is barely a notch above self publishing. It's criminal.
Why did he have such a difficult time getting He Walked Among Us published? For one thing, Spinrad has never been afraid to bite the hand that feeds him. He has been an acerbic critic of organized science fiction fandom for a long time. He paints the community in a harsh light in He Walked Among Us. I have the experience to tell you that his unflattering depictions of SF conventioneers is pretty damned accurate.
Also, Spinrad's career has been hard to classify in any one particular genre. He's known as a science fiction writer and many of his book fall solidly in that realm. Russian Spring, Songs From the Stars, The Void Captain's Tale, Greenhouse Summer, for examples. He has also written books that made him a popular figure in the counterculture, like The Children of Hamelin and Passing Through the Flame. There are stories that seem pulled direct from current events, such as The Mind Game and Pictures at 11. Spinrad has even done historical fiction: Mexica and The Druid King.
So what, exactly, is He Walked Among Us? Well, that's a hard one. In a way it's science fiction. It's also an acidly satiric satire of show business. The novel is screamingly funny at times. There are New Age aspects to He Walked Among Us. It's philosophical. It might deal with Quantum Physics, but I'm not exactly sure. And it also has some hardcore scenes that might make Edward Lee wince.
Jimmy Balaban is an aging, seedy, third rate show biz agent. He meets a dubious comedian named Ralf who claims to be from the future. He's here to save us from ourselves. It's an odd act, but Jimmy is a pro and the nose knows. Maybe there is a little bit of money to be made from this strange act. He takes Ralf on as a client and hires a male science fiction writer and a female New Age guru to turn Ralf into the cash cow that he always wanted. Astonishingly, it works. The question remains: Who, or what, is Ralf?
Spinrad has called He Walked Among Us his magnum opus and I definitely agree. I've been a fan of his work for a long time and I've been continually blown away by his writing. He Walked Among Us, however, is a revelation.
Naturally, a lot of people aren't going to get it. This isn't an easy, simple book. Oh, it's easy enough to read, but it's even easier to dismiss it as gimmicky fluff. Worse, readers could feel that Spinrad has a condescending attitude toward his audience. That he's laughing at them or feeling smugly superior. I don't feel that way, but a complex novel like He Walked Among Us can be interpreted in endless ways. That's part of the beauty of it.
Spinrad has always had an amazing imagination, which is augmented by his own radical sensibilities. I've always felt an element of danger in his work.
Norman Spinrad recently announced on Facebook that he has been diagnosed with stomach cancer. He had previously been told that it was inoperable, but there is greater hope now. It's still terrible news. This writer is a treasure and it's horrible to think that we may be losing him soon. Perhaps he'll pull out of it. I've always perceived Norman Spinrad as a fighter and I believe that he'll fight this battle with the courage that he is known for possessing. Hopefully he'll emerge with his health and years of productive life ahead of him. Forget the vicious lie that everything that doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Cancer is the worst thing in the world and it'll take its toll on him.
Thankfully we have a large body of work from Norman Spinrad to keep us astonished, entertained, and best of all, to keep us thinking. And he's never done a better work than He Walked Among Us. This writer has been neglected for far too long. He Walked Among Us deserves to be a success. And Norman Spinrad deserves more respect than he has gotten lately. A lot more respect.
Please consider buying a copy of He Walks Among Us.
---Mark Sieber
Spinrad, Norman. He Walked Among Us. Tor. Apr. 2010. c.544p. ISBN 978-0-7653-2584-6. $27.99. SF
When talent agent Jimmy Balaban discovers an ad lib comic named Ralf who claims to be from the future, he recognizes a potential moneymaker. Together with a once-famous sf writer and a New Age guru, the trio transform Ralf into a messiah-like figure who brings a message about a desolate future and the need to transform the world in order to avert disaster. When Ralf refuses to break character, his handlers wonder whether he is their creation or whether his message from the future is in fact real. VERDICT First published in France, this latest novel by one of sf's most distinguished authors (Bug Jack Barron, The Iron Dream) presents a cautionary tale that is at once sardonically witty and intellectually thought-provoking. A big book in more than pagination, this meaty saga of a contemporary prophet is essential for sf fans.
Library Journal
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Norman Spinrad is the author of some 20 or so novels, five or six dozen short stories, a classic Star Trek epsisode, a couple of flop movies, an album's worth of songs, political columns, film criticism, literary criticicsm, mini-cookbooks, autobiography, and a bunch of assorted other stuff. The latest to be written is a new and literarily revolutionary novel called WELCOME TO YOUR DREAMTIME, in which you, the reader are the viewpoint character, and sections of which have been published in a weird assortment of magazines as free-standing short stories. The latest to be published in the US,by Tor, is HE WALKED AMONG US, a novel so far ahead of itself that it had to wait until it had become something of the fave rave of a radical viral internet distribution experiment and a cause celebre in France as IL EST PARMI NOUS before any traditional American publisher would bring it out in paper.
Norman has finally returned with an utterly fantastic novel eagerly awaited by Spinrad enthusiasts worldwide! This one has everything Norman's readers have come to love,including a plot concerning the looming crisis of global warming,fully realized characters,funky technology,and lots of sex! Spinrad's singular style of rhythmic rhyming prose has never been better.His artistry with the English language, among others,continues to grow. Readers should pay close attention to the deft handling of the sensitive environmental issues that are the central focus of the plot,as well as the hopeful syndicalist system offered as a replacement for conventional outmoded capitalism. Truly,Norman Spinrad is at the height of his considerable powers! A must read for the serious lover of speculative fiction!
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This review is from: Greenhouse Summer (Mass Market Paperback)
I've been an SF fan for more than 40 years, but find it all too difficult to find stuff worth reading these days. Spinrad's novel wasn't the most literary I've ever read -- the characters were a bit two-dimensional -- but his construction of the post-global warming future was well rounded and convincing. (At least to me. I don't know enough about climatary physics to comment on how technically plausible it might be.) Details: alligators in the canals of Paris, dikes protecting New York City from the elevated sea water, the Sahara Desert so hot as to be (really) lifeless. And the non-climatary details, like making "disney" a non-proper noun representing any technologically produced fake. I also liked the denouement, and the way it revolved around "meatware" computers and the strangely psychotic scientist from California. The politics was interesting, too, although maybe, like the characters, a little overblown to be believable. In all, though, well worth reading.
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I truly thought the world was gonna' end in this one ... Alas ...
HOT DAYS: Dealing with our current situation of global warming, what I thought to have been an "End of the World" type saga, I found to be a fanciful cat and mousebrain type thriller. "Mousebrain," refers to the *polymerized* rat brains known as "meat-ware" used as processors for Spinrad's computers of the future. While not necessarily SF, Greenhouse Summer weaves a tale surrounding our future Earth so very disturbing, yet mystically enchanting the reader gets a true sense of what might yet happen on our homeworld. We get a glimpse of the "Lands of the Lost:" areas already overtaken by flood waters due to the shifting of our polar ice caps, and 21st century Paris, in the summer. In Spinrad's telling, it's always summer in Paris. The dark side is the world hangs terribly close to the brink of "Condition Venus," the point at which we can no longer reverse the global warming effects we, ourselves, have created. Spinrad's humor dampens the final blow as Earth teeters precariously close to the proverbial "end is near." The United Nations had been trying to warn the Earth for years and now it may be too late.
EVEN HOTTER NIGHTS: Spinrad's comical style proves there are no real heroes in a work like this, only a form of disney--a term Spinrad uses throughout the work--meat puppet could react openly to the goings on throughout his endless descriptions of room decor, sexual liaisons and alligators in the Seine. Cardboard mockups of stereotypical displays of only the brackish type inhabit Spinrad's universe. In a world no longer "governed," Syndics seem to go on about their business with alarming effrontery, mostly, as every character in Greenhouse Summer works for one Syndic or another. So, what's the point? I thought, maybe, the world might come to an end. It may yet end due to global warming, however, I had fun getting myself right back to where I started. Greenhouse Summer was an enjoyable read. The originality of the humor kept a smile on my face throughout. Almost every overdescriptive point in the book, including a long arduous sexcapade aboard the "Queen of the River," has a punch line. I recommend this work to SF/Pulp aficionados and most anyone with a sense of humor.
-ras ;)
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First Sentence:
"TO BREAD & CIRCUSES," SAID MERVIN APpelbaum, toasting her with one final glass of first-class champagne as the Right Stuff flight from Tripoli came out of the holding stack, through the cloud deck, and turned on final toward Newark International. Read the first pageKey Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
white tornadoes, tornado recordings, phony prince, canvas screening, flechette pistol, deep sell, greenhouse summer, aft bar, capitalist bastards, planetary climate, climate model, blink rate
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Monique Calhoun, Eric Esterhazy, Bad Boys, Condition Venus, John Sri Davinda, Stella Marenko, Avi Posner, Ivan Marenko, Big Blue Machine, Prince Eric, Eduardo Ramirez, New York, Grand Palais, Third Force, True Blue, Allison Larabee, United Nations, Lands of the Lost, Condition Chaos, Gardens of Allah, Eiffel Tower, Force Flic, General Secretary, Tao of the Chao, Lars Bendsten
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