Customer Reviews

He Walked Among Us

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read the first hundred pages of this book in less than three hours and it's taken me nearly four weeks to read the next two hundred pages. Will this book ever end? The crack girl/rat girl scenes are well written, as is the entire amount I've read, but the are becoming tedious. The mini-epiphanies Amanda and the writer keep having are starting to get meaningless. If Norman didn't write so well and a strong desire to see the two vastly different threads somehow come together, I think I would've returned this to the library a week ago. Please tell me, does it end and is it worth the effort?

This is one of those books that in the reading of it, I was constantly a little frustrated. Even though it was written as a contemporary piece when it was authored in the early 1990s, it feels very much like a period piece in that one is continually reminded that it is of the past and not some more generic time. Because the book is meant to be about the intrusion of the future upon the present, the fact that it is now set in the past creates a low-level dissonance throughout. Beyond that, it feels over-long and like other reviewers, I was ready for it to end long before the story was over.

But I still give it four stars because 9 months after reading it, I still find my mind going back to it again and again. The world in which it is set is richly detailed (the flip-side to that strong sense of period) and the characters are almost all like-able (even Rat Girl). But beyond that, it builds to some theories that are a fun game to fully work through. It's far from a perfect book, but it's one of the most memorable I've read in the last year.

Norman Spinrad's HE WALKED AMONG US tells of a hack agent who discovers Ralf, who claims to be from the future with an important message. In his future, humanity is barely alive and the planet nearly dead. When a science fiction writer and a New Age guru become involve, Ralf's powerful warning begins to see light in this fine account of past/future connections.

I love most of Spinrad's work. This one has the usual Spinradisms, but reads like a first draft that Norman filed away because he saw it was going nowhere. It really needs to be about half as long, and even then it would be a lesser work, with nothing like the amount of revealed truth necessary to carry off a story like this.

...just finished this; I gotta say it was pretty good. Summarized as a sometimes deep and transcendental 500+ page journey between science fiction fandom and new age mysticism that packs a many deep belly laughs. Spinrad is a master of his craft, and although a bit long on words at times, this is not his best, but head and shoulders above his contemporaries.

After watching stand-up comic Ralf perform, sleazy agent Jimmy "Texas" Balaban believes the man has the potential to be a messianic superstar in spite of Ralf insisting he is from the future in which the world is horrible grim place to live. Jimmy hires science fiction writer turning hack Dexter Lambkin and New Age wannabe guru Amanda Robin to make it happen.

Amanda buys into Ralf's spontaneous rap without challenging him; on the other hand cynical Dexter is shocked that he too is being mesmerized by Ralf. However, Ralf's message of a world dying unless we change today is overwhelming the comedian who wants to vanish like he did once before.

This is not an easy read, but those readers who enjoy something satirically different will appreciate He Walked Among Us; as Norman Spinrad lampoons capitalist preachers in mega-churches, media, DC and Wall Street, etc. while the world is in crisis. Character driven fans will be reminded of the movie Network as the author also ridicules his fan base for being overly zealous over the wrong segue. With a strong cast including Jimmy Durante's Schnozzola, this convoluted tale will have the audience ponder what is important in life.

Harriet Klausner

Can science fiction save a world like ours, torn by violence and on the very brink of ecological disaster? More to the point, can science fiction fans save the world? Norman Spinrad had entirely too much fun answering these questions. The story gimmick goes like this: a middling level theatrical agent stumbles on a relentlessly vitriolic stand-up comic who claims to come from the future, sent back in time to cause us to change our destructive ways before it is too late. The agent enlists a science fiction writer, whose single visionary book still inspires a tiny fan following, and a New Age guru to shape the comic's act. As the comic's success leads him to host a talk show on a tenth-rate network, questions pile upon questions. Is the comic so demented, he never, ever breaks character? Or is he, by some wild chance, telling the truth? If he succeeds, will the paradox of time travel result in his never having appeared? Are science fiction fans, the only people willing to believe in a better future, his only hope? Spinrad's prose is snappy, absorbing, at times poignant or hilarious, usually irreverent, as are his references to iconic figures in science fiction (even himself) and if I did not always agree with his characterizations, I found this an absorbing, thought-provoking read

He Walked Among Us
Norman Spinrad
Tor Books
2010
Hardcover
540 pages
ISBN: 0765325845

"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in."
-Robert A. Heinlein

Imagine for a moment that the future existence of the planet balanced on your ability to travel back in time and explain the costs and concepts of the depletion of the ozone layer to a subsistence farmer in rural Mesopotamia. Could you do it? Enter Ralf, stand-up comic from about as far up the time-line as you can get. And he comes bearing terrifying news. The future planet is in disarray, biodiversity is as extinct as the carrier pigeon, the air is thick and un-breathable, almost unusable without heavy filtration scrubbers and to make matters worse, the last generations of humankind have taken refuge in pressurized shopping mall domes. Humanity clings to the last remnants of life on a scourged planet that could not be saved.

Now take an aging Science Fiction writer named Dexter D. Lampkins who is a flawed but intelligent individual (and Spinrad's pseudo- literary double) with designs of writing the next great social Science Fiction Transformation of mankind, mingle with Amanda Robins, a New Age Wunderkinds seeking total Zen spiritualism, and mix in a whole lot of Ralf "the comic from the future." Blend them all together on the same late-night television show and what do you get? Well, Monkey-Men, let's just say that you may want to read this one yourself to discover all the gory details.

Ralf's message is simple and crude. Start cleaning up the environment right now or the future world is going to suffer. Quit mucking up Mother Habitat so the deprived people of the future can take a break from living in constant fear of complete extinction.

Whether by accident or design Spinrad does reveal a plethora of Science Fiction Convention lore, anecdotes, behavior, and attitudes. And surprise, the Sci-Fi geeks are no less real than you or I. For some reason the Cons were the most enjoyable scenes in the book for me. Though Spinrad served up many unflattering and sometimes harsh depictions of Science Fiction conventioneers his descriptions lent realism to the story that may have otherwise been lost. Perhaps I felt so close to those scenes because, like Lampkin, I too identify with the weird and geeky, slightly askew, adoring, star-struck fans. I'm one of them!

Spinrad's prose and dialogue is superb, humorous, enticing, and real and scans with perfect pace. If there is any real flaw with the story it is with the character known as Loxy Foxy and her strange companion the "machine-rat- from-the-depths-of-the -subway. Not so much the content itself but how long and drawn out it became in the middle of the book. It seemed like we revisited the same scenes over and over again which cluttered up the story line and served no real purpose. I suspect the novel would have stood well on its own in the absence of those characters. [I'm still unsure of what the confrontation between Loxy, the rat, and Ralf meant! Perhaps someone would care to enlighten me?]

Much like James Cameron's "Avatar" Spinrad's "He Walked Among Us" is social commentary with a message concerning the current state of our eroding world and until we can, as Heinlein eschewed, figure out a way to distribute our eggs more evenly someone up the stream of time is going to suffer. We need to learn to sustain what we have and become more pro-environmental. Stories like "He Walked Among Us" and "Avatar" can only make us more socially aware of our actions and surroundings. If civilization collapses due to resource depletion we'll have only ourselves to blame for it and our children's children will be made to suffer. Can our collective conscience survive that burden?

3 ½ out of 5 Stars

The Alternative
Southeast Wisconsin

I've been a big fan of Norman's since I read the Void Captain's Tale many years ago. I'll read anything he writes; along with Gene Wolfe, Neal Stephenson and William Gibson, I find Spinrad's books richly rewarding journeys. "He Walked Among Us" is a paradox. Poking through a well-knit, moving and necessary tale are moments of self-pity, personal frustration and put-downs of the very audience which he writes to. Hopefully, he'll be able to more fully immerse himself into his next literary effort...Spinrad is truly one of the best writers (writers, not SciFi writers) out there.

$14.99 for the Kindle Edition of this book...and for what exactly?? Am I paying for the ink? Nope. The pages? Nope. The man hours of packaging and delivery? Again, no. WHAT?? WHAT am I paying for????? Greedy publishers...shameful.