Tue 14 Apr 2026
NORMAN SPINRAD – Bug Jack Barron. Avon M206; paperback, June 1969. Cover art by Alex Gnidziejko, Hardcover edition published simultaneously by Walker. An abbreviated version appeared earlier in New Worlds SF, December 1967 through October 1968.
From the back cover: POWER PLAY. The lines of power are tangled in a future America threatened by a conspiracy of evil. Politics, communication, sex, love – all are sources of power, all are tools for the maniacal ambitions of one man of vast wealth, Benedict Howards. Opposing Howards is Jack Barron, who has incalculable power of his own – but who first must learn how to use it,,, Combines the soaring imagination of science fiction with uncompromising realism.
The issue if immortality (is there anything so rank you wouldn’t do for immortality?)
The language is necessary.
Rating: *****
April 15th, 2026 at 7:54 am
One of the most controversial science fiction novels of the late Sixties; you could not swing a cat without someone discussing or arguing about it. Spinrad, then considered one of the enfant terribles of the field, followed this book with the only slightly less controversial THE IRON DREAM — part of which was written by Adolph Hitler, now cast as a failed politician turned science fiction writer. I count 37 editions of BUG JACK BARON listed in ISFDb, including the peripatetic six-part serialization in NEW WORLDS. It has been translated into six languages. It was nominated for both a Nebula and a Hugo and missed out on both, and was included in David Pringle’s SCIENCE FICTION: THE 100 BEST NOVELS. A great book, whose time has appeared to be long past — the only English reprints in the past quarter-century are from small, specialist houses. A major reprint edition is long overdue.
April 15th, 2026 at 12:21 pm
You’re quite right, Jerry. The book was extremely controversial at the time, but I’d agree that it’s mostly forgotten now. I wish I’d said more myself at the time, instead of quoting the back cover for most of my review.
The book was also the high point of Spinrad’s career. He wrote maybe a dozen novels, but a ton of short work. He’s still alive but in poor health, I’m told, and remembered today more as a top notch reviewer, critic and SFnal historian than for his own fiction.
April 15th, 2026 at 2:48 pm
I hazard to claim Spinrad is still better known as an author.
The Void-Captain’s Tale(1983) is one of his other career highligths.
April 15th, 2026 at 7:42 pm
That’s one I haven’t read, and I really ought to. I suppose I could argue the point about his fiction in general, but I won’t — or in other words, you’re probably right. He was a very good writer.
April 15th, 2026 at 7:58 pm
I was trying to find something online that would explain why BUG JACK BARRON was so controversial when it first came out. My review didn’t come close, nor is the plot description on Wikipedia. But here’s a link to a “real” review I found online. It doesn’t do what I was looking for, but I found it interesting:
https://schlock-value.com/2019/12/08/bug-jack-barron/
April 17th, 2026 at 8:30 pm
SF was still fairly juvenile and soft spoken when Spinrad brought this out and let all the seams bulge with frank language and sex. It’s a major novel that along with Brunner’s STAND ON ZANZIBAR kicked the traces over dragging SF kicking and screaming into the sexual revolution and the modern literary scene.
It’s not necessarily the first book to approach this level, but the first to catch the public imagination. There was no question Spinrad was a major new voice and no doubt he was throwing down gauntlets and daring someone to take them up.
Heinlein may have fired the opening salvo with STRANGERS, but he wasn’t a young turk or a major voice in the New Wave introduced by Moorcock, Ballard, and Roberts. He was an old master with the insulation that provided.
Short fiction was pushing the boundaries, but BARRON was the first time they had been kicked wide open by an unmistakably revolutionary voice in so public a manner and at novel length. BARRON practically dares someone to ban it or condemn it and then thrived on the controversy when they did. Better still it lives up to the hype, and as yet delivers a bit of a kick if not as much as it did then.
April 17th, 2026 at 10:57 pm
That’s the best summing up of the book that I’ve read yet, though I have to admit my recent searching has been little more than cursory. Shook the sh*t out of the staid old science fiction field, Spinrad did, that’s for sure.
April 18th, 2026 at 9:29 pm
Steve,
Not just SF, he managed to upset some mainstream apple carts and get banned their too.