Gateway Essentials: Norman Spinrad

Norman Spinrad began publishing science fiction in 1963 and has been an important, if sometimes controversial, figure in the genre ever since. He was a regular contributor to New Worlds magazine and, ironically, the cause of its banning by W H Smith, which objected to the violence and profanity in his serialised novel Bug Jack Barron. Spinrad’s work has never shied away from the confrontational, be it casting Hitler as a spiteful pulp novelist or satirising the Church of Scientology.

We recommend these Gateway Essentials as the perfect places to start reading Norman Spinrad.

The Iron Dream in particular is a delight, a metanarrative set in a world in which Adolf Hitler, his political career unsuccessful, emigrated to New York to become a (very bad!) pulp SF writer.

You can find more of Norman Spinrad’s work via his Author page on the SF Gateway website and read about him in his entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.