NORMAN SPINRAD

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Updated September 2012

AN EXPERIMENT IN CROSS-PLATFORM SYNERGY

My old website having become a hopeless relic, I'm starting anew, and as long as I am, I'm trying something quite differentt, using this new version as a gateway to the varied aspects of my overall web presence, with direct links to my blog, my Facebook page, my YouTube Channel , email, and Scribd page. If this works, more to come.

A MULTI-PLATFORM GATEWAY TO:

NORMAN SPINRAD AT LARGE blogsite

NORMAN SPINRAD Facebook page
NORMAN SPINRAD YouTube Channel

NORMAN SPINRAD--Scribd page

NORMAN SPINRAD'S LA CUISINE HUMAINE cooking blogsite

STAR TREK --HE WALKED AMONG US the original version of my unproduced screenplay for the orginal show

I and CBS have agreed to resolve our disputes concerning the ownership of the Work; as part of the settlement between the Parties, the Parties have agree that there will be no further comment; and CBS is considering opportunities to offer licensed copies of the Work.

IMMORTALIZING MY BACKLIST

I've made a deal with Orion Books to publish 18 of my backlist titles as ebooks.

It's a long, complex story, and you can read the long of it on my blogsite:

Norman Spinrad at large--IMMORTALIZING THE BACKLIST

But the short of it is:

I will removing all the books to which Orion now has ebook rights from Amazon and Barnes and Noble as Orion publishes them. Orion has thusfar acquired something like 1000 titles, and their ultimate goal is to be as definitive as possible, so they’re publishing stepwise, not about to do everything at once, so my self-published versions of those ebooks will disappear for a while but reappear as Orion ebook titles, not just on Amazon, but on diverse retail sites all over the world.

Thusfar, Orion ebooks have already published and made available worldwide THE MEN IN THE JUNGLE, AGENT OF CHAOS, and THE VOID CAPTAIN’S TALE, which have replaced my self-published versions on Amazon, as well as first ebook editions of THE SOLARIANS, SONGS FROM THE STARS, A WORLD BETWEEN, THE STAR-SPANGLED FUTURE, and NO DIRECTION HOME.

Soon to come: THE IRON DREAM, CHILD OF FORTUNE, LITTLE HEROES, RUSSIAN SPRING, PICTURES AT 11, JOURNALS OF THE PLAGUE YEARS, GREENHOUSE SUMMER, OTHER AMERICAS, DEUS X AND OTHER STORIES, and SCIENCE FICTION IN THE REAL WORLD.

All of the above on Amazon world-wide directly, or via my Gateway entry, from many other worldwide sources as well:
click here for my Gateway entry

QUARANTINE

an experiment in epublishing

a novelette published as an epub original

on sale for $3.00 at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

QUARANTINE--an experiment in epublication

Norman Spinrad, who has published over sixty works of short fiction, many of them widely anthologized, in everything from Playboy to New Worlds to Liberation to Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, has put his latest, QUARANTINE, directly on sale as an original “mini-ebook” on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for the mini-price of $3.00.

“Too hot for any conventional magazine to handle, not that it surprises me,” the author explains, “which makes it an ideal guinea pig for this epub experiment.”

QUARANTINE is the novelette-length story of a terrorist attack on New York using a genetically engineered virus that spreads ambiently and gives the entire population of Manhattan Island, tourists and all, uncontrollable diarrhea. Nor is this surrealism or satire, and the biotech is all too plausible.

Certain to gross out, disgust, and/or outrage a mass audience, but perhaps just the sort of thing that arouses pleasure for the very same reason in a certain niche readership.

The question this experiment seeks to answer is how many readers is that? If this can work for something like QUARANTINE, it can work for all sorts of fiction by all sorts if writers, and if it does, the short story could teleport itself from condition terminal into an unexpected golden age.

To learn more go to NORMAN SPINRAD AT LARGE:

To buy at Amazon

To buy at Barnes &Noble

Announcing the ebook first American edition of MEXICA

Published in Britain as a major historical novel, a best-seller in Spanish translation, MEXICA is the amazing full true story of Hernando Cortes’ conquest of Mexico, told in depth as only a novel could tell it--from both the Spanish and Aztec points of view, by Cortes, by Montezuma and by the only character in the novel who is not a real historical character, Alvaro de Sevilla, a secret Jew who presents yet a third and passionately neutral point of view.

Launched in Mexico with personal appearances, magazine, radio, and television appearances by the author and widely reviewed favorably on a literary level, MEXICA has also been appreciated there as performing a valuable cultural and political service to the Mexican people, and particularly the majority with at least partial descent from the so-called “Aztecs.”

For “Aztecs” is really an insult in Nahuatl, the dominant language of the tribes of the empire of Mexico, roughly meaning “barbarians from nowhere, from the boondocks,” and “Mexica”was their own true name for themselves, now being restored in modern Mexico thanks at least in part to this novel.

Nevertheless, MEXICA was unable to find a conventional American publisher on the grounds that Americans would not be interested in a historical novel about Mexico, and this in a country with 40 or 50 million Mexican-Americans fluent in English, this ebook is the first American edition.

Norman Spinrad is the author of over twenty novels, including BUG JACK BARRON, THE IRON DREAM, CHILD OF FORTUNE, PICTURES AT 11, GREENHOUSE SUMMER, and THE DRUID KING.

He has also published something like 60 short stories collected in half a dozen volumes. The novels and stories have been published in about 15 languages.

His most recent novel length American publication was HE WALKED AMONG US, published in April 2010 by Tor.

He's written teleplays, including the classic Star Trek, “The Doomsday Machine,” and two produced feature films DRUIDS and LA SIRENE ROUGE. He is a long time literary critic, sometime film critic, perpetual political analyst, and sometime songwriter.

He's also briefly been a radio phone show host, has appeared as a vocal artist on three albums, and occasionally performs live. He’s been a literary agent, and President of the Science Fiction Writers of America and World SF. He’s posted 25 YouTube videos to date.

He grew up in New York, has lived in Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and Paris, and traveled widely in Europe less so in Asia, and Oceania. And of course in Mexico.

Review copies in rtf form are available to professional reviewers with the understanding that they will not be duplicated by requesting them at normanspinrad@hotmail.com, direct email link in the above letterhead. The author is now in New York, is available for interviews and personal appearances, and may also be contacted at the New York or US cell phone numbers.

Interesting background may be accessed in THE FUTURE OF EBOOKS IS NOW on the NORMAN SPINRAD AT LARGE blogsite.

Link to my sale page on Amazon

Link to my sale page on Barnes and Noble

Which is why I am offering it as an ebook at a token price of $3.00 dollars until January 1, 2011, when the price will be raised to $7.00. Call it my Christmas season write down or near gift to interested readers.

Buy from Amazon

Buy from Barnes & Noble

That much being said, GREENHOUSE SUMMER is also a kind of love story in the sophisticated mode of the old Spencer Tracy Katheryn Hepburn movies, and not without humor, first and foremost entertaining, as all fiction should be, but entertainment with a higher purpose, and a spirit of hope.

Freebie Chapter 1 of GREENHOUSE SUMMER-have a look

first chapter of GREENHOUSE SUMMER

POLICE STATE--work in progress

I've just made a deal to write a novel called POLICE STATE set in near future New Orleans (url to treatment below.) Need any help I can get for 2 week's stay there for research. Where to stay, connections to police, politicians, etc. Blue sky--would love to meet Brad Pitt, stay in one of the stilt houses he's financed..., etc. Not necessarily interested in just the Quarter or the Garden District as base. Any help or advice appreciated.

Link to POLICE STATE treatment

NORMAN SPINRAD AT LARGE a new blogsite

I've done about every other thing I could think of on the Web , so now I'm starting a blogsite. More or less what it says it is, a free wheeling free form interactive blog on my various fields of interest--science fiction, fiction in general, politics, statecraft, mussic, film, cooking, what ever--and their synergetic interactions.

link to NORMANSPINRAD AT LARGE

TWO NEW BOOKS LAUNCHED AS eBOOK FIRST EDITIONS

ON AMAZON AND BARNES AND NOBLE

I've created two new books--NEW WORLDS COMING, a collectiion of uncollected stories, and A CRITIC AT LARGE IN THE M ULTIVERSE, a collection of a decades or so of my critical essay in Asimov's SF Magazine --and experimenting with what happens with ebooks as orginating first editions. If it works, who knows what comes next?

Click here for NEW WORLDS COMING ON AMAZON

Click here for A CRITIC AT LARGE IN THE MULTIVERSE ON AMAZON

HE IRON DREAM

JOURNALS OF THE PLAGUE YEARS

VAMPIRE JUNKIES

AN EXPERIMENT IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

THE IRON DREAM

THE MEN IN THE JUNGLE

AGENT OF CHAOS

click here to connect to my Kindle ebook list on Amazon

click here to connect to my ebook list on Barnes and Noble

THE WINNING SPEECH FOR BARACK OBAMA

I've put a speech I wrote for President Obama on NORMAN SPINRAD AT LARGE directly on the opening page:

Link to NORMAN SPINRAD AT LARGE

HE WALKED AMONG US

published by Tor April 2010

"Norman Spinrad, one of the sacred heroes of my coming-of-age as a writer, has never quit redefining his role as dissident and sage, inviting the bullies of the present moment outside for a throwdown, and somehow also conjuring possible futures despite all the odds against those -- he's that most miraculous of creatures, a Utopianist's Dystopianist."

----Jonathan Lethem

"Norman Spinrad is one of the most extraordinary writers alive, and HE WALKED AMONG US is testament: mad, razored, darkly funny and perfectly evil."

---- Warren Ellis
“Before Neal Stephenson and William Gibson there was Norman Spinrad—a modern master of imagination. Spinrad’s mix of the bizarre, the angry, and the wildly visionary is unique in science fiction.”---Greg Bear

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

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.

A nicely done new interview with me on the wordpress blog, pix, links, etc.

published as IL EST PARMI NOUS

by French publisher Fayard

OSAMA THE GUN published by Fayard
Fayard is a very major French literary house, and they approached me with an offer to buy world rights to both novels.. Having been unable to find an English language publisher for HE WALKED AMONG US for about a decade and OSAMA THE GUN for several years, I was happy to accept and become a "French writer" for these books, and maybe more. I have just returned from France where a fabulous major launch campaign was arranged for IL EST PARMI NOUS was arranged--signings, text and radio interviews (all in French!). And now, Tor has bought US rights to OSAMA THE GUN after all these years.. Vive la France! At this writing, English language rights to OSAMA THE GUN remain available. A portion of OSAMA THE GUN, which I've posted on Scribd (see link on this web page below) has thusfar been downloaded (in English) about 40,000 times.

WELCOME TO YOUR DREAMTIME

I wrote my newest novel, WELCOME TO YOUR DREAMTIME, without a contract with a publisher because it's by far the most radical and experimental book I've ever written, and I wasn't sure I could actually write such a thing until I did. Well as it turned out, I could and I did. It's written almost entirely in second person singular, that is, you, the reader are the hero and heroine, the viewpoint characters, of dreams that can be bought on chips and played back to you as you sleep. Among other things, it's the story of the rise, threatened fall, and redemption of this artform, and if it works maximally, it will leave at least some readers with the power of a form of lucid dreaming. Portions of WELCOME TO YOUR DREAMTIME have already been published as free-standing short stories in Baen's Universe , Weird Tales, Space and Time, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Paraphilia. And now my French publisher, Fayard, has bought World Rights. English language book rights are still available at the moment, but must be purchased from Fayard, not directly from me.

VAMPIRE JUNKIES

the movie

Mathieu Carriere and I are co-producing a film adaptation of my short novel VAMPIRE JUNKIES, starring Mathieu Carriere as Count Dracula. Jerome Lefdup has made a short presentation video. The novella itself is available from Fictionwise, see link further below. We've got the cast, the director, the script, and so forth and are ready to go. But we've still got some room left for a few more investors. If you're interested, you can contact me at the email link directly above.

Click here for presentation video

Ediciones B México esta publicando MEXICA en espanol-- en México

un lanzamiento especial

Descubre una visión única de la conquista del Imperio Azteca, Moctezuma, Cortés y los Conquistadores--el regreso de Quetzalcoatl y la caída del imperio Mexica marcan le muerte del Quinto Sol, una nueva era esta por comenzar.

Presiona aqui por MEXICA pagina de Ediciones B

En ingles--pardon my English

It would exhaust my meager Spanish to tell this. I went to Mexico for the launch of MEXICA there, and it was quite fantastic and wonderful. A launch event which you can see via the above link to the special web site Ediciones B has set up for the book. Over 30 interviews, large intitial printing. Ads, banners, actual billboards! However well this all does or does not do, Ediciones B did everything that a writer wants a publisher to do, and did it right. Wonderful warm people doing their things with more professionalism and panache than anything I've ever seen (or for that matter heard of) in the US. MUCHAS GRACIAS, AMIGOS!

DEUS X Now Available from Fine Tooth Press

Fine Tooth Press has published a new trade paperback edition of DEUS X

Click here to order from Amazon US

Click here to order from Amazon UK

RIDING THE TORCH

RIDING THE TORCH, my Jupiter Award winning short novel, is now availble directly from Renaisance ebooks and shortly from Fictionwise and elsewhere.

Click here to download RIDING THE TORCH from Renaissance ebooks

VOICE OVER radio play now on the Internet air

Broken Sea, a kind of web radio station, has produced VOICE OVER, which I indeed wrote as a very short radio play for Omni a long time ago.

Click here for direct link to VOICE OVER radio play

Click here for Broken Sea home page & Intro to VOICE OVER

Dona Sadock and Norman Spinrad on MNN TV in New York

Dona and I were interviewed on Channel 56 in New York. Below is a link to the complete half hour interview put on You Tube. The quality therefore is not as good as what was orginally aired.

Click here for YouTube of tv talk show

)

OSAMA THE GUN part 5--the novel

The video tells the story of how my unpublished last-written novel OSAMA THE GUN came to be written, why I was compelled to write it even though I knew full well finding an American publisher to publish it, let alone an Arabic one, would be exceedingly difficult. I'm still having trouble finding a publisher with such cojones, which is one of the reasons I made the OSAMA THE GUN videos. All explained in this last OSAMA THE GUN VIDEO. Below, for convenience, direct links to the specific video on both YouTube and MySpace.

OSAMA THE GUN

the freeware portion

This is NOT the complete text of the novel OSAMA THE GUN ! This is the first third of the novel This portion of OSAMA THE GUN is Freeware I am making this portion available as freeware as widely as possible because publishers have been rejecting OSAMA THE GUN the completed novel for reasons I dare to suggest are largely political, and for reasons that will I believe be obvious to anyone who reads even this portion, they are the same reasons this novel needs to be published and read. If you want to know more about what this is all about and why the author of over 20 novels is doing a thing like this, go to my YouTube channel “MeTube” and have a look at the videos OSAMA THE GUN parts 1-5. As far as I’m concerned, this matter transcends the literary in the era in which we all find ourselves, and the reasons why publishers are frightened of publishing OSAMA THE GUN are the very reasons it should be read, and widely, in the west, and in the Islamic world. For those of you reading the portion and want to read the rest of the novel, I’m enlisting your aid. Redistribute this freeware file. Email me at: normanspinrad@hotmail.com And just say you want to read the novel. I’ll put all those emails in a file and keep a running count. If you want to castigate me for what I’m doing, email me and I’ll keep those in a file and count them too.

Click here to download OSAMA THE GUN the portion from Scribd

Click here for OSAMA THE GUN THE NOVEL (video) on YouTube

ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF--a video bibliography on YouTube

A narrated bibliography of all my novels, I think, illustrated by some of the covers. Hardly completist, but interesting, and something I think I'm going to make cross-platform use of. A CD of this would make a novel press and publishing presentation. I think maybe I'm inventing something here.

Click here for video bibliographie on YouTube

MARIJUANA DAY PARADE IN NEW YORK

My first attempt at video reportage on MeTube, using a phone camera, the New York version of World Marjiuana Day in New York.

Click here for Marijuana Day Parade in New York

I'm also a performer in a music video called VOTE FOR ME on YouTube! Check it out!

click here for VOTE FOR ME

INDEX

GATEWAY TO THE INTERIOR

Click here for Index

stories, radio play, cookbook, news, covers, more. Including my eyewitness account of 9/11. I was there, and up close.

COVER GALLERY

    I've received so many cover photos that I'm splitting up the
Cover Gallery into individual book galleries so that downloading
the GIFs and JPGs in one great big lump won't take forever.
   Click on the covers for the books that you want to see.