TV megastar Jack Barron hosts the wildly popular Bug Jack Barron, a phone-in show that listens to public gripes and puts politicians and bosses on the spot--live. Naturally Barron pulls his punches for safety's sake...until he tangles with paranoid billionaire Benedict Howards, peddler of cryonic immortality, and walks into a minefield of deadly cover-ups. Violence erupts. Howards believes he can buy anyone, even Barron's estranged wife, even Barron. Barron doesn't mind selling out if the coin is immortality. On TV, the power remains all his:
As they rolled the final commercial Barron felt a weird manic exhilaration, knowing that he had set up a focus of forces that could squash the five-hundred-billion-dollar Foundation for Human Immortality like a bug if Bennie proved dumb enough to not holler "Uncle".The Foundation's medical secret--poor science but still packing a vicious gut-punch--is more appalling than Barron's nastiest guesses; by the time he learns the truth he's ensnared in complicity. Worse things follow. At the climax, with nothing left to lose, our man goes for broke in a desperate effort to crack Howards open in Barron's own glowing TV arena, in front of 100,000,000 viewers....Slightly dated and occasionally crude, but still hyper-intense, memorable stuff. --David Langford]]>
He finds himself dealing with a byzantine political situation worthy of anything from the banned past. The dictatorship is the Hegemony. Opposition is provided by the aptly named agents of C.H.A.O.S. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of Assassins plays a game that no one can fathom. Whose side are they on? Whose fool are you?
Spinrad explores his philosophical theme in a manner all too rare in contemporary science fiction. The problem is that Order will always try to eliminate any random factors. By its very nature, it encourages opposition and that feeds the forces of chaos. But chaos has built in problems as well. Its victories cannot help but feed the forces of reaction, of order. The heroes in this novel ultimately opt for personal freedom. The villains try to establish a dictatorship over the very nature of reality itself.
And then Spinrad throws in the discovery of aliens. A starship sets forth to meet them, the Prometheus. The Hegemony doesn't like that.
]]>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
]]>Monique Calhoun, malgré ses scrupules, surfe sur cette vague. Membre d'un "consortium relationnel", "capable de vendre des eskimos en Alaska", elle conseille les corporations soucieuses de lancer des projets pharamineux ou de redorer leur blason. Elle va bientôt croiser la route d'Éric Esterhazy, faux prince et vrai descendant d'une famille de trafiquants, valet du groupement des Mauvais Garçons. Sous couvert de guider de riches touristes dans la "ville lumière" sur La Reine de la Seine (son immense bateau à aubes), Éric espionne en réalité leurs faits et gestes et monnaie les informations obtenues. Lorsque Monique loue La Reine afin d'accueillir les membres de la Conférence pour l'amélioration du climat, Éric part à la pêche aux révélations, mettant au jour une "intox" médiatique qui cache un danger planétaire imminent...
On entre dans Bleue comme une orange en fanfare, ou plutôt en big band, au son de "When the Saints Go Marching in", et c'est sur un rythme endiablé que se poursuit le roman – avec certaines notes aigrelettes où les personnages doivent se salir les mains, faire du mal pour faire le bien. Sexe, drogues et... jazz New Orleans composent ici un mélange épicé sous la plume d'un Spinrad au mieux de sa forme, oscillant entre thriller écologique, suspense amoureux et pochade sur la société du spectacle – le sort de la Terre se joue en effet entre orgies de cocaïne et parties de jambes en l'air ! Les rires que l'auteur nous arrache valent à eux seuls le détour, et démontrent que le père de Jack Barron et l'Éternité, ex-enfant terrible des années soixante-dix, n'a rien perdu de ses qualités corrosives. --Nathalie Mège
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