Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Camp Concentration” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Camp Concentration

Thomas M. Disch

3.73 · Rating details · 2,657 ratings · 221 reviews

Louis Sacchetti is a poet and pacifist imprisoned for refusing to enlist in the war against Third World guerillas. Sacchetti and the other inmates are used in perverse scientific experiments, and Sacchetti is infected with a germ that raises intelligence to incredible heights while causing decay and death.

Get A Copy

Paperback, 184 pages

Published May 1999 by Vintage (first published October 1967)

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Camp Concentration, please sign up.

Be the first to ask a question about Camp Concentration

Lists with This Book

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels

100 books — 99 voters

Golden Age & New Wave SF

277 books — 256 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 3.73 ·

Rating details

· 2,657 ratings · 221 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of Camp Concentration

Nov 20, 2008 Manny rated it it was amazing

Shelves: too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, strongly-recommended, science-fiction

Flowers for Algernon has become a minor classic, and, thanks to the movie, even people who haven't read it often know the story. Poor Charlie Gordon is given an operation which turns him from a mentally subnormal dishwasher into a genius, but the treatment turns out to be flawed. It's a great weepie, and I am one of many people who love it.

Camp Concentration is Algernon's evil twin. It's exploring the same basic theme, but I doubt it will ever be as well known. That doesn't necessarily mean it's Flowers for Algernon has become a minor classic, and, thanks to the movie, even people who haven't read it often know the story. Poor Charlie Gordon is given an operation which turns him from a mentally subnormal dishwasher into a genius, but the treatment turns out to be flawed. It's a great weepie, and I am one of many people who love it.

Camp Concentration is Algernon's evil twin. It's exploring the same basic theme, but I doubt it will ever be as well known. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a worse book - just that it's taking more risks, and not trying as hard to be accessible. Algernon is a tragedy; CC is a black comedy, and often a rather horrifying one. In Disch's version, the program is run by the military, who are not slow to see the possible advantages of being able to create geniuses to order from the most unpromising material. So what if it eventually kills them? We're at war, you know! (At the time, it was the Vietnam war). It turns out, however, that creating a few dozen instant geniuses, handing them all a death sentence, and locking them up together can lead to unexpected consequences.

One of most engaging things about the book is the way the story is narrated. As in Algernon, it's a diary; this time, the diary is being kept by Louis Sacchetti, a poet and conscientious objector who is assigned to the project with the brief of reporting on progress from a literary perspective. I love fictitious writers who are actually given a chance to show what they can do. Louis is not as impressive as John Shade in Pale Fire, who will no doubt keep the number one spot for a good while to come, but he's definitely keeping up with the pack, and I would say is at least as good as e.g. Randolph Ash in Possession. He's credible both as a character and as an author.

The book has flaws (difficult to discuss them without spoiling a fun plot), but all in all I found it deeper and more interesting than Algernon, and I have re-read it several times. Strongly recommended to anyone who in principle likes SF, but tends to be put off by the fact that the average SF author just can't write. Disch could, and it's odd that more people haven't come across him.
...more

flag 112 likes · Like · see review

Oct 01, 2017 Glenn Russell rated it it was amazing

Camp Concentration – American author Thomas M. Disch’s 1968 science/speculative fiction, alternate history set in the near future where the United States has declared war on the entire world and features main character Louis Sacchetti, a poet who resists the draft and chooses prison rather than the army. But what a prison! The poet is sent to a secret camp where prisoners are given an experimental drug without their knowledge or consent, a drug that increases intelligence but in less than a year ...more

flag 64 likes · Like · see review

May 02, 2009 Mir rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

This book didn't grab me straight away -- it isn't like contemporary novels aimed at a wide popular audience, where the first sentence is a hook, or the author begins in the middle of an action scene to get the reader caught up. Disch doesn't show his hand, or even his prose, right away. But once he has lulled you into complacency and snuck up on you, oh man. Great writing.

Here is a helpful list of a few words you may not use every day:

nystigmatic: subject to involuntary eye movement.

tappet: a ...more

flag 42 likes · Like · see review

Apr 06, 2010 Shannon rated it liked it

Shelves: 2010, speculative-fiction, apocalyptic-or-post-apocalyptic

In this alternate America, the country didn't stop with Vietnam. It declared war on the world. Scientists work on creating and perfecting the latest in weapons and germ warfare. When Louis Sacchetti, a poet and war protestor, is moved from his prison to a secret underground camp called Camp Archimedes, he is at first bemused and impressed by the good food yet wary. The director of the camp, General Humphrey Haast - or "HH" as Sacchetti calls him - has had Louis brought there in order for him to ...more

flag 16 likes · Like · see review

Jun 22, 2009 Kathryn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: war, dystopian, science-fiction, prison

This was published in 1968 and it feels like something written at least a decade or two later. I am rather surprised by how much this book is sticking with me. I finished today but I dreamt about it last night. It was the first thing I thought of when I awoke this morning. I wish more people knew of this book. I find it hard to believe that so few, at least here on Goodreads, have read this.

As other reviews have mentioned, this book is not perfect. I would rate 4 stars if considering that but I ...more

flag 15 likes · Like · see review

Aug 31, 2016 Jonfaith rated it liked it

Shelves: speculativelyspeaking

What should be shocking instead arouses a curiosity. Camp Concentration details a government experiment where prisoners are injected with a compound which makes them progressively hyper intelligent before the syphilis component in the injection leads them to madness and death. A poet who had been imprisoned as a conscientious objector to the forever war is asked to chronicle the process. The inmates stage a play Faustus (by Kit Marlow) and the poet pens a play Auschwitz: a comedy. The whole ente ...more

flag 14 likes · Like · see review

Mar 24, 2010 Brad rated it liked it

Shelves: sci-fi, read-in-2013

WARNING: This review contains vulgarity. Just so you know. Thanks.

"Well, you read it. How'd it go?"
"Well."
"Three stars well?"
"Yep."
"Only three."
"For now."
"Because ...?"
"Because I am going to have to read this again. That middle section of Sacchetti's ramblings needs to be dissected. I need more time with that portion, and I need to read the whole thing again at a time when I can focus on it and only it."
"So you're three stars is kind of bullshit?"
"Yeah. Kind of. But I can't give it anything else ...more

flag 13 likes · Like · see review

Dec 11, 2021 Kevin Lopez (on sabbatical) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sf-read, favorites-fiction

Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch (1968).

I’ll let Ursula K. Le Guin’s words of unqualified praise—printed on the book’s front cover like a papal bull-urb of literary endorsement—do the heavy lifting here:

“It is a work of art, and if you read it, you will be changed.”

This book was terrifying, yet full of pathos and dark humor.

flag 10 likes · Like · see review

May 13, 2008 Jonas Reitz rated it really liked it

Shelves: scifi

If Philip K Dick had written "Flowers for Algernon", it would have come out like this. ...more

flag 10 likes · Like · see review

Aug 16, 2021 Craig rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Camp Concentration is the most challenging of Disch's novels that I've read, but also perhaps the most thought-provoking. (If Kafka has been doing genre work in 1968...) It's a dystopian work that I think belongs much more in the category of "literature" than most of the science fiction I read, though it seems to owe something to Flowers For Algernon and The Prisoner...(of which, ironically, Disch wrote an adaptation). It's an epistemological book, and Disch doesn't take time to expand and expla ...more

flag 8 likes · Like · see review

Dec 12, 2012 notgettingenough rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, pairs

Camp Concentration by Disch and Otto by Tom Ungerer

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

A pair made in a sort of hell, I guess, birthday books read back to back.

I don’t understand why Otto is badly written, when the author is obviously capable of writing good text in English. If you want to write some sort of nightmare for children – even worse, a nightmare that really happened – one has to be very careful, I imagine and this isn’t. It uses badly cliched English that is inappropriate for any ...more

flag 7 likes · Like · see review

Dec 07, 2008 Sam rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: David Bowen

Someone has something insightful to say about venereal disease and philosophy of mind and his name isn't David Cronenberg! Saints be praised!

Seriously though this will leave you starved for science fiction written by a WRITER as opposed to a thinker or a schemer. ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Oct 27, 2013 Rageofanath rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

I find that it isn't easy to run across books by Thomas Disch, he's a fairly obscure pulp scifi author. After reading two of his books, I understand why he's both critically acclaimed in reviews but not a common find in the bookstore. The mechanics of his writing obscure the overall story and tend to create a slog for the reader. The other Disch book I have read to date is "Puppies of Terra". Both books have a very inventive plots and a few solid characters but appear to act as a soapbox for Dis I find that it isn't easy to run across books by Thomas Disch, he's a fairly obscure pulp scifi author. After reading two of his books, I understand why he's both critically acclaimed in reviews but not a common find in the bookstore. The mechanics of his writing obscure the overall story and tend to create a slog for the reader. The other Disch book I have read to date is "Puppies of Terra". Both books have a very inventive plots and a few solid characters but appear to act as a soapbox for Disch to write several chapters of allusion-heavy monologues interspersed with enough plot points to hold a story together.

I felt that the plot and big reveal for "Camp Concentration" might be worth the slog, but it was not always an enjoyable experience. Several times I put the book down when I got sick of the pretentiousness and didn't feel bad about not picking it up for a few days. I skimmed more of the monologues than I care to admit and really didn't miss much.

One thing I found problematic was the fact that unlike he somewhat similar book "flowers for algernon", you can't see the progress of the disease in anyone. You know the main character is infected only because he writes a play he thinks is his best work and gets a dream about it, but there's nothing in his actual writing to indicate the progress of the disease and his burgeoning intellect. While you might not expect such a dramatic change as in Algernon's Charlie, you should expect some subtle change in writing, or in the behavior of those around him who were in different phases of the disease. Instead we mostly saw end products.

Additionally as in many other works of the genre and time, "Camp Concentration" has a mild dose of racism tempered only by its heavy sexism. There is only one black character ( Mordecai) and one female character (Dr. Busk) and neither is either flattering or spoken of well between characters. Mordecai manages to prove himself to be a powerful, insightful, and multifaceted character by the end, but as usual, the female character is defined strictly by her sexual activity - lack or excess. Her academic credentials only serve to put her in the position to exercise her sexual power. Her only real function in the plot is her vagina, and the main character and another high ranking official, Haast, constantly make disparaging remarks about her apparent sexual conservatism.

But what is good about the book? It's a refreshing break from the Hero's Journey, its not fluff, its an interesting thought experiment, it expands your vocabulary, and the end is pretty good if you can muster the patience to get there. ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Jul 09, 2008 Jeffrey Greggs rated it it was amazing

I am, perhaps, prejudiced (and maybe still in shock). Tom was a friend. I am glad I didn't read his SF, though, while he was still around: I would have proved a blathering fanboy and an unworthwhile conversationalist.

I have encountered many writers who possess the twisted, wild skills of imagination germane to speculative fiction, but I have rarely seen them execute their visions with such facility. Tom's prose is knife sharp, and allusions to Dante, Marlowe, Rilke, Goethe, et al. abound (they h ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Jan 29, 2009 William Randolph rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Thomas Disch's Camp Concentration, published in 1967, is the most erudite work of speculative fiction I've ever read, beating out even the various books and short stories that I've read by Gene Wolfe. The book's narrator, you see, is a poet, and he casually deploys scores of allusions, some of which I recognized and others I couldn't follow. Disch is the only writer besides David Bentley Hart that I've seen use the word “chthonic,” which is, along with “phthisic,” one of my favorite words that s ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Aug 30, 2010 Anita Dalton rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, books-we-own

“Beauty,” he said solemnly, “is nothing but the beginning of a terror that we are able barely to endure.” And with those words George Wagner heaved the entirety of a considerable breakfast into that pure, Euclidean space.

It’s hard to put into words why these two sentences filled me with despair reading this book, but let me try. First, Disch has a mentally ill man quoting Rilke. If that wasn’t a cliche then, it certainly is now. Second, I really can’t believe that Louis, the narrator and throu ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Dec 28, 2008 Adam rated it really liked it

Shelves: horror-disguised-as-literature, black-comedy, literature-disguised-as-science-fic

“In summary: I like this book, and I think anybody who likes books about painters and devils would like it too.”(pg.83). Some of the sixties new wave leaves me cold (Sorry Chip Delaney this means you), but when it’s on, some of the best literature of the era came out of it. This starts out like Kafka rewriting Flowers of Algernon with hints of the Prisoner (which Disch wrote a novel for) before becoming a surreal dreamscape and then winding into an ,I thought, satisfying twist. Wonderfully macab ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Nov 12, 2017 Papaphilly rated it it was ok

Shelves: dystopia, science-fiction, fiction

This was not one of my favorite reads. Well written, but did not work for me. The novel felt very stilted in the writing and never really made sense to me. The easiest way for me to describe the book is slog. It was a very short novel that felt much longer in reading. Part of the problem for me is that this is a very old novel and it did not age particularity well. Horrible things happen to the inmates and the reader does not care. This is a thinking novel and with dialogue carrying on the weigh ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Jun 14, 2021 Matthew Pritchard rated it liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Jun 24, 2019 Branko Nikovski rated it it was amazing

Psychology is the Inquisition of modern age.
Experiments, experiments, experiments!

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Aug 25, 2018 Julie Capell rated it it was amazing

Shelves: human-rights, pub_post-1945, type_fiction, scifi, author_male

Written in 1968, I know the book is a reflection on America's involvement in Vietnam but reading it in 2018, I felt like it is talking directly about things that are happening now. People being whisked off to black ops sites where they are incomunicado with the rest of the world? Yup, we've got those. Germ and chemical warfare? Check. Human experiments to create the next superman? It wouldn't surprise me.

As good as the setup for the story is, the writing is even better. We experience the story ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 18, 2011 James Henderson rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, sf-group

The most notable thing about the dystopic view of an alternative America in Thomas Disch's novel is the status of the narrator. This topic is important to me in part because of my familiarity with Vladimir Nabokov's postmodern novel Pale Fire for which the issue is paramount, but while thinking about that book my view of the status of other narratives was called into question. I mention this because Camp Concentration is told in the first person as the journal of Louis Sacchetti, poet and draft The most notable thing about the dystopic view of an alternative America in Thomas Disch's novel is the status of the narrator. This topic is important to me in part because of my familiarity with Vladimir Nabokov's postmodern novel Pale Fire for which the issue is paramount, but while thinking about that book my view of the status of other narratives was called into question. I mention this because Camp Concentration is told in the first person as the journal of Louis Sacchetti, poet and draft resistor (this is the 1970s), and the question of its reliability is just as important as in Nabokov's meta-fictional work. The story is somewhat reminiscent of Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon, but with a Dostoevskian twist.

Adding to the complexities of the narrative are many literary references, most important of which are references to the fictional poetry of Sacchetti himself and those to the Faust legend as told by Goethe and Marlowe. There is the character of Mordecai Washington who plays Mephistofeles to Sacchetti's Faust. As another inmate undergoing the drug treatment that enhances intelligence, Mordecai has become obsessed with alchemy to the bewilderment of Sachetti. Unfortunately, the drug is based on a bug that is related to syphilis and results in the untimely death of the test subject. The parallels in this book abound, but with the notion of poisoned minds, whether by the State which is engaged in perpetual war) or through the experiments in Camp Archimedes, where Sacchetti has been sent to participate in tests of a new mind-expanding drug, one is reminded that this book was written during the middle of the Viet Nam War era. The prisoners in the book appear to be fascinated by alchemy, which they used as an elaborate cover for their escape plans. Sacchetti, who is obese, has a number of ironic visions involving other obese historical and intellectual figures, such as Thomas Aquinas.
In addition to the staging of Marlowe's play, the book references the Thomas Mann novel Doctor Faustus, which is about a composer named Adrian Leverkühn who intentionally contracts syphilis. Disch's book mentions a female composer named Adrienne Leverkuhn.

Sacchetti's journal tells a horrific story, but how much can we believe when it (apparently) has been through the prison censors. Is Sacchetti like one of Plato's banished artists? Is he a revolutionary, in spite of his claims to the contrary? Or is his story a figment of his imagination? The reader will have to decide for himself and this book has more depth than most I have read leading me to recommend it to all. The reviewer who called it "exciting, allegorical, suspenseful, disturbing. Superb prose and [a} novelist's integrity." (Amazing) was close to describing the feelings I had while reading Camp Concentration. Reading it was a journey into an alternative world that, unfortunately, was all too believable. ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 03, 2012 Anna rated it liked it

Shelves: scifi, fiction, dystopia

‘Camp Concentration’ reads to me as a novel very much of its time. It was first published in 1968 and is set in a near future that is now decades past. The narrator is a conscientious objector to America’s latest war in Asia, this one apparently including the use of tactical nukes in Malaysia. After an initial period in a normal prison sharing a cell with criminals, he is transferred to a mysterious underground base. There, he learns that the other prisoners are being experimented on and is aske ‘Camp Concentration’ reads to me as a novel very much of its time. It was first published in 1968 and is set in a near future that is now decades past. The narrator is a conscientious objector to America’s latest war in Asia, this one apparently including the use of tactical nukes in Malaysia. After an initial period in a normal prison sharing a cell with criminals, he is transferred to a mysterious underground base. There, he learns that the other prisoners are being experimented on and is asked to keep a journal of what he observes. I found Louie the narrator interesting for his obvious unreliability, but also irritating for his racism, homophobia, and florid verbosity. I have no objection to verbosity in principle, however he takes it too far into pretentiousness. Of course, since he knows that his journal is being read by the camp authorities, likely he is being deliberately obtuse.

The main themes of the novel appeared to be the interplay between genius & madness and how people reconcile themselves to death. The narrative certainly dances all around the two themes without coming to firm conclusions. There are three major twists in the story, one and a half of which I saw coming. The first of these seemed inevitable, the second plausible but under-explored, and the third surprising and yet oddly lacking impact. I found the novel unsettling and intriguing, yet perhaps the message it conveyed most strongly was the paranoia and confusion associated with the Cold War. Camp Archimedes, where the vast majority of the novel is set, seems ostensibly to be a weapons research facility. Yet it is much less focused than that, the parameters of the experimentation are unclear, and there is a sense that the war itself is no longer important. Whether madness or genius is predominant in our narrator, it is focused on his internal life and channelled into writing fiction. The same appears largely true of the other prisoners, although our narrator clearly takes relatively little interest in other people much of the time. The implication could be that the war is something that those of genius transcend, or perhaps merely disregard? I’m not sure.

Overall, it’s a thought-provoking and unusual little novel without any clear answers to the various questions it asks. I can’t help feeling I am of the wrong generation to understand or truly appreciate it. ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Aug 13, 2011 Charles Dee Mitchell rated it really liked it

Shelves: mid-century-sf

I like sf books that take place in the present day, or rather, the present day of their composition. Camp Concentration was published in 1972. An expanded version of the Vietnam War seems to be underway. Robert MacNamara is mentioned frequently, and Disch assumes that his readers will know what Dwight Eisenhower looked like.

Sachetti is a jailed conscientious objector, a "conchie" who finds himself transferred from a federal prison to the luxurious Camp Archimedes. HIs new digs are spacious and ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

May 15, 2019 fetid wretched deviltry rated it it was amazing

A tremendous novel, speculative fiction of the rarest and most beguiling sort. The closing lines nearly brought me to tears with their joyful affirmation in the face of life’s terror and quotidian beauty. When Samuel Delany writes an entire book on a 16 page story of yours, you know you’re probing the outer horizons of what fiction is capable of evoking. Diving into The Genocides soon...

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Jul 10, 2015 Carolyn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction

Freaky sci fi book. Government prisoners in a secret camp are given a drug derived from syphilis. They die from it, but on the way become geniuses. Scary. Intense.

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Jun 01, 2021 Tom Buchanan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I like a fat protagonist.

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Feb 06, 2021 Phil rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: guardian-1000-books-list, open-library

This is an “Intellectual SF Classic”. I feel that the bar to become an intellectual classic within genre fiction must be a lot lower than it is for literary fiction.

The basic concept behind the book is sound, and the twist at the end was a good one, which is why I gave it a whole 3 stars, but in-between we have a narrator who feels really unlikeable - pretentious, snobbish, misogynistic, homophobic. But I’m not sure he’s intended to be unlikeable - I fear the author thinks this is how intellect ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Nov 12, 2020 Darren rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy-horror, guardian-1000, zz-pc-years-since-birth

A book of three thirds! Started well - intriguing setup, with an imprisoned conscientious objector getting forcibly "seconded" onto a secret military project experimenting with human intelligence; got weird/bogged down in the middle, with several of the characters behaving erratically; but then pulled itself together towards then end to deliver a clever/unpredictable/satisfying finale. ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Nov 13, 2012 Pete Young rated it it was amazing

Thomas Disch was never as fashionable (for want of a better word) within the science fiction community as he deserved, and at the time of first publication Camp Concentration was perhaps (to take a very long view of things) outplayed by Daniel Keyes’s slightly more reader-friendly novel Flowers for Algernon which had been published some months earlier, explores the same theme of artificially enhanced intelligence, is hard-hitting in its own way but then is also, undeniably, outstripped by Disch’ ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Guardian Newspape...: Camp Concentration - February 2021	22	22	Feb 26, 2021 08:37AM

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Genres

Science Fiction

243 users

Fiction

121 users

Science Fiction > Dystopia

48 users

Horror

19 users

Science Fiction Fantasy

16 users

Speculative Fiction

15 users

War

12 users

Classics

9 users

Science Fiction > Alternate History

8 users

Literature > 20th Century

7 users

See top shelves…

About Thomas M. Disch

Thomas M. Disch

221 followers

Poet and cynic, Thomas M. Disch brought to the sf of the New Wave a camp sensibility and a sardonicism that too much sf had lacked. His sf novels include Camp Concentration, with its colony of prisoners mutated into super-intelligence by the bacteria that will in due course kill them horribly, and On Wings of Song, in which many of the brightest and best have left their bodies for what may be genu ...more