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The Void Captain's Tale
In the Second Starfaring Age, humans travel the universe via a technology they barely understand, propelled by a space drive consisting of mysteriously complex mechanisms and, symbiotically linked to it, a living woman, the Void Pilot. Pilots are rare, and the ability to be a Pilot also entails physical wasting and a shortened life.
But Pilots live only for the timeless moments of Transition, when their ships cross the emptiness of space in an instant. Now Void Pilot Dominique Alia Wu has begun to catch a glimpse of something more, something transcendent in that eternal moment . . . and she needs the cooperation of her Captain to achieve it permanently. Even at risk to the survival of the Ship.
Norman Spinrad has been one of SF’s most adventurous writers since the 1960s, an internationally praised peer of such writers as Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock, and Samuel R. Delany. His stories of the Second Starfaring Age, The Void Captain’s Tale and the later novel Child of Fortune , form a single epic praised by the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as “an eroticized vision of the Galaxy . . . an elated Wanderjahr among the sparkling worlds.”
But Pilots live only for the timeless moments of Transition, when their ships cross the emptiness of space in an instant. Now Void Pilot Dominique Alia Wu has begun to catch a glimpse of something more, something transcendent in that eternal moment . . . and she needs the cooperation of her Captain to achieve it permanently. Even at risk to the survival of the Ship.
Norman Spinrad has been one of SF’s most adventurous writers since the 1960s, an internationally praised peer of such writers as Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock, and Samuel R. Delany. His stories of the Second Starfaring Age, The Void Captain’s Tale and the later novel Child of Fortune , form a single epic praised by the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as “an eroticized vision of the Galaxy . . . an elated Wanderjahr among the sparkling worlds.”
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
22 people are currently reading
737 people want to read
About the author
Norman Spinrad
366 books217 followersBorn in New York in 1940, Norman Spinrad is an acclaimed SF writer.
Norman Spinrad, born in New York City, is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science. In 1957 he entered City College of New York and graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Science degree as a pre-law major. In 1966 he moved to San Francisco, then to Los Angeles, and now lives in Paris. He married fellow novelist N. Lee Wood in 1990; they divorced in 2005. They had no children. Spinrad served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) from 1980 to 1982 and again from 2001 to 2002.
Norman Spinrad, born in New York City, is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science. In 1957 he entered City College of New York and graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Science degree as a pre-law major. In 1966 he moved to San Francisco, then to Los Angeles, and now lives in Paris. He married fellow novelist N. Lee Wood in 1990; they divorced in 2005. They had no children. Spinrad served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) from 1980 to 1982 and again from 2001 to 2002.
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March 31, 2023
Check out my full, spoiler-free, video review HERE.
This was an interesting one...
This was an interesting one...
December 9, 2020
2.8⭐
It took me a while (30+ years) to get to this 60/70's mash-up of drug culture literature with a flavoring of Eastern philosophy, stuffed into a science fiction casing. It was actually written in the early '80s, but it's dated pretty seriously, as you might expect. Still, the culture Spinrad creates has some interesting elements, though it's basically Andy Warhol's Factory, on a space ship.
The drive on these 'Void' ships require a female pilot to be plugged into the mechanism. When the ship "jumps" the pilot has an orgasm, plus a glimpse of a higher plane of existence beyond human ken. Although essential to the ship's workings, the pilots are considered more akin to equipment than part of the crew and are pariahs among the decadent hipster culture of the ship. They also burn out pretty quickly.
The eponymous Void Captain of the tale is seduced/converted by his pilot into helping her reach the elevated plane/Nirvana/what-you-will and that's the story (as the author makes clear from the opening pages). Spinrad uses a heavy, baroque style in this book that some will find frustrating. He addresses the issue of linguistic evolution by inventing a polyglot " lingo" using phrases from many languages. Again, some may find it a pointless affectation but I have to give him points for recognizing that language changes over the centuries. More recently the TV series " Firefly" tried the same thing with its fusion of English and Chinese.
I found both the style and plot to be reminiscent of Cordwainer Smith, in particular his classic story 'The Game Of Rat and Dragon.' For Void Captain substitute Go Captain and for pilot use 'pinlighter.' It's a superficial resemblance, to be sure, but I suspect Smith had an influence, as he's had on many writers.
Overall I found it a middling kind of a book. In it's day it was more outstanding, I suspect, especially in the incorporation of sex and eroticism as a major plot element. Still, I'm glad I read it. It's different from your run of the mill space opera; and it's a quick read.
It took me a while (30+ years) to get to this 60/70's mash-up of drug culture literature with a flavoring of Eastern philosophy, stuffed into a science fiction casing. It was actually written in the early '80s, but it's dated pretty seriously, as you might expect. Still, the culture Spinrad creates has some interesting elements, though it's basically Andy Warhol's Factory, on a space ship.
The drive on these 'Void' ships require a female pilot to be plugged into the mechanism. When the ship "jumps" the pilot has an orgasm, plus a glimpse of a higher plane of existence beyond human ken. Although essential to the ship's workings, the pilots are considered more akin to equipment than part of the crew and are pariahs among the decadent hipster culture of the ship. They also burn out pretty quickly.
The eponymous Void Captain of the tale is seduced/converted by his pilot into helping her reach the elevated plane/Nirvana/what-you-will and that's the story (as the author makes clear from the opening pages). Spinrad uses a heavy, baroque style in this book that some will find frustrating. He addresses the issue of linguistic evolution by inventing a polyglot " lingo" using phrases from many languages. Again, some may find it a pointless affectation but I have to give him points for recognizing that language changes over the centuries. More recently the TV series " Firefly" tried the same thing with its fusion of English and Chinese.
I found both the style and plot to be reminiscent of Cordwainer Smith, in particular his classic story 'The Game Of Rat and Dragon.' For Void Captain substitute Go Captain and for pilot use 'pinlighter.' It's a superficial resemblance, to be sure, but I suspect Smith had an influence, as he's had on many writers.
Overall I found it a middling kind of a book. In it's day it was more outstanding, I suspect, especially in the incorporation of sex and eroticism as a major plot element. Still, I'm glad I read it. It's different from your run of the mill space opera; and it's a quick read.
October 30, 2011
In contrast to the recently-reviewed Charles Runyon's "Deeply Sicko SF" (as determined by the readers of rec.arts.sf.written) about which I blogged the other day, Norman Spinrad is simply a writer's writer, and his book, The Void-Captain's Tale is a masterpiece. His characters have individual, powerful voices, and one can literally feel the number of re-writes Spinrad went through to make sure everyone in his books is unique and special. His cultures are dense, and with just a few special touches-- here, it's the way characters "trade the stories of their names"-- he makes his worlds come alive. Ships jump from star system to star system, and a tradition has grown that the wealthiest passengers don't do cryo but instead help keep the crew from going nuts on the weeks-long voyages by filling the vast, heat-dissapating spaces with balls, gardens, and various "divertissements." There is decadence aplenty within these floating bawdy houses, but it is of a most mundane sort.
The special touch, almost unique at the time it was written, is that hyperspace jump requires an organic component. Usually these "pilots," who are emotionally and physically wrecked by the experience, are plucked out of finishing schools already identified as being on a downward spiral, and are offered a chance to make something of themselves and retire young. But the experience of hyperspace is so ecstacy-inducing that, when forciby retired, most pilots go crazy or commit suicide. Sometimes they die en-route, and the captain is forced to pick a volunteer from among the passengers who, untrained and unprepared, is likely to die or destroy the ship with his inexperience.
The pilot of this ship is a such a volunteer, one of the few ever to make it home alive, who liked the experience so much she's still doing it. Unlike other pilots who usually just try to recover from their experience and shun the rest of the crew, she is strong, conscious, arrogant, and brash, and wants to mingle with the crew and passengers. This violation of strict tradition brings out powerful feelings in the Captain, crew, and guests, and those feelings drive this book forward. The tension in this story is simple: the Captain becomes obsessed, almost Ahab-like, with this fascinating pilot and in his downward spiral makes poor decisions that ultimately doom his crew.
Is it "depraved?" Yes, but in a different way: the captain in his obsession demonstrates that quality called "depraved indifference," and Spinrad has done his usual tour-de-force job of showing how a character can get himself into such a position, convincing us each step of the way that, yes, human beings really do think this way, and yes, what we're seeing is a slow, inevitable slide down into madness and no, there's nothing anyone could really have done or forseen to prevent it. But there's nothing to suggest that the universe depicted or any of the other characters in it are anything more than ordinary, sufficiently moral human beings. Great read.
The special touch, almost unique at the time it was written, is that hyperspace jump requires an organic component. Usually these "pilots," who are emotionally and physically wrecked by the experience, are plucked out of finishing schools already identified as being on a downward spiral, and are offered a chance to make something of themselves and retire young. But the experience of hyperspace is so ecstacy-inducing that, when forciby retired, most pilots go crazy or commit suicide. Sometimes they die en-route, and the captain is forced to pick a volunteer from among the passengers who, untrained and unprepared, is likely to die or destroy the ship with his inexperience.
The pilot of this ship is a such a volunteer, one of the few ever to make it home alive, who liked the experience so much she's still doing it. Unlike other pilots who usually just try to recover from their experience and shun the rest of the crew, she is strong, conscious, arrogant, and brash, and wants to mingle with the crew and passengers. This violation of strict tradition brings out powerful feelings in the Captain, crew, and guests, and those feelings drive this book forward. The tension in this story is simple: the Captain becomes obsessed, almost Ahab-like, with this fascinating pilot and in his downward spiral makes poor decisions that ultimately doom his crew.
Is it "depraved?" Yes, but in a different way: the captain in his obsession demonstrates that quality called "depraved indifference," and Spinrad has done his usual tour-de-force job of showing how a character can get himself into such a position, convincing us each step of the way that, yes, human beings really do think this way, and yes, what we're seeing is a slow, inevitable slide down into madness and no, there's nothing anyone could really have done or forseen to prevent it. But there's nothing to suggest that the universe depicted or any of the other characters in it are anything more than ordinary, sufficiently moral human beings. Great read.
February 22, 2021
The Void Captain’s Tale
I think I get what Norman Spinrad is laying down here. Often in Spinrad’s long and honored career, he has been misunderstood more than is probably fair, but let’s face it Spinrad is a provocateur as much as anyone. This novel is as interesting and underrated experiment in science fiction that is only limited by some of its out-dated and unintentional sexual politics but when you factor in that it is a space opera with an FTL drive driven by female orgasms it could’ve been much worse.
I know, I know it is a pretty cringe-inducing concept, but considering Spinrad’s very leftie political stances I wanted to at the very least give the book a more serious look. Spinrad also called it his anarchist science fiction novel. On that note, the anarchist features are more subtle than Leguin’s The Dispossessed which is the most famous science fiction exploration of anarchism in practice. TVCT has more in common with LeGuin's Always Coming Home which is about a non-hierarchal society but it is quietly expressed in a way that makes it less likely to be found on the shelf at an anarchist info-shop. That said it is no less radical.
If I am reading TVCT correctly Spinrad is doing Dune with the influences of the summer of love and late 60s radicalism. What if your far-future galaxy-spanning story was not about a Campbellian (either of them) hero’s journey and inspired by the free love and drug culture of the radical youth subculture of that era. The main characters of this story are not learning ancient warrior ways so they can free oppressed people, no it is their mind that seeks freedom and much of life in this future is about wanting to experience the wonders and joys of the universe.
Spinrad talked about this in a 2012 interview with the LA Review of Books. “Three thousand years from now, barring the usual convenient apocalyptic cultural amnesia and taking into account the enormous wealth of books, discs, chips, tapes, and so forth that we have today, the Second Starfaring Age would have total access to all previous human history and cultural legacy. This culture would have long since mastered the sciences and technologies of mass and energy. It would not wage war.”
Never one to play nice or sugar-coat opinions to fit neatly into genre canon TVCT is a delightfully subversive work of science fiction. This aspect of the novel will get overlooked and that is too bad because there are really beautiful and interesting ideas here. Spinrad as he often does is reacting to what he doesn’t like in traditional science fiction. Much of Spinrad’s career is protesting and reacting to these norms and traditions in the genre. In the Iron Dream the inherit fascism of high fantasy was his target and in this novel, it is the feudal and dystopic futures like Dune and Foundation. It is important to note that Spinrad in the above interview quote mentions all the data of history. I suspect that Spinrad is calling bullshit on Foundation, by trying to picture a universe with evolved humans in it.
“If the floating cultura contained its fair share and then some of subsidized children of fortune, wealthy sybarites, refugees from ennui, and their attendant parasitic organisms, did these not serve as a communal matrix for the merchants, artists, scientist, aesthetes, and pilgrims who travelled among the stars for higher purposes? In ancient days, the courts of monarchs served as similar distillations of the more rarefied essences of human culture; these too were gilded cages filled with self-pampered birds of paradise, but in their precincts were to be found the philosophers, artists, and mages of the age.”
Asimov saw the cycle of history as a foregone conclusion and the psycho-history as the way to TRY to combat it. In a subtle way that doesn’t require massive world-building and word counts Spinrad counts these epics in the 220 pages that don’t overstay its welcome, which is helpful because he never cheats on the first-person narrative. He expects the reader to just flow with it.
In a 1999 interview with Locus magazine, Spinrad said ''I wanted to do a society that knows human history. My two far-future novels, The Void Captain's Tale and Child of Fortune, are set in a good society that works, this galactic culture in the far future, three or four thousand years from now. They are not about changing or wrecking society; they're about what happens to people inside it. Child of Fortune is another anarchist novel because there's no government. (All right, so I'm an anarchist – but I'm a syndicalist. You have to have organized anarchy because otherwise, it doesn't work.)”
The story is not really one you can spoil as this story is more style and ideas that a real plot. There is incredible world-building. The prose is very styled and includes lots of switches between languages and straight-made-up words. This is not for everyone but I enjoyed this aspect of the book. The galaxy as it is written in this book is not one of conflict, people travel the universe in search of art, pleasure, and experience. Sounds great huh?
There is only one in-universe problem, there is one and one only exploited class. It is the icky thing here. In this the second space-faring age of humans the massive starships travel faster than like directed by a rare breed of pilot. These pilots are not the macho top guns but women who transcend space and time during moments of intense pleasure. To me, the one in-universe problem is also the one problem I have with the book.
It is impossible to not think of this story as the Orgasm drive book. I understand what Spinrad was trying to do but from the outside, without context, it seems like the idea of a horny teenager or some hippie sex guru trippin’ balls and pitching his way cool space opera. It is hard to get away from that idea.
Let’s talk about how the orgasm drive works on page 73 of the Orb trade paperback.
“Via the lightest touch of my finger upon the Jump command point, I was, in cold objective literally inducing in Dominque an orgasm far beyond anything of which I could as her fleshly lover. As long as the pilot had been mere module in the Jump Circuit, this sexual connection between Captain and Pilot, this reality which went far beyond erotic metaphor, existed not in the sphere of my awareness. But now that awareness of her as a taled name, another subjectivity, a woman had been thrust upon me, I was aware of myself as her cyborged demon lover, as electronic rapist, yet somehow also the victim of the act as I plunged into her with my phallus of pychesomic fire.
“Jump!”
One instant the stars were in configuration in one configuration, then in another. Did I imagine that I had experienced the impalpable interval between, I could feel her being flash through its unknowable ultimate ecstasy? Did we silently sigh in unison or mutually shriek our mute violation?”
Yikes, there is so much to unpack here and much of it is not pretty. Eventually, the pilot Dominque and Captain Genero develop a consensual relationship that involves a galaxy-spanning Kama-sutra thing that leads them to want to go beyond light speed jumps to transcendence. While the above quote implies that it is a violation for both the pilot and the ship Captain it feels icky just reading it and it only gets worse when the narrator spends a page and a half trying to understand how male and female orgasms evolved differently. Spinrad often narrates stories from characters' points of view that are political opposites (I mean he wrote a novel as Hitler) but this novel would have been 200% better if pages 106 and 07 were lost in the editing process.
In the LA review of books Spinrad seems to understand it is THE problematic part of his universe. “A culture far superior to our own in every aspect including the moral, but no perfected utopia, with the paradox at its core being that the Jump Drive, the faster-than-light technology based on “platform orgasm,” the very thing that makes a Second Starfaring Age possible, the legacy of the vanished aliens known as We Who Have Gone Before, and a mystery whose ultimate reality these perfect masters of mass and energy cannot fathom.”
There are many cool elements of this book, how this near utopian far future exists, the beautiful and stylistic prose that portrays a delightfully strange future. The Anarchist vision, the subversion of the genre but the book often gets reduced to the orgasm drive book. I honestly think with a little woke editing this could’ve worked but the consent of the pilot is a serious question here. While the FTL jump is not entirely sexual it is close enough.
While the last two chapters take the book straight to nirvana and do so in a beautiful way, I am left closing the book and asking ugly and hard questions. This to me is the big difference between a masterpiece and a good book that I struggled with. It is not quite to the cat-suits in Star Trek level of nerd fantasy it is something else. This is not me being politically correct, that is not my concern is being ethically correct and that is something a genre reaching to the future should always do.
OK, I interviewed Norman Spinrad for the Dickheads podcast, he was very grumpy at the start as we had a host of technological problems getting him on the phone. So you may enjoy me squirming at the start but the interview gets better I promise you.
My interview with NS on YouTube... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6c6c...
On Soundcloud...
https://soundcloud.com/dickheadspodca...
I think I get what Norman Spinrad is laying down here. Often in Spinrad’s long and honored career, he has been misunderstood more than is probably fair, but let’s face it Spinrad is a provocateur as much as anyone. This novel is as interesting and underrated experiment in science fiction that is only limited by some of its out-dated and unintentional sexual politics but when you factor in that it is a space opera with an FTL drive driven by female orgasms it could’ve been much worse.
I know, I know it is a pretty cringe-inducing concept, but considering Spinrad’s very leftie political stances I wanted to at the very least give the book a more serious look. Spinrad also called it his anarchist science fiction novel. On that note, the anarchist features are more subtle than Leguin’s The Dispossessed which is the most famous science fiction exploration of anarchism in practice. TVCT has more in common with LeGuin's Always Coming Home which is about a non-hierarchal society but it is quietly expressed in a way that makes it less likely to be found on the shelf at an anarchist info-shop. That said it is no less radical.
If I am reading TVCT correctly Spinrad is doing Dune with the influences of the summer of love and late 60s radicalism. What if your far-future galaxy-spanning story was not about a Campbellian (either of them) hero’s journey and inspired by the free love and drug culture of the radical youth subculture of that era. The main characters of this story are not learning ancient warrior ways so they can free oppressed people, no it is their mind that seeks freedom and much of life in this future is about wanting to experience the wonders and joys of the universe.
Spinrad talked about this in a 2012 interview with the LA Review of Books. “Three thousand years from now, barring the usual convenient apocalyptic cultural amnesia and taking into account the enormous wealth of books, discs, chips, tapes, and so forth that we have today, the Second Starfaring Age would have total access to all previous human history and cultural legacy. This culture would have long since mastered the sciences and technologies of mass and energy. It would not wage war.”
Never one to play nice or sugar-coat opinions to fit neatly into genre canon TVCT is a delightfully subversive work of science fiction. This aspect of the novel will get overlooked and that is too bad because there are really beautiful and interesting ideas here. Spinrad as he often does is reacting to what he doesn’t like in traditional science fiction. Much of Spinrad’s career is protesting and reacting to these norms and traditions in the genre. In the Iron Dream the inherit fascism of high fantasy was his target and in this novel, it is the feudal and dystopic futures like Dune and Foundation. It is important to note that Spinrad in the above interview quote mentions all the data of history. I suspect that Spinrad is calling bullshit on Foundation, by trying to picture a universe with evolved humans in it.
“If the floating cultura contained its fair share and then some of subsidized children of fortune, wealthy sybarites, refugees from ennui, and their attendant parasitic organisms, did these not serve as a communal matrix for the merchants, artists, scientist, aesthetes, and pilgrims who travelled among the stars for higher purposes? In ancient days, the courts of monarchs served as similar distillations of the more rarefied essences of human culture; these too were gilded cages filled with self-pampered birds of paradise, but in their precincts were to be found the philosophers, artists, and mages of the age.”
Asimov saw the cycle of history as a foregone conclusion and the psycho-history as the way to TRY to combat it. In a subtle way that doesn’t require massive world-building and word counts Spinrad counts these epics in the 220 pages that don’t overstay its welcome, which is helpful because he never cheats on the first-person narrative. He expects the reader to just flow with it.
In a 1999 interview with Locus magazine, Spinrad said ''I wanted to do a society that knows human history. My two far-future novels, The Void Captain's Tale and Child of Fortune, are set in a good society that works, this galactic culture in the far future, three or four thousand years from now. They are not about changing or wrecking society; they're about what happens to people inside it. Child of Fortune is another anarchist novel because there's no government. (All right, so I'm an anarchist – but I'm a syndicalist. You have to have organized anarchy because otherwise, it doesn't work.)”
The story is not really one you can spoil as this story is more style and ideas that a real plot. There is incredible world-building. The prose is very styled and includes lots of switches between languages and straight-made-up words. This is not for everyone but I enjoyed this aspect of the book. The galaxy as it is written in this book is not one of conflict, people travel the universe in search of art, pleasure, and experience. Sounds great huh?
There is only one in-universe problem, there is one and one only exploited class. It is the icky thing here. In this the second space-faring age of humans the massive starships travel faster than like directed by a rare breed of pilot. These pilots are not the macho top guns but women who transcend space and time during moments of intense pleasure. To me, the one in-universe problem is also the one problem I have with the book.
It is impossible to not think of this story as the Orgasm drive book. I understand what Spinrad was trying to do but from the outside, without context, it seems like the idea of a horny teenager or some hippie sex guru trippin’ balls and pitching his way cool space opera. It is hard to get away from that idea.
Let’s talk about how the orgasm drive works on page 73 of the Orb trade paperback.
“Via the lightest touch of my finger upon the Jump command point, I was, in cold objective literally inducing in Dominque an orgasm far beyond anything of which I could as her fleshly lover. As long as the pilot had been mere module in the Jump Circuit, this sexual connection between Captain and Pilot, this reality which went far beyond erotic metaphor, existed not in the sphere of my awareness. But now that awareness of her as a taled name, another subjectivity, a woman had been thrust upon me, I was aware of myself as her cyborged demon lover, as electronic rapist, yet somehow also the victim of the act as I plunged into her with my phallus of pychesomic fire.
“Jump!”
One instant the stars were in configuration in one configuration, then in another. Did I imagine that I had experienced the impalpable interval between, I could feel her being flash through its unknowable ultimate ecstasy? Did we silently sigh in unison or mutually shriek our mute violation?”
Yikes, there is so much to unpack here and much of it is not pretty. Eventually, the pilot Dominque and Captain Genero develop a consensual relationship that involves a galaxy-spanning Kama-sutra thing that leads them to want to go beyond light speed jumps to transcendence. While the above quote implies that it is a violation for both the pilot and the ship Captain it feels icky just reading it and it only gets worse when the narrator spends a page and a half trying to understand how male and female orgasms evolved differently. Spinrad often narrates stories from characters' points of view that are political opposites (I mean he wrote a novel as Hitler) but this novel would have been 200% better if pages 106 and 07 were lost in the editing process.
In the LA review of books Spinrad seems to understand it is THE problematic part of his universe. “A culture far superior to our own in every aspect including the moral, but no perfected utopia, with the paradox at its core being that the Jump Drive, the faster-than-light technology based on “platform orgasm,” the very thing that makes a Second Starfaring Age possible, the legacy of the vanished aliens known as We Who Have Gone Before, and a mystery whose ultimate reality these perfect masters of mass and energy cannot fathom.”
There are many cool elements of this book, how this near utopian far future exists, the beautiful and stylistic prose that portrays a delightfully strange future. The Anarchist vision, the subversion of the genre but the book often gets reduced to the orgasm drive book. I honestly think with a little woke editing this could’ve worked but the consent of the pilot is a serious question here. While the FTL jump is not entirely sexual it is close enough.
While the last two chapters take the book straight to nirvana and do so in a beautiful way, I am left closing the book and asking ugly and hard questions. This to me is the big difference between a masterpiece and a good book that I struggled with. It is not quite to the cat-suits in Star Trek level of nerd fantasy it is something else. This is not me being politically correct, that is not my concern is being ethically correct and that is something a genre reaching to the future should always do.
OK, I interviewed Norman Spinrad for the Dickheads podcast, he was very grumpy at the start as we had a host of technological problems getting him on the phone. So you may enjoy me squirming at the start but the interview gets better I promise you.
My interview with NS on YouTube... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6c6c...
On Soundcloud...
https://soundcloud.com/dickheadspodca...
September 5, 2012
My boyfriend gave me this book with essentially the pretext of "it's a ship powered by female orgasms!!!" to which at first I just rolled my eyes, but eventually I gave it a shot. The first really striking thing was the writing, which was a blend of languages that made it comprehensible to the solely English speaker, but also added a layer of depth and intrigue to those who understood more. It's a style that either you love or you hate, and I loved it. It made his descriptions seem oddly more spot-on and interesting.
Spinrad does an amazing job of creating a society just through his characters, without spending as much time on pure description as many other sci-fi writers do. He both managed to make his characters seem incredibly human (or specifically not so, in the case of Dominique), while also keeping the society futuresque.
From there, he proceeded onto his greatest achievement with this story, in my eyes: he was able to completely throw into question the morality and our experience of life itself, without ever seeming to need to resort to a cheesy answer that would resolve these questions. It became a more engaging story as it went on, and the end was deliciously unsatisfying.
Spinrad does an amazing job of creating a society just through his characters, without spending as much time on pure description as many other sci-fi writers do. He both managed to make his characters seem incredibly human (or specifically not so, in the case of Dominique), while also keeping the society futuresque.
From there, he proceeded onto his greatest achievement with this story, in my eyes: he was able to completely throw into question the morality and our experience of life itself, without ever seeming to need to resort to a cheesy answer that would resolve these questions. It became a more engaging story as it went on, and the end was deliciously unsatisfying.
June 8, 2011
Although the book contains much quotable and interesting material, it ultimately fails in a way almost uniquely reserved for science fiction: The artificiality of its construction leaves it bereft of humanity. The book blends Japanese, French, Spanish, and German phrases into the English of its projected future; this conceit is never as interesting in practice as in idea, and wears heavily on the reader only one quarter into the text. The projected culture of the book is permeated by free and open sex and much of the book reads like a 14-year-old's fantasy; moreover, despite the open sexuality the book is inescapably and uncritically (and sometimes impossibly) heterosexual. Both characters and prose, unfortunately, serve only to explore the highly sexualized projected future and its repercussions, but neither is human enough to convey those repercussions to the all too human reader.
I picked this up since Spinrad's _The Solarians_ is one of my favourites; now I fell that text needs rereading.
I picked this up since Spinrad's _The Solarians_ is one of my favourites; now I fell that text needs rereading.
July 12, 2013
This may have been the most difficult book I've read all year. Using its literary aspirations and eccentric mix of languages to support a slow-moving - though compelling - plot, Spinrad has crafted one of the most interesting books I've read all year. Even though it's thirty years old it still has relevance, especially in the way he handles the cultura onboard the ship. One is left, at the end, wondering what it was all for. And maybe that was his point. Glad I read it, but gladder still to be done with it.
February 7, 2013
I've talked before about SF authors setting their sights a little too high, and some of the novels nominated for the Hugo or Nebula getting by more on concept than actual delivery. In my review of 'Dark Universe' I talk a little about Samuel Delany's opinion on 'story' and 'writing' and why I think he's wrong to say a novel's delivery cannot be exceeded by it's concept. I might be putting words into Delany's mouth (I had trouble finding the actual quote), but either way Void is a good example of the concept, no possible story could live up to the originality of the idea. This is a story about spaceships piloted by orgasm. Let that sink in for a second. No actual story could live up to that, could it?
This story has a spaceship piloted by orgasm and a Captain so enthralled by a woman, so consumed by her that he is willing to sacrifice his spaceship, passengers, and himself just to give her what she wants. This book doesn't just have sex scenes in it, this book is about sex, around sex, on top of and underneath sex. There's no way to extract the sex from this novel without completely changing the story. It's there on the first page and it's there on the last. It's as if someone challenged Spinrad that he couldn't write a compelling novel that was intrinsically about sex and he used the nuclear option to prove them wrong.
People have found this novel offensive or distasteful, but some people have felt that way about most of the author's writing. Spinrad was a big proponent of the ‘New Wave’ SF movement going on in the 60s and 70s. New Wave strove to intentionally push the boundaries of what could be written about in SF, going out of the way to shock readers. Not necessarily a good thing, but many of the books that were adherents of this, some almost banned at the time, are more curious than offensive now (Spinrad's most famous novel 'Bug Jack Baron' is a good example of this). On the other hand Void Captain, which came out several years after the heyday of the New Wave, would have offended people no matter when it was written, and that's probably a good reason why it's mostly unknown. People have been offended by books with a lot less sex than this one.
Long passages of the book are given over to either descriptions of sexual acts or orgasms themselves. Some of these work out better than others. One would assume that these scenes would be salacious and pandering, that the actual sex scenes in the book border on the gratuitous, but they don't. The style and tone in which Spinrad presents the topic almost precludes any notion that this is pornographic. The best way to describe his writing style is 'detached.' Spinrad has the narrator maintain the tone of a captain throughout the novel. Even as his life spirals out of control and he agrees to destroy everything he has worked for to help his mistress 'Go On' and commit a form of sexual suicide the narrator's voice never changes.
This style is wordy, and strange enough quite formal. This can be off putting, and can read somewhat dated, but readers should note that this is a style Spinrad affects for this story, his other works like Jack Barron are written in a completely different tone. I think the tone of the novel does a good deal of the work in helping the story not devolve into farce or pornography, something that could have easily happens with a lesser writer. By working so hard to keep the narrator dignified in speech throughout the novel, even as he loses all his dignity in everything else, does a lot to maintain balance in a book that gets pretty out there.
The style also does the work of presenting the future as an alien place, foreign to us. The characters in the story choose their own names, and any introduction between two characters begins with the sharing of names, and how each character settled upon the names they have. Spinrad injects foreign words and phrases into the daily conversation of his characters, something he also has done in 'Child of Fortune.' It is not as distracting as it sounds, and does a lot to contribute to the tone I was talking about.
The story is interesting in that the narrator lays down the entire tale on the first page. There is no suspense regarding what will occur, only how and in what manner it will be presented. The novel begins with the captain sharing his 'name story' with the reader, followed by a quick section in which he lists the action of the novel. Nothing is hidden, if readers were expecting some major twist or surprise from the book they will be sorely mistaken, Spinrad plays no tricks and the entire tale is there at the beginning. It's an interesting tactic on Spinrad's part, and I thought it played to the novel's strength and originality.
This novel sits in my brain, and I cannot and probably will never be able to separate how good the story actually is from how original and fascinating I find the concept. A lot of time I read novels off the list of Hugo and Nebula nominees and find a real masterwork that has been sadly forgotten, think 'Stations of the Tide' by Swanwick. A lot of others are middle of the road SF whose authors were popular years ago, their work still worth a look but nothing to scream about. Occasionally, I'll find something like Void Captain, which defies categorization. Something truly original doesn't ever come in a form you would expect (obviously), and people rarely know how to judge it. Despite being a book over twenty years old this is still one of the most original works I've ever read.
Does 'The Void Captain's Tale' set it's sights too high? Maybe, maybe not. Like I said, I don't know if any novel could live up to the promise and originality of that premise. But the novel is good and gets points for being both classic and postmodern, oddly enough. Does it strive to be shocking? Yeah, a little, I have to admit the ending where the captain sets out to sleep with every woman on his stranded ship so as to figure who would make the best replacement pilot felt a little weird. But if a novel this original and out there can't exist in the halls of Science Fiction then where can it?
I imported this review from www.allthenominees.blogspot.com
This story has a spaceship piloted by orgasm and a Captain so enthralled by a woman, so consumed by her that he is willing to sacrifice his spaceship, passengers, and himself just to give her what she wants. This book doesn't just have sex scenes in it, this book is about sex, around sex, on top of and underneath sex. There's no way to extract the sex from this novel without completely changing the story. It's there on the first page and it's there on the last. It's as if someone challenged Spinrad that he couldn't write a compelling novel that was intrinsically about sex and he used the nuclear option to prove them wrong.
People have found this novel offensive or distasteful, but some people have felt that way about most of the author's writing. Spinrad was a big proponent of the ‘New Wave’ SF movement going on in the 60s and 70s. New Wave strove to intentionally push the boundaries of what could be written about in SF, going out of the way to shock readers. Not necessarily a good thing, but many of the books that were adherents of this, some almost banned at the time, are more curious than offensive now (Spinrad's most famous novel 'Bug Jack Baron' is a good example of this). On the other hand Void Captain, which came out several years after the heyday of the New Wave, would have offended people no matter when it was written, and that's probably a good reason why it's mostly unknown. People have been offended by books with a lot less sex than this one.
Long passages of the book are given over to either descriptions of sexual acts or orgasms themselves. Some of these work out better than others. One would assume that these scenes would be salacious and pandering, that the actual sex scenes in the book border on the gratuitous, but they don't. The style and tone in which Spinrad presents the topic almost precludes any notion that this is pornographic. The best way to describe his writing style is 'detached.' Spinrad has the narrator maintain the tone of a captain throughout the novel. Even as his life spirals out of control and he agrees to destroy everything he has worked for to help his mistress 'Go On' and commit a form of sexual suicide the narrator's voice never changes.
This style is wordy, and strange enough quite formal. This can be off putting, and can read somewhat dated, but readers should note that this is a style Spinrad affects for this story, his other works like Jack Barron are written in a completely different tone. I think the tone of the novel does a good deal of the work in helping the story not devolve into farce or pornography, something that could have easily happens with a lesser writer. By working so hard to keep the narrator dignified in speech throughout the novel, even as he loses all his dignity in everything else, does a lot to maintain balance in a book that gets pretty out there.
The style also does the work of presenting the future as an alien place, foreign to us. The characters in the story choose their own names, and any introduction between two characters begins with the sharing of names, and how each character settled upon the names they have. Spinrad injects foreign words and phrases into the daily conversation of his characters, something he also has done in 'Child of Fortune.' It is not as distracting as it sounds, and does a lot to contribute to the tone I was talking about.
The story is interesting in that the narrator lays down the entire tale on the first page. There is no suspense regarding what will occur, only how and in what manner it will be presented. The novel begins with the captain sharing his 'name story' with the reader, followed by a quick section in which he lists the action of the novel. Nothing is hidden, if readers were expecting some major twist or surprise from the book they will be sorely mistaken, Spinrad plays no tricks and the entire tale is there at the beginning. It's an interesting tactic on Spinrad's part, and I thought it played to the novel's strength and originality.
This novel sits in my brain, and I cannot and probably will never be able to separate how good the story actually is from how original and fascinating I find the concept. A lot of time I read novels off the list of Hugo and Nebula nominees and find a real masterwork that has been sadly forgotten, think 'Stations of the Tide' by Swanwick. A lot of others are middle of the road SF whose authors were popular years ago, their work still worth a look but nothing to scream about. Occasionally, I'll find something like Void Captain, which defies categorization. Something truly original doesn't ever come in a form you would expect (obviously), and people rarely know how to judge it. Despite being a book over twenty years old this is still one of the most original works I've ever read.
Does 'The Void Captain's Tale' set it's sights too high? Maybe, maybe not. Like I said, I don't know if any novel could live up to the promise and originality of that premise. But the novel is good and gets points for being both classic and postmodern, oddly enough. Does it strive to be shocking? Yeah, a little, I have to admit the ending where the captain sets out to sleep with every woman on his stranded ship so as to figure who would make the best replacement pilot felt a little weird. But if a novel this original and out there can't exist in the halls of Science Fiction then where can it?
I imported this review from www.allthenominees.blogspot.com
August 10, 2023
lmfao most of the men in these reviews don’t get it. the ship isn’t powered by an orgasm, it’s powered by a female plateau orgasm, which males can’t have. the protagonist, captain genro, ultimately understands the pilot’s will to be in that state forever, to go beyond time and space forever, an intersection between which is nothing, and therefore everything, to experience all as one, everything as one, like some kind of fucked good acid trip, to be nothing at all by being everything across everywhere and beyond. i really enjoyed this book. one of the only works of fiction that talks about the thing in the centre that no one can name, an idea explored in much more detail within posthumanist philosophy. 4/5 because captain genro gets rapey at the end. gross, could’ve done without that. he’s just jealous though that he can’t plug himself into the void circuit and experience the great female plateau orgasm that really does send you beyond time and space. i don’t care if this review makes u mad lmfao if anything it proves my point. read it again, carefully.
April 21, 2022
From nothing are we born, to nothing do we go; the universe we know is but the void looped back upon itself, and form but illusion's final veil.
The Void Captain's Tale is a delightful chimera of a novel: Science fiction, comedy of manners, social satire. Romance, farce, tragedy. Space opera buffa blending comedy, melodrama, sex, spirituality. Completely tongue-in-cheek yet completely sincere, it's funny, daring, thought-provoking, and eminently readable - a great example of boundary-pushing sci-fi.
The conceit behind this bizarre romp is simple: What if the Enterprise were powered not by dilithium crystals but by orgasms? Norman Spinrad is a sci-fi writer who delights in taking big chances, and this novel is a huge gamble that ultimately pays off handsomely and leaves an indelible impression. What in lesser hands could have backfired and turned into buffonish farce, Norman Spinrad spins into a clever and coherently layered mashup of western physics and eastern philosophy.
Taking a hint from historical pleasure barges ranging from Caligula's giant ship to Cleopatra's Thalamegos to modern cruise ships, the spaceship that is the setting of this novel is a world of extravagant social pageantry, sumptuous feasts, and decadent debauchery. Warp drive exists, but pleasure-seekers choose to spend months drifting between the stars, devoting their life to the pursuit of wanton carnal indulgence. The spaceship is thus a microcosm of humanity, a bubble in space where humanity is boiled down to its frothy essence - literally a floating world or ukiyo, as in the pleasure quarters of Edo Japan, a term that alludes to the earthly plane of death and rebirth from which Buddhists sought release. "The bubble world of human culture was but a shadow parade through timebound space." The Hindus have the similar concept of "maya": that which exists, but is constantly changing and thus is spiritually unreal.
There is no time in the Great and Only; therefore, within it, there is all time. There is no space, and so there is all space. Nothing is contained, and so the spirit contains all.
Spinrad details an intricate waltz of social obligations and conduct that evoke the ossified world of the aristocratic bourgeoisie of 17th-century France. It's a world free of all social and moral restraint, where maintaining one's status depends on ostentatious displays flaunting the external trappings of nobility. Affairs are the principal pastime, and are described in an atmosphere of comically exaggerated baroque ritualization of act and word that evokes French novels of the Age of Enlightenment, in particular Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782) by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, with its driving themes of seduction and revenge. This is mirrored by the self-consciously florid writing style and declamatory manner of speaking. Just as 19th century Russians liberally sprinkled their prose with French as a mark of culture, so this sophisticated intelligentsia sprinkles their badinage d'amour with the sprachs of different cultures, mon cher liebchen. The novel has a self-consciously bouffant prose aesthetic that works quite well and makes for very fun reading.
The crack in this facade is the arrival of an idealistic pilot who seduces the captain into embarking on a quest of self-discovery and spiritual awakening, abandoning his duty to his passengers. The captain follows in the footsteps of the protagonists of Siddhartha (1922) by Herman Hesse and The Razor's Edge (1944) by W. Somerset Maugham, the early 20th century novels that introduced the west to eastern spiritualism. The captain is everyman, caught between two poles, a cipher for the reader who has to decide which is real and which is maya: the ideal or the physical.
I had passed over to a realm of perception where all that could be said to have objective existence was the conundrum of unknowable chaos out of which our quotidian relativities spring.
The beauty of the novel is its elegant simplicity. The ending is outlined on page 1. The rest of the novel simply shows how we got there. Everything can be broken down into dualities: The duality between the frivolous world of the 'floating cultura' (ukiyo) and the spiritual quest of its pilot. The duality of male and female, or, in the parlance of tantra, Shiva's lingam and Shakti's yoni: source and destination, creative force of the universe, beginning and end of all things. Although never explicitly mentioned in the novel, tantra clearly must have been part of the inspiration behind the concept. Tantra is in essence about fostering the divine within one's body: attempting to unify the masculine-feminine, the spirit-matter duality, and thereby attain a "primal blissful state of non-duality" (Goudriaan).
The book itself has a deliberate and ambiguous duality: it lionizes a classic rebel figure who shatters antiquated customs for a greater truth, while simultaneously questioning the notion of belief itself, and the moral repercussions of applying beliefs to others. It cleverly lures us into accepting a fantastical narrative conceit so as to allow us to vicariously experience the eternal moral dilemma of its protagonist: Is true morality to live the life epicurean and carnal and revel in the physical? Or is it to repudiate this world as the plane of maya and aspire towards some ephemeral beyond? The Jonestown massacre was in 1978, only four years before the novel's publication, so might have been on the novelist's mind. The secret to what makes the novel so satisfying is perhaps that it doesn't have a clear and pat resolution. We're left troubled and pensive about the actions taken by the captain, if empathetic.
This was a superb book. I can see why Spinrad is considered one of sci-fi's best writers, and I'll be coming back for more.
The Void Captain's Tale is a delightful chimera of a novel: Science fiction, comedy of manners, social satire. Romance, farce, tragedy. Space opera buffa blending comedy, melodrama, sex, spirituality. Completely tongue-in-cheek yet completely sincere, it's funny, daring, thought-provoking, and eminently readable - a great example of boundary-pushing sci-fi.
The conceit behind this bizarre romp is simple: What if the Enterprise were powered not by dilithium crystals but by orgasms? Norman Spinrad is a sci-fi writer who delights in taking big chances, and this novel is a huge gamble that ultimately pays off handsomely and leaves an indelible impression. What in lesser hands could have backfired and turned into buffonish farce, Norman Spinrad spins into a clever and coherently layered mashup of western physics and eastern philosophy.
Taking a hint from historical pleasure barges ranging from Caligula's giant ship to Cleopatra's Thalamegos to modern cruise ships, the spaceship that is the setting of this novel is a world of extravagant social pageantry, sumptuous feasts, and decadent debauchery. Warp drive exists, but pleasure-seekers choose to spend months drifting between the stars, devoting their life to the pursuit of wanton carnal indulgence. The spaceship is thus a microcosm of humanity, a bubble in space where humanity is boiled down to its frothy essence - literally a floating world or ukiyo, as in the pleasure quarters of Edo Japan, a term that alludes to the earthly plane of death and rebirth from which Buddhists sought release. "The bubble world of human culture was but a shadow parade through timebound space." The Hindus have the similar concept of "maya": that which exists, but is constantly changing and thus is spiritually unreal.
There is no time in the Great and Only; therefore, within it, there is all time. There is no space, and so there is all space. Nothing is contained, and so the spirit contains all.
Spinrad details an intricate waltz of social obligations and conduct that evoke the ossified world of the aristocratic bourgeoisie of 17th-century France. It's a world free of all social and moral restraint, where maintaining one's status depends on ostentatious displays flaunting the external trappings of nobility. Affairs are the principal pastime, and are described in an atmosphere of comically exaggerated baroque ritualization of act and word that evokes French novels of the Age of Enlightenment, in particular Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782) by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, with its driving themes of seduction and revenge. This is mirrored by the self-consciously florid writing style and declamatory manner of speaking. Just as 19th century Russians liberally sprinkled their prose with French as a mark of culture, so this sophisticated intelligentsia sprinkles their badinage d'amour with the sprachs of different cultures, mon cher liebchen. The novel has a self-consciously bouffant prose aesthetic that works quite well and makes for very fun reading.
The crack in this facade is the arrival of an idealistic pilot who seduces the captain into embarking on a quest of self-discovery and spiritual awakening, abandoning his duty to his passengers. The captain follows in the footsteps of the protagonists of Siddhartha (1922) by Herman Hesse and The Razor's Edge (1944) by W. Somerset Maugham, the early 20th century novels that introduced the west to eastern spiritualism. The captain is everyman, caught between two poles, a cipher for the reader who has to decide which is real and which is maya: the ideal or the physical.
I had passed over to a realm of perception where all that could be said to have objective existence was the conundrum of unknowable chaos out of which our quotidian relativities spring.
The beauty of the novel is its elegant simplicity. The ending is outlined on page 1. The rest of the novel simply shows how we got there. Everything can be broken down into dualities: The duality between the frivolous world of the 'floating cultura' (ukiyo) and the spiritual quest of its pilot. The duality of male and female, or, in the parlance of tantra, Shiva's lingam and Shakti's yoni: source and destination, creative force of the universe, beginning and end of all things. Although never explicitly mentioned in the novel, tantra clearly must have been part of the inspiration behind the concept. Tantra is in essence about fostering the divine within one's body: attempting to unify the masculine-feminine, the spirit-matter duality, and thereby attain a "primal blissful state of non-duality" (Goudriaan).
The book itself has a deliberate and ambiguous duality: it lionizes a classic rebel figure who shatters antiquated customs for a greater truth, while simultaneously questioning the notion of belief itself, and the moral repercussions of applying beliefs to others. It cleverly lures us into accepting a fantastical narrative conceit so as to allow us to vicariously experience the eternal moral dilemma of its protagonist: Is true morality to live the life epicurean and carnal and revel in the physical? Or is it to repudiate this world as the plane of maya and aspire towards some ephemeral beyond? The Jonestown massacre was in 1978, only four years before the novel's publication, so might have been on the novelist's mind. The secret to what makes the novel so satisfying is perhaps that it doesn't have a clear and pat resolution. We're left troubled and pensive about the actions taken by the captain, if empathetic.
This was a superb book. I can see why Spinrad is considered one of sci-fi's best writers, and I'll be coming back for more.
May 3, 2023
Probably the wildest book I’ve read this year (so far). The worldbuilding is incredible, every aspect of it is in service to the plot but also feels plausible and natural. And the conlang is really really cool, it allows the author to stretch the limits of language as far as a book this philosophical needs. There are some awkward/laughably written sex scenes but they are also in service to the plot/philosophical themes. I think this book would be a valuable text for both posthuman and feminist studies. It’s also just a damn good sci fi novel!!
November 1, 2025
3.3/5: Weird.
Calling something "weird" is both a compliment and an insult. It's something you somehow both love and hate at the same time, something both beautiful and annoying/smug at the same time, something that's both 1-star garbage and 5-star amazing at the same time. I had a friend-of-a friend who was an author and showed me their book, which they described as "maybe too weird for you." It was a young adult sci-fi about 4 friends who drifted apart, with some prose mixed in. It wasn't weird.
But this? THIS? This was weird.
Here's how it was weird:
1. The entire book is about sex. Its themes, scenes, worldbuilding, technology, description of decadence...all sex. There's basically nothing else. The ship is once described as a giant sperm cell. The entire concept of hyper-light speed travel is based on a woman's orgasm. The captain of the ship apparently gets sent to HR if he DOESN'T properly nail the ship's interior designer/party planner. The captain mentions his groin using 12 different words nearly every damn chapter. I'm not kidding about any of this, by the way. That spaceship must smell...just terrible. And yet, it's treated uniquely and interestingly because it's all treated as work, as a means to an end. All the sex stuff develops character, it shows people's personalities, and (at least for the main characters) it's solely done to either experience a higher plane or, again, to not get sent to space HR.
2. The language used is beautiful until it falls right flat on its face. Spinrad has the characters, especially the main character in first person narration, speak in a process that mixes French, Spanish, German, and probably a few other languages with a prose-laden English. Some of it is absolutely beautiful and poignant. A sentence about involuntarily obtaining knowledge is perfect. The chapter about the captain leaving the ship and seeing real lightspeed, Doppler effect and all, is gorgeous. Then, other times, it reads like smug characters taking a thesaurus and tossing it at each other while saying "naturellement" over and over again. It's fantastic when it doesn't make you roll your eyes.
3. There's no negative about this one, but the idea of "freenoms" where someone can create their own names based on their personalities/heroes is fantastic, no notes, one of the most creative ideas I've seen of a futuristic society and showing their genius. Yes, their genius is also undermined by the fact there's no backup Pilot or physical separation mechanism of Pilot/Captain or that Space HR's view on office relationships is really outta wack, but still...the name thing is a very cool concept that works very well.
So, yeah, it's a weird one. 3 stars.
...Looking forward to checking out his other work.
Calling something "weird" is both a compliment and an insult. It's something you somehow both love and hate at the same time, something both beautiful and annoying/smug at the same time, something that's both 1-star garbage and 5-star amazing at the same time. I had a friend-of-a friend who was an author and showed me their book, which they described as "maybe too weird for you." It was a young adult sci-fi about 4 friends who drifted apart, with some prose mixed in. It wasn't weird.
But this? THIS? This was weird.
Here's how it was weird:
1. The entire book is about sex. Its themes, scenes, worldbuilding, technology, description of decadence...all sex. There's basically nothing else. The ship is once described as a giant sperm cell. The entire concept of hyper-light speed travel is based on a woman's orgasm. The captain of the ship apparently gets sent to HR if he DOESN'T properly nail the ship's interior designer/party planner. The captain mentions his groin using 12 different words nearly every damn chapter. I'm not kidding about any of this, by the way. That spaceship must smell...just terrible. And yet, it's treated uniquely and interestingly because it's all treated as work, as a means to an end. All the sex stuff develops character, it shows people's personalities, and (at least for the main characters) it's solely done to either experience a higher plane or, again, to not get sent to space HR.
2. The language used is beautiful until it falls right flat on its face. Spinrad has the characters, especially the main character in first person narration, speak in a process that mixes French, Spanish, German, and probably a few other languages with a prose-laden English. Some of it is absolutely beautiful and poignant. A sentence about involuntarily obtaining knowledge is perfect. The chapter about the captain leaving the ship and seeing real lightspeed, Doppler effect and all, is gorgeous. Then, other times, it reads like smug characters taking a thesaurus and tossing it at each other while saying "naturellement" over and over again. It's fantastic when it doesn't make you roll your eyes.
3. There's no negative about this one, but the idea of "freenoms" where someone can create their own names based on their personalities/heroes is fantastic, no notes, one of the most creative ideas I've seen of a futuristic society and showing their genius. Yes, their genius is also undermined by the fact there's no backup Pilot or physical separation mechanism of Pilot/Captain or that Space HR's view on office relationships is really outta wack, but still...the name thing is a very cool concept that works very well.
So, yeah, it's a weird one. 3 stars.
...Looking forward to checking out his other work.
October 9, 2024
A dispetto del titolo, "Capitan Abisso" (The Void's Captain Tale, 1983; Urania Capolavori Mondadori, 2015; trad. di Antonella Pieretti), che potrebbe far pensare alla sf avventurosa, il romanzo di Norman Spinrad è un tipico prodotto della tarda new wave, in cui la parte speculativa si sostituisce totalmente all'azione. Il vecchio titolo "Astronavi nell'abisso" era forse meno fuorviante.
In un universo in cui la razza umana è passata dalle astronavi generazionali al salto istantaneo da un punto a un altro dell'universo ma ancora teme di guardare nell'abisso stellare, i viaggi nello spazio sono diventati un grottesco rituale per negare la realtà. Scritto in forma di diario (come cristallo di parole) dal Comandante del Vuoto (questa la denominazione del comandante dell'astronave), la storia è la presa di coscienza del suddetto comandante di quanto sia differente la visione del mondo della Pilota del Vuoto, per la quale la realtà si riduce al "Grande e Unico", cioè il momento adimensionale e atemporale del salto, mentre tutto il resto è ombra.
La tecnologia del salto è stata mutuata da artifatti di una razza scomparsa, adattata per muoversi nell'abisso attraverso l'orgasmo di una Pilota, parte della macchina astronave. Stavolta, però, la relazione, tradizionalmente deprecata e inesistente, tra Capitano e Pilota va a guastare la continua festa della sibaritica cultura fluttuante, nonostante la Domo del Grand Palais e gli Onorati Passeggeri, insieme all'equipaggio tecnico e medico, provino in tutti i modi a minare il potere del Capitano prima che venga effettuato un "salto alla cieca", che non si sa dove possa portare.
Un lavoro che potrebbe interessare a chi si è già abbondantemente nutrito di vecchia speculative fiction ma oggi risulta essere una lettura non proprio accattivante.
In un universo in cui la razza umana è passata dalle astronavi generazionali al salto istantaneo da un punto a un altro dell'universo ma ancora teme di guardare nell'abisso stellare, i viaggi nello spazio sono diventati un grottesco rituale per negare la realtà. Scritto in forma di diario (come cristallo di parole) dal Comandante del Vuoto (questa la denominazione del comandante dell'astronave), la storia è la presa di coscienza del suddetto comandante di quanto sia differente la visione del mondo della Pilota del Vuoto, per la quale la realtà si riduce al "Grande e Unico", cioè il momento adimensionale e atemporale del salto, mentre tutto il resto è ombra.
La tecnologia del salto è stata mutuata da artifatti di una razza scomparsa, adattata per muoversi nell'abisso attraverso l'orgasmo di una Pilota, parte della macchina astronave. Stavolta, però, la relazione, tradizionalmente deprecata e inesistente, tra Capitano e Pilota va a guastare la continua festa della sibaritica cultura fluttuante, nonostante la Domo del Grand Palais e gli Onorati Passeggeri, insieme all'equipaggio tecnico e medico, provino in tutti i modi a minare il potere del Capitano prima che venga effettuato un "salto alla cieca", che non si sa dove possa portare.
Un lavoro che potrebbe interessare a chi si è già abbondantemente nutrito di vecchia speculative fiction ma oggi risulta essere una lettura non proprio accattivante.
February 6, 2018
I have puzzled for 3 weeks over how to rate this book, alternating between two stars and four stars, but never even considering three stars. That alone tells you it is a very ambitious, edgy novel. I always count on Spinrad to really stretch my thinking and perceiving.
I found two scenes to be very powerful. In one near the end, is Spinrad's description of the experience of transcendence. That is the most powerful scene of its kind I have read in a long time. That and earlier scene of someone confronting the void, and their emptiness within, almost caused me to rate the book a 4 star read.
I found his use of the people's naming convention and its importance in the story to be fresh, insightful, and powerful. For example, a person named "Daniel Patrick Moynihan" chooses one of the names, and takes the others from the chosen names of his mother and father, thus telling the names reveals important things about oneself and ones family. This is not a spoiler; it would only be a spoiler if I reviewed an actual name from the book.
I agree with other reviwers that he is a writer's writer. Like others, I found him very consistent in giving each major character a unique voice. There is a strong theme of the decay of devotion to hedonism, I think. Imagining how the language of the far future would be a blend of many languages is great, but tiresome by half way through the novel.
In the end I rated the novel a two-star read because the language became tiresome till those two great scenes near the end, and because I felt that there could be so many other ways to approach transcendence, that would have worked for the story just as well as the route he chose.
I found two scenes to be very powerful. In one near the end, is Spinrad's description of the experience of transcendence. That is the most powerful scene of its kind I have read in a long time. That and earlier scene of someone confronting the void, and their emptiness within, almost caused me to rate the book a 4 star read.
I found his use of the people's naming convention and its importance in the story to be fresh, insightful, and powerful. For example, a person named "Daniel Patrick Moynihan" chooses one of the names, and takes the others from the chosen names of his mother and father, thus telling the names reveals important things about oneself and ones family. This is not a spoiler; it would only be a spoiler if I reviewed an actual name from the book.
I agree with other reviwers that he is a writer's writer. Like others, I found him very consistent in giving each major character a unique voice. There is a strong theme of the decay of devotion to hedonism, I think. Imagining how the language of the far future would be a blend of many languages is great, but tiresome by half way through the novel.
In the end I rated the novel a two-star read because the language became tiresome till those two great scenes near the end, and because I felt that there could be so many other ways to approach transcendence, that would have worked for the story just as well as the route he chose.
June 20, 2022
2.5-stars. “A Thespic Puissance Comes Across the Sky….”
Oy, what to say about this beast. Even keeping in mind its 1983 publication date, either the author thinks readers are idiots and thus need to have the symbols and metaphors of “Star Trek”-esque space travel explicated at length, repeatedly, sometimes using the exact same terms and phrases, so far beyond what the narrative requires it all pogosticks into comedy; or this is a 250-page semi-dirty joke whose point I’m too dense to grok (though the protagonist literally not being able to produce a point to grok (ahem) is what made me start wondering if this was indeed a joke in the first place); the narrator is unreliable and thus is using the language of symbols to hide/justify his actions, or that the over-explicated symbols are in fact *incorrect*; the narrator is new to this whole narrating business and so the strange phrasing and bumbling is due to his inexperience; or some combination thereof. Regardless, appreciation of this does not necessarily result in a novel that is overly fun or indeed often all that interesting to read. Whenever the narrator’s endlessly recursive thoughts shut up and the viewpoint becomes immediate instead of at arm’s length, THE VOID CAPTAIN’S TALE comes alive and is quite gripping. Though I’d need to go through it again to confirm, my gut tells me that a truly great novella could’ve been boiled out of this.
On a personal note, I think I now can safely go without reading the phrases “blind serpent,” “phallic lance,” “vulval void,” “noble stallion of the tantra,” and “knots of sour tension” for many *many* moons.
Oy, what to say about this beast. Even keeping in mind its 1983 publication date, either the author thinks readers are idiots and thus need to have the symbols and metaphors of “Star Trek”-esque space travel explicated at length, repeatedly, sometimes using the exact same terms and phrases, so far beyond what the narrative requires it all pogosticks into comedy; or this is a 250-page semi-dirty joke whose point I’m too dense to grok (though the protagonist literally not being able to produce a point to grok (ahem) is what made me start wondering if this was indeed a joke in the first place); the narrator is unreliable and thus is using the language of symbols to hide/justify his actions, or that the over-explicated symbols are in fact *incorrect*; the narrator is new to this whole narrating business and so the strange phrasing and bumbling is due to his inexperience; or some combination thereof. Regardless, appreciation of this does not necessarily result in a novel that is overly fun or indeed often all that interesting to read. Whenever the narrator’s endlessly recursive thoughts shut up and the viewpoint becomes immediate instead of at arm’s length, THE VOID CAPTAIN’S TALE comes alive and is quite gripping. Though I’d need to go through it again to confirm, my gut tells me that a truly great novella could’ve been boiled out of this.
On a personal note, I think I now can safely go without reading the phrases “blind serpent,” “phallic lance,” “vulval void,” “noble stallion of the tantra,” and “knots of sour tension” for many *many* moons.
November 14, 2017
My new era with science fiction has begun. And I like it.
The Void Captain's tale was interesting... and partly quite difficult. Even when read in my mother's tongue.
The story was imaginative and mostly easy enough to follow. But every now and then the writer went into spheres where it was very demanding to decode his thoughts and descriptions. More than once I read part of the text again in order to comprehend. And then again.
Spinrad also used expressions and words which were not so common, so every now and the the google was proven useful. Obviously a very civilized writer is he :-)
An extra-terrestrial adventure and a kind of a love story too. Perhaps also a philosophical dive into the essence of the universe, at least one imaginary version of it.
Literally a jump into unknown.
Kapteenin tarina
WSOY 1999
The Void Captain's tale was interesting... and partly quite difficult. Even when read in my mother's tongue.
The story was imaginative and mostly easy enough to follow. But every now and then the writer went into spheres where it was very demanding to decode his thoughts and descriptions. More than once I read part of the text again in order to comprehend. And then again.
Spinrad also used expressions and words which were not so common, so every now and the the google was proven useful. Obviously a very civilized writer is he :-)
An extra-terrestrial adventure and a kind of a love story too. Perhaps also a philosophical dive into the essence of the universe, at least one imaginary version of it.
Literally a jump into unknown.
Kapteenin tarina
WSOY 1999
October 8, 2019
*Space Boner Alert*
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Definition of boner
1: one that bones
2: a clumsy or stupid mistake
3.vulgar slang: an erect penis
An argument can be made that this disappointing book embraces all of the above...
I've been reading books to include in my classic sci-fi book club. This had been in TBR for quite some time. I should have left it there.
We are told on page two exactly how the book ends. What occurs between page two and the end is not particularly interesting, particularly gross and very boring.
Perhaps 'the Void Captain's Tale' has not aged well. I should read it in the '70s when the idea of FTL powered by the female orgasm would have been endlessly fascinating to eleven year old me.
I have enjoyed several other of Mr. Spinrad's books. This will not make the schedule for my book club.
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Definition of boner
1: one that bones
2: a clumsy or stupid mistake
3.vulgar slang: an erect penis
An argument can be made that this disappointing book embraces all of the above...
I've been reading books to include in my classic sci-fi book club. This had been in TBR for quite some time. I should have left it there.
We are told on page two exactly how the book ends. What occurs between page two and the end is not particularly interesting, particularly gross and very boring.
Perhaps 'the Void Captain's Tale' has not aged well. I should read it in the '70s when the idea of FTL powered by the female orgasm would have been endlessly fascinating to eleven year old me.
I have enjoyed several other of Mr. Spinrad's books. This will not make the schedule for my book club.
June 18, 2020
What an excellent book for Women (or men) studies. Sex work is said to be the next significant women liberation issue. But we know sex work is hard on sex workers. Addiction is higher. Divorce rates are higher. The marriage rate is lower. Poverty, crime, abuse, mental health, and physical health are all issues, even criminal issues. Mortality is significantly higher in sex workers. But if she wants to do it, if she chooses it. Our Captain's moral dilemma stems from getting to know his pilot. Then seeing the damage he causes her by his "Jump". Not to mention, it turns him on like no one's business. Added to the mix, she loves it. Then again perhaps the stardrive was mean for something else entirely. Maybe sex ought not to be a commodity?
Read
February 9, 2021Overlong, repetitive, larded with a half-hearted dialect that would not give Anthony Burgess any run for his money, this is the most annoying kind of book, one you've lost the fire for a third of the way through but it's written with such unceasing momentum that it's hard to stop reading, you keep thinking that the big revelations will be around the corner, but they're not, and when you're finished you feel like you've read a long short story that you'll forget about twenty minutes after you read it. The sex may have been novel at the time but now it makes you yawn, the characters are all dull-as-ditchwater cyphers, and you've never read the word "tumescent" so many times in one book. This is one classic you can miss.
November 5, 2020
This is a book where you see the writer experimenting with language and style. He also takes a premise that would seem either comically absurd or grossly perverted and presents it in a way that gives explanation. Quite simply the ship's star drive in the story can only function when properly oriented with a destination. That orientation is provided by a specialized crew member known as a pilot, a female who must experience an orgasm in order to carry out the task. Given the sexual nature of the story in general, the pilot's role is still unique. An entertaining tale and one with a reasonably good story.
February 11, 2018
Far future space opera set amid a society of aesthetes whose FTL space ships are powered by women’s orgasms. It’s actually pretty good in parts like the social custom where hearing the story of a stranger's name meant you were invested in their personhood, but after the fourth or fifth overwrought description of a sex act your eye just passes over yet more descriptions of genitalia.
Overall it really, really, really would’ve benefited by having a subplot or two that didn’t involve the narrator or his genitalia.
Overall it really, really, really would’ve benefited by having a subplot or two that didn’t involve the narrator or his genitalia.
September 30, 2020
read this novel a year ago.have read it again and still read passages from it frequently.a seriously deep, absorbing ,pleasurable read.one of the most sexually arousing novels i,ve ever read. it is remarkably difficult to do in prose.i have not the skills to analyse it the way smarter folk can, so will not try. shit, this novel is so deep i would,nt know where to stop.the baroque aristocrat narration/space opera ambience made me savour every word from start to finish.beyond brilliant. such flaws as it has are irrelevant and negligable. repeat: beyond brilliant.
June 16, 2020
Think this may be my first review, utter drivel, totally uningaging with lots of extravagant prose and nothing happening. Only made it ninety nine pages in, could of stopped at fifty and pretty sure I could of stopped reading five pages from the end and not been bothered. A shame as I've enjoyed other books by Spinrad.
April 1, 2020
I recommend reading this in one or two long sessions. The language is intricate and polyglot, and one must pick up the rhythm to feel connected. That being said, the future that Spinrad writes is exceptionally strange and sexual. Boringly sexual and sexually boring.
June 21, 2025
Although it often annoyed me to the point of almost quitting reading completely, and although it is so repetitive that it should be at least 50 pages shorter, the novel IS original, and very metaphysically insightful.
August 22, 2025
Spinrad explores language, culture, sex, and transcendence in this novel of mysteries. At times infuriating and not free of dull passages, nevertheless all together this is absolutely a worthy investment of time for those with a taste for the outre.
July 20, 2020
A very interesting spin on interstellar travel
March 31, 2022
Yeah I think I'm mostly done with boomer sci-fi.
April 18, 2023
Not my writting style. Started to skip through the book at about 25%.
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