Camp Concentration

There's not much to add to everyone else's praise. This is way up there at the top of the top ten and anybody who claims to like adult science fiction -- or good contemporary fiction for that matter --can't claim themselves educated until they've read it! 334 and Wings of Song are great, too. In fact 334 would probably also be in that top ten, too.

Just finished this amazing novel. I'm making my way through Pringle's 100 Best Science Fiction Novels. So far, I've read 60 of them and this one is absolutely among the top 10. An incredibly layered, intellectual book. Make sure your dictionary is nearby for this read. It's a short book, but a slow read that packs so much thought, allegory and symbolism into so few pages. Yet Disch's style and characters keep the book entertaining. I expected nothing less than a fantastic, mind-blowing ending and that's what I got. I disagree with others who said they were disappointed. This book is the journal of an loftily intelligent man and only the most brilliant author could pull it off. Disch is nothing short of a genius--and he's writing horror now! Can't wait to read his horror, as well as 334 and "On the Wings of Song."

Few novels have portrayed genius convincingly, let alone in the genius's own words, but "Camp Concentration" manages both. The fictional journal of a brilliant and tormented poet, it brims with larger-than-life characters, big ideas, darkly comic incident and wry observation. The result isn't just superb science fiction, it's also great literature. "Camp Concentration" stands with other classics--Daniel Keyes' "Flowers For Algernon", Walter M Miller's "A Canticle For Liebowitz" and Theodore Sturgeon's "More Than Human"--in using science fiction to tell us profound truths about ourselves. So what's the story? It's the 1970s and the US is fighting a land war in Asia.

I had first heard of Thomas Disch during a special Amazing Stories magazine did on him several years ago. In it was a new story that he had written, which I read and found actually pretty good considering he was someone I had never heard of. After that, he slipped into the back of my mind for several years, and it was not until recently that I rediscovered him through his classic novel of military experimentation. Disch idea to tell the story as the journal notes of someone who witnesses and then is given he disease is sheer brilliance. Louis is probably the most brutally honest, funniest character to ever grace the pages of a novel and he tells his story without holding anything back. As the reader, we see his situation get worse and worse. At the point where he realizes that he has the disease, I could feel dread surge through my body, too. The writing is that powerful. Disch shows off his imaginative skills here, creating an environment where genius equals maddness, a true play on words of the novel's title. For such a small book, the plot is complex and riveting and I found myself unwilling to stop and go to my job just so I could finish. A surprise is saved for the end, and while it's a tad on the fantastic side, it also makes perfect sense in the context of the book and wraps everything up nicely. David Pringle chose this as one of the hundred best science-fiction books of all time, and not only does it more than deserve to be on that list, it deserves to be as close to the top as possible

Not a book for careless readers or those looking for a quick fix of science fiction. This was Disch's 1st significant novel, and it appeared in 1969. The "endless" Vietnam War and a certain cynicism about government animates the book, but it is essentially a story of a man who triumphs in the face of disease, degradation, and official brutality. The book is a tour de force of style. By turns acerbic, aphoristic, funny, and offbeat, the prose is packed with literary allusions to writers as diverse as Paul Valery, W. H. Auden, Christopher Marlowe, Arthur Rimbaud, and Rainer Marie Rilke. It's not devoid of a certain amount of excessive literary virtuosity, but all and all, Disch manages to carry it off well. This isn't Disch's best novel. _On Wings of Song_ and _334_, to name two, are better. But this was a remarkable book for a young writer to have written. I'm still very fond of it.