Thomas M Disch eulogy
Few people make a successful career of contemplating death and suicide; fewer still approach the subject with the genuine ebullience and elegant despair of the prolific, criminally underappreciated writer Thomas M. Disch, who shot himself in his Union Square apartment, in New York, on the Fourth of July. Disch was a seminal figure in science fiction's New Wave, the iconoclastic 1960s movement that gave the genre a literary pedigree and popularized the term "speculative fiction." His books influenced writers such as William Gibson and Jonathan Lethem; his dystopias "Camp Concentration" and "334" are considered science fiction classics, along with his greatest novel, "On Wings of Song," a beautiful, dark meditation on the power and limits of transcendence through art.LinkAn openly gay man for most of his working life, Disch wrote mysteries, historical novels and neo-gothic satires; children's books, including "The Brave Little Toaster" and its sequel; at least five collections of short fiction; 15 volumes of poetry, always as Tom Disch; plays and libretti; four volumes of nonfiction; screen adaptations, novelizations and one of the first interactive computer games. He edited anthologies; he wrote book reviews, theater reviews, art reviews, music reviews. He wrote collaboratively and pseudonymously; he kept a popular blog, Endzone, in which he shared new poems, some unpleasant post-9/11 screeds, and witty discourses on the meaninglessness and minutiae of life. In his most recent novel, he wrote in the voice of God, and on his publisher's Web site answered questions from readers. He wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, for the sheer joy of it and for an even more primal impulse: to tell a story to the dark.
See also: RIP, Thomas M Disch
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A damn fine eulogy for Disch, who clearly spotted the roots of today while they could still have been uprooted. Alas for us all. While I've never read any, I'll fix that soon.
so many times the news of a deceased author comes suddenly, and hand in hand with a tale of the distress he or she found themselves in their final extremity. And then I think; "well, if I had known perhaps I would have purchased a work or two in support". Meaningless perhaps, but why do so many never see a reward alive when the support is really there? Maundering, I know... but daily real life injustice still bites.
Takuan, it's a sad fact that many outstanding creatives are not recognized until long after their death ... Satie, Schubert, Van Gogh are obvious examples of a group that definitely numbers in the hundreds, probably in the tens of thousands. Some, like Ramanujan, were recognized in their lifetime because a person who could understand came into reach - but many have had to struggle to create any output.
Another one of the dilemmas that is being partly erased by the existence of the Web. There'd probably have been no Cthulhu mythos if it wasn't for the network of letter-writers connected by the publication of Lovecraft's work.
Humanity has long paid a terrible price for belated recognition of some of it's best. For millenia the arts (even science in the case of Greek antiquity) have taken the lumps when we slide far down the slippery slopes. I'm reminded of the message of Fahrenheit 451.
we'd better guard the Web then
Does anybody have a link to one of Disch's "unpleasant post-9/11 screeds"? I browsed around a bit on his Livejournal, but what political content I found seemed to be of the orthodox "Bush is a war criminal" variety. There was a Swiftian "why don't we just kill illegal immigrants at the border" essay. Is that what was meant by "unpleasant"?
oh no.... this is the first I've heard of Disch's death.
truly a great loss for the sci-fi community. In a genre which is seeing serialized garbage like Star Wars/Star Trek/Stargate novels become the norm, there are precious few who still write true literary sci-fi at the level Thomas Disch did.
Wouldn't it be better if the esteem could be given during life?
And not let us forget that he wrote a truly kick-ass novel set in the world of Patrick McGoohan's "The Prisoner" TV show. Like Philip K. Dick and Cornell Woolrich, his paranoia and conspiracy-theory thinking made great art; but not so great reality.
@ #8, already mentioned by me. I did get to ask Michael Moorcock if Jon Daker was "John Drake" as #6 was identified as such in the earlier novels
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2nd link
@ The Tensor (#5) : This entry from 2006 seems the kind of stuff E. Hand was referring to:
http://tomsdisch.livejournal.com/53199.html
Santos:
I'd be very surprised if #6 was ever identified as "Danger Man" John Drake in the novels or in any other commercial product of the day. There were major copyright and ownership problems between the "Danger Man" and "Prisoner" camps. As someone who was primarily an actor in the first series, McGoohan had no rights to the John Drake character and always denied that the two characters were the same. I recall one interview where he said "If they were, then I'd be in a lot of trouble because we never had the rights to that character."
I just flipped through my copies of the trilogy whose first volume was written by Disch (the second by "Man from U.N.C.L.E. novelization alumni David McDanial) and didn't see any such references.
@Nadreck: Check the link.
“... Ace Books in the United States published three original novels based upon the television series.
The first of these, titled initially The Prisoner by Thomas M. Disch (later republished as I Am Not a Number!), was issued in 1969 (some editions carry a 1967 copyright date but this refers to the series, not the book). Considered non-canonical, it details the recapture of the Prisoner after he had been brainwashed to forget his original experience in the Village, and his struggles to remember what was taken from him and to escape again from the Village (or another Village). Disch is often erroneously credited as the creator of the TV series, as he is the writer of the first novel based upon the show.
Also in 1969-70 Ace published two additional original novels based upon the series. These books, believed by some to be set after the events of "Fall Out," are notable for stating explicitly that Number Six is John Drake from Danger Man. The two books are also not considered canonical.
The Prisoner: Number Two by David McDaniel (also published as Who is Number Two?)
The Prisoner: A Day in the Life by Hank Stine ...”