Camp Concentration

Louis Sacchetti is imprisoned for refusing to enlist in the war against Third World guerillas. In the underground Camp Archimedes, a military prison, he and other inmates are used in a perverse scientific experiment, and infected with a syphilis-like spirochete that raises intelligence to incredible heights while causing decay and death. Sacchetti himself tells his “A difficult feat to bring off,” as David Pringle has written, “but the degree to which Disch succeeds is nevertheless astonishing.” “Now regarded as one of the greatest SF novels.”—Elizabeth Hand, Salon “The sf New Wave was cresting on both sides of the Atlantic by the time this marvelous novel appeared. Thomas Michael Disch (born 1940) straddled the waters. He was an American who had chosen to live in England for a while…. His earlier works—The Genocides (1965), Mankind Under the Leash (1966) and Echo Round His Bones (1967)—were sprightly, witty, sardonic; but it was with the outrageously titled Camp Concentration that he made his mark…. He has created a memorable work of art.”—David Pringle, Science The 100 Best Novels “Offbeat, thoughtful, and often startling—parts of it are shocking, some of it is beautiful.... A man fighting with courage and idealism against physical disintegration.”—Publishers Weekly “A commanding work—both daring and successfully so.”—Brian Aldiss “A real shock treatment.”—Kirkus Reviews “Brilliant.... A work of imagination controlled by real moral responsibility; it is a work of art, and if you read it, you will be changed.”—Ursula K. Le Guin “Artful and brilliant…exciting, allegorical, suspenseful, disturbing. Superb prose and a novelist’s integrity.”—Amazing “If contemporary American letters has been lucky enough to find an answer to Borges and Garcia Márquez, to Carlos Fuentes and Günter Grass, it is from Thomas M. Disch. The danger in commenting on Disch is that one loses all sense of reserve; sensible praise is too weak; he commands superlatives. Today no intelligent person dares call him/herself well-read without a thorough grounding in Disch’s startlingly original work.”—Harlan Ellison “He is a virtuoso.”—The New York Times Book Review “He tosses off bits of verbal virtuosity the way a fine jazz player tosses off musical phrases.”—The Chicago Tribune “Clever, imaginative, and sly…. Myth, mystery, the ordinary are his materials.”—Publishers Weekly “Disch may be the most formidably gifted unfamous American writer... diversely gifted… entirely original… joyously versatile… a unique talent.”—Walter Clemons, Newsweek “Because of his intellectual audacity, the chillingly distanced mannerism of his narrative art, the austerity of the pleasures he affords, and the fine cruelty of his wit, Disch was perhaps the most respected, least trusted, most envied and least read of all modern sf writers of the first rank.”—John Clute, Science Fiction Encyclopedia “Thomas Disch has been writing wonderful tales of imagination for years now—stories that sometimes amuse, sometimes sting, sometimes horrify, and sometimes manage to do all three at the same time.”—Stephen King