Disch is also hard on science-fiction writers who are too often concerned with "ideas" and not with writing superior fiction. His final implication seems to be that the dichotomy between science fiction and the mainstream is largely illusory: "lousy books don't survive and good ones do."
Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Thomas Michael Disch grew up in Minnesota and graduated from high school in Saint Paul. After a series of what he calls "nebbish jobs"--including a stint as a night attendant in a Minneapolis funeral parlor ("for $10 and an attic room over the embalming studio")--Disch moved to New York. He attended Cooper Union and New York University between 1959 and 1962 but dropped out of both. After working as a checkroom attendant at the Majestic Theatre, Disch was hired in 1963 by Doyle Dane Bernbach, an advertising agency, and wrote copy for liquor, luggage, and Volkswagen advertisements. During this time Disch also had been getting stories published; his work first appeared in the October 1962 issue of Fantastic . He left the advertising agency in 1964 to become a free-lance writer.
