As an innovative work, Bug Jack Barron stirred controversy beyond that over its dirty words. Exploring ideas and future scenarios has always been central to science fiction, But prior to the 1960s it almost always used a direct and even pedestrian style. The New Wave opened the genre up to stylistic experiments as well. In this novel, Spinrad uses collages of fast-moving images to reflect the world his characters live in, a world shaped in major ways by television. Interspersed with conventional narration and dialogue, they replace the usual internal monologues. Spinrad says he wrote the novel "insideout," presenting in words what would best evoke what he wanted to happen inside the reader's mind. His intention was to let the images in some paragraphs pile up, hitting the reader with a simultaneous blur or impact more akin to watching TV than to reading linear prose.

Whether or not...