Carcinoma Angels - Published as part of Harlan Ellison's 1967 anthology Dangerous Visions, this mind-expanding tale spun from the imagination of American author Norman Spinrad is a cult favorite among aficionados of science fiction's New Wave, one of the most anthologized short stories within the genre, an unforgettable thriller to be read and reread with delight. Here's a batch of themes of which I'm especially fond:
ALL-AMERICAN HERO
As a kid, Harrison Wintergreen made a potful of money by collecting baseball cards. In high school he became expert at test-taking and won seven college scholarships. Once in college, he was big man on campus - all the beautiful girls loved him but he soon became bored with school and decided to become rich by first writing a string of sex novels, then trading in sports cars, then wheeling and dealing in Las Vegas and finally investing in hot properties. By the age of twenty-five Harrison was not only rich but filthy rich.
As a kind of 1960s version of Bill Gates, Harrison first engaged in all sorts of charity around the globe then expanded his worldwide influence by inventing timesaving gadgets and writing best selling novels. Thus our all-American wiz kid did it all and was counted as among the greatest men alive. But, then, horror of horrors, at age forty, Harrison Wintergreen was informed he had an incurable case of cancer.
CANCER
Receiving the news you have the big C is never good news but back in the 1960s being diagnosed with cancer was a death sentence. Lung cancer was among the biggest culprits where men and women who smoked cigarettes dropped like flies. Carcinoma is a cancer that starts in tissue cells that line the inner or outer surfaces of the body and once those cancer cells get going - watch out! They multiple, turn fierce and can soon overwhelm any healthy cells putting up a fight.
LSD
As an absolute last resort, Harrison Wintergreen takes powerful drugs, including illegal hallucinogens to enter his own body and do battle with those death dealing cancer cells directly. Curiously, back in 1967 in high school, a teacher told the story of someone taking LSD and entering his own body. I took this story as truth at the time. I wonder if that teacher read or heard of this Norman Spinrad tale. Hmmm. . . perhaps such LSD induced internal travel was a common cultural myth at the time.
HELL'S ANGELS
The decade of the 60s was the heyday for California Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, the ultimate symbol of defiance to the safety of middle class America. Norman Spinrad's linking Hell's Angels to cancer cells is a stroke of literary genius. Once the hallucinogens kick in and he is in his body, Harrison faces off against his deadly adversary: "Black the cycle. Black the riding leathers. Black, dull black, the face of the rider save for two glowing blood-red eyes. And emblazoned across the front and back of the black motorcycle jacket in shining scarlet studs the legend: "Carcinoma Angels.""
LIFE AND DEATH
It's a battle to the end. To find out if Harrison lives or dies, you will have to read for yourself.
American author Norman Spinrad - photo taken back when Norman wrote his Carcinoma Angels
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