TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE

A SCIENCE-FICTION WRITER INADVERTENTLY TURNS SOOTHSAYER

It sounds like something out of recent headlines: A moderate Soviet president
struggles to hold his country together as the republics declare independence and
militant old guard hard-liners grumble; tanks roll through Moscow streets, and a
coup led by Soviet Army commanders places the president under arrest, declaring
martial law.... But this is not a front-page New York Times story. It's a
pivotal scene from Norman Spinrad's latest novel, Russian Spring (Bantam,
$22.50), published in September and written long before the abortive August coup
against Mikhail Gorbachev.

Spinrad began writing Russian Spring in 1988 and as the novel progressed he
found his fictional prophecies fulfilled again and again, forcing him to redraft
his book. "This novel went through many drafts," Spinrad recalls, "because when
I started writing it events such as the German unification seemed far in the
future, but as I wrote, most of the things I had been thinking of started to
come true."

Science-fiction writers sometimes try to predict the future, at least in general
terms, as they extrapolate from current events and perceived trends to create a
possible future world. But rarely does science fiction parallel real events as
closely as Spinrad's plot mirrors reality. Still, recent events don't mitigate
the novel's impact. "If I had another draft to do, I would have written the
coup attempt in," says Spinrad. "In the final draft I do refer to a 'Time of
Troubles,' vaguely, I think events validate the book."

But there is much more to Russian Spring than an eerie forecasting of current
events. The novel centers on Jerry Reed, an expatriate American living in
Paris, who fled an increasingly reactionary, repressive, and militaristic United
States to work with the European Space Agency in the semi-unified Common Europe.
Through Reed's story, Spinrad blasts America's failure to pursue its early
success in space and criticizes the ongoing militarization of our space program.

Alongside Reed's story is the tale of his two children, illuminating the larger
issues of world politics, Bobby Reed inherits a vision of an idealistic,
enlightened America from his father and he ventures into the benighted United
States in an attempt to find and rekindle that spirit. Jerry's wife, Sonya, is
a career Soviet bureaucrat, and their daughter, Franja, absorbs her mother's
love of and faith in the newly expansive Soviet system, enrolling in the Soviet
space program. Following the Reed children's opposite but converging paths,
Spinrad examines the forces shaping both America and Russia today, pointing out
the good and bad of each and hinting at ways for the world to tap the best of
both systems.

In the end, Russian Spring is about living for a dream. For Reed, it is the hope
of space travel, for himself and for humanity at large; for Bobby, it is the
vision of an America restored to its place as a champion of freedom and
progressive values-. for Franja, it is the chance for Russia to emerge from
centuries of backwardness as a leader of equal standing in the advancement of
human culture, Spinrad's vision strikes to the heart of our world's current
morass. His desire to slip the shackles of history, abandon our inherited
biases, grudges, pettiness, and most of all, inertia, and start anew to build a
world in which our best qualities are accented is exactly what we need now.
Spinrad gives his readers a worthy goal toward which to work.

As we confront the changing face of our relationship with the Russians, making
vital decisions about aid, alliance, trust, and treaties, Spinrad's positive
outlook might make all the difference. Some readers, who know Spinrad from his
previous science-fiction books, may feel that Russian Spring is not a
science-fiction novel at all because of its clear roots in contemporary events.
But Russian Spring, using the techniques of future extrapolation to comment so
movingly on our current world situation, does what science fiction and only
science fiction can do: It shows us where we might be headed and offers thoughts
on how we can make the best possible real future with the tools we have.