Other Americas

Book excerpt: Spinrad examines one of his most compelling obsessions - the possible "futures" of America. Street Meat: In New York City, streeties, zonies and subway cannibals are locked in a nighmarish scrabble for rat meat, sex - and survival. The Lost Continent: group of African tourists visit the ruins of Space Age America - a surreal landscape of abandoned skyscrapers, empty streets and dead, rusted machinery. World War Last: The hashish-smoking Sheik of Koram has a plan to trick America and Russia into war. La Vie Continue: In Paris exiled science-fiction author Norman Spinrad ignores a lucrative - but dangerous - bidding war between the KGB and the CIA for the film rights to his story "Riding the Torch".