Spindoc

 

Thirty-three years ago, I wrote a novel, Spindoc. Set in a future-Hawaii, Venture Silk is man who manipulates the news for a major corporation, does damage control, and shovels much metaphorical bullshit to benefit his employers.

When something awful happens, Silk calls the corporate AI — I used the term “biopath” instead — and is given the company’s spin-parameters to feed to the media.

That’s just what he does for a living. There is a murder, spies, assassins, religious fanatics, to wind him up, like that. I thought Silk interesting enough to do a second book about him — he moved to another planet, got Cary-Granted into another adventure full of mayhem and malice. The books sold okay, but one-and-a-sequel were enough.

Silk was good at his job, but at his worst, he couldn’t hold a candle to the putrid and infernal light spielberging from the cracks and crevices in our current corporate media’s facade.

The term spindoc — from spin-doctor — came out of the Reagan years, and was still not that well-known outside political circles when I used it. 

Now and then, even a blind science fiction writer finds a predictive-trope.

Thing is, they got there way ahead of schedule …