The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde
Norman Spinrad
223 pages
published in 1970

Norman Spinrad was one of the US adherents of the New Wave 'movement' in science fiction. The New Wave started in the mid sixties in the UK, witht he group of writers coalising around the New Worlds magazine. In the UK, this included people like Michael Moorcock, J. G. Ballard, Brian Aldiss, Keith Roberts and later Christopher Priest and Barrington Bayley. In the US, the movement included both veteran writers like Robert Silverberg, Judith Miller and Harlan Ellison as well as up and coming writers like Samuel Delany and Norman Spinrad himself. The core of the New Wave 'movement', which was never well defined, consisted of a willingness to experiment both with form and function, introducing mainstream literary techniques and concerns into science fiction at a time the genre had grown stale. The result was a science fiction less focused on robots, spaceships and aliens and more concerned with psychology, "innerspace" and more immediate problems than alien invasions.

Before the New Wave, science fiction was a conservative genre, both in form as in content; despite its stated openness it was hesitant to break taboos, morally very conventional and unwilling to discuss sex. The New Wave forced science fiction to grow up, even if it had to go through adolescence first. Especially in the late sixties and early seventies there were a lot of bad self indulgent, "taboo breaking" sex and drugs drenched stories published. However, I'm convinced that without the New Wave, science fiction would've remained a minor genre.

Spinrad himself was first published in 1963 just before the New Wave started , with the short story "The Last of the Romany", which is present in this collection. His best known novels are Bug Jack Barron, which was shocking enough that its serialised version in New Worlds was banned by W. H. Smiths and The Iron Dream, a bitter satire on pulp science fiction, supposedly penned by an alternate history Adolf Hitler. The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde was the first collection of his short stories and contains stories written betweeb 1963 and 1969. A great many of the stories in here are classic sf puzzle or trick stories, but especially the later stories are very New Wave inspired. As a collection this isn't very strong; most of the stories are okay, but no more than that.

• Carcinoma Angels
  The best story in the book. Harrison Wintergreen is the most succesful man at everything he does, but now he has incurable cancer. So he moves into innerspace and does battle with the cancer in his body.
• The Age of Invention
  This could've been written by R. A. Lafferty. How art, artists, not to mention agents were invented in the Stone Age.
• Outward Bound
  This is such a traditional sf story it could've been published in Analog, which indeed it was. In a future without FTL travel, one scientist onboard one of the tradeships has the secret that may lead to an FTL drive --if he isn't killed first by the warship following him. The admiral commanding the warship has a moral dillemma: to follow his orders or give mankind the stars?
• A Child of Mind
  Another traditional science fiction story, about a planet which may be beautiful and perfect, but which hides a deadly secret which could mean the extinction of the human race. Every sf writer of a certain age wrote one of these. Casually sexist in its assumptions.
• The Equalizer
  A scientist responsible for a new superbomb has a moral dillemma. Not very interesting.
• The Last of the Romany
  In a mechanical, rational, organised world, there's no room for the last of the Romany. Or is there?
• Technicality
  An alien invasion story with a sting in the tail. The genre isn't very original, but the resolution is worth it.
• The Rules of the Road
  For some reason this story reminded me of Damon Knight. A spaceship has landed in Yucca Flats and the guy sent in to explore it has to learn how the universe really works to escape again.
• Dead End
  What if automatisation took all jobs?
• A Night in Elf Hill
  Excellent story, a sf version of a classic fantasy theme.
• Deathwatch
  Another twist story.
• The Ersatz Ego
  Dated, but scary. A brainwashed Korean War veteran becomes a psychiatrist, maybe not out of his own free will...
• Neutral Ground
  An innerspace first contact story.
• Once More, with Feeling
  A weary soldier on leave in San Francisco 1967 gets involved with a girl, who turns out to be a timetraveller from after the Russians won World War III.
• It's a Bird! It's a Plane!
  Guess who the title refers to?
• Subjectivity
  All previous attempts to mount an interstellar expedition have failed, so now Earth sends a crew of drug addicts, who'll be taking the ultimate drug for the entirety of the trip...
• The Entropic Gang Bang Caper
  Not as much a story as it's a collage of news items and extracts from supposed warfare manuals. Remember the "context" bits from Stand on Zanzibar? This is one of them.
• The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde
  This is a James Bond pastiche/parody starring Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius. Nicely done, though not very memorable.