What do You think about Dr. Adder (1988)?
This one pretty much defines 'cult novel.' Written in 1972 and unable to find a publisher until 1984, supposedly due to its nihilism and graphic sex and violence, it received accolades from none other than Philip K. Dick. There's an afterward published posthumously based on a draft he read. I stumbled onto this one via a PKD recommendations booklist and picked up a $3 copy. I'm not surprised the author had trouble finding someone to put it out; for 1972, this was pretty extreme and ahead of its time. The writing is choppy, but what it lacks in that department it more than makes up for in sci-fi psychedelics and gonzo craziness. It predates "City Come a-Walkin" (1980) in the cyberpunk field, but it can't really claim the crown from John Shirley due to its actual release year. The story looks dated and overshadowed by Gibson's "Neuromancer," also released in 1984. I didn't find it too far off of some of John Shirley's '80s and early '90s horror and sci-fi books, with its grimy urban locale and unlikeable anti-heroes. Dr. Adder, who is lionized as a revolutionary cult hero, is a misogynist and homophobe. Main character Limmit is a drug-addled nihilist, clearly based a bit on detectives from pulp novels. The society depicted is so debased and future-less (and shockingly close in certain ways to modern day) that I wasn't sure if the homophobia and misogyny were Jeter's own at the time, or if he was portraying a bleak future. I recommend the novel with caveats for anyone who likes dark, cult science fiction and wants to explore the earliest cyberpunk.I later found this review online, which nails the appeal of semi-forgotten pulp sci-fi like "Dr. Adder" - "The book is like a punk rock band's first record that's crammed to the brim with too much good stuff because the band isn't sure if they'll ever get another chance. By the way, I don't feel that the punk rock analogy is off the mark: Jeter's early novels have the same delightfully anarchic energy, borderline nihilism and spit-in-your-eye anger that permeates early punk rock."
—Ian
Dr. Adder is a brilliant surgeon in the horrible wreck of future Los Angeles, a messianic figure who earns his keep by re-sculpting the various teenage runaways of Orange County into the whores of Los Angeles - amputating and reconfiguring various body parts, wiping away their minds if necessary. This sickeningly sick character is an unrepentant woman-hater and homophobe; he is also the wildly popular and beloved symbol of freedom for both L.A. and the O.C. John Mox is a brillant corporate strategist and voice of moral authority in the drug-addled suburban sprawl of future Orange County, a messianic figure who keeps his power by out-maneuvering his fellow corporate shareholders and by addressing the denizens of Southern California during his daily televised hour of folksy, grandfatherly sermons. This sickeningly sick character is an unrepentant hater of all things associated with the body's desires; he is also the commander of a legion of bloodthirsty stormtroopers called The Moral Force. E Allen Limmit is a disaffected young man, fresh off the giant-mutated-chicken farm, once a soldier and later the manager of the farm's mutated-chicken-whore brothel. A somewhat bland and often irritable lad with vague ambitions to be somebody, do something, whatever, just getting the hell off of the farm. Limmit travels to The Interface - a terminally seedy street that functions as a meeting place for the degraded, drugged-up, fuck-happy denizens of L.A. & O.C. And he has brought a terrifyingly effective death-weapon with him - an instant-massacre machine. Woot! Guess who gets caught between a rock and a hard place.The novel "Dr. Adder" is perhaps the first cyberpunk novel, being completed in 1972 (although not published until 1984). It certainly has that grim, tarnished, dirty urban feeling that is key to the subgenre. It has the nonchalant violence and misanthropy, the cynicism, the snark; its narrative includes violent corporate interests, casual murder & slaughter, bad-trip imagery, and a strange kind of psychic pre-internet that exists somewhere in between the mind and the electromagnetic static of radio waves & television transmissions. It is certainly a distinctive book: angrily snappy, grimly jokey, gleefully vindictive. An adventure and an excoriation.I didn't particularly care for it. I do admire how forward-looking it turned out to be. As a person who lived for many years in So-Cal, I appreciated and shared the equal-opportunity contempt for both Los Angeles and Orange County. (Have there ever been such radically different neighbors?) The novel also has admirable chutzpah when it comes to the sheer imagintion on display - the seedy 'Rattown' of L.A., the sewers beneath it, the mind-numbing & hypocritical lifestyle of O.C., the casually bizarre chicken farm, various vividly characterized cast members, a tremendous dream-battle, gruesome & revolting sexuality, a bloodbath on the Interface, even an extraterrestrial Visitor... all quite strikingly stylized, all of these things practically popping off of the page. Jeter has a way with words. Although often lamentably sloppy (particularly in terms of plotline), the man is still a creative and often surprising wordsmith, with ideas that are well ahead of their time and are often fairly sophisticated. He knows how to write a great sentence and he knows how to create savage alternates to our reality. But the constant misanthropy - and, most obnoxiously, the constant misogyny - really began to annoy me. It seemed facile. Like an angry teenager from a cushy middle class background. All of the posturing felt shallow and unearned.I am not a moral relativist. Sorry. I don't care what the fookin' era is all about or if this is just how a particular culture operates... if a specific demographic is demeaned over and over again, in a work of fiction or elsewhere, I am not going to make excuses for it. I may not completely dismiss the piece in question, but I'm not going to overlook bullshit or come up with reasons why it's not so bad. And so it is with the novel Dr. Adder: fearless, clever, boldly imaginative; the first cyberpunk novel; a sardonic encapsulation of the moral battles & culture wars between counties Orange & Los Angeles; concepts from Burroughs moving about in a world of Sadean cruelty; a deranged & violent sci fi farce; a gushing blood-fountain of excessive, crypto-techno-organic deviance... all that, yes, great... but also constantly WOMAN-HATING. Ugh. You may be ingenious... but still: Fuck Off, novel! Your attitude sucks.
—mark monday
I bought this book because I read an interview with KW Jeter in old issue of the music magazine Forced Exposure. I enjoyed this book. It's pretty thrilling in it's dystopian weirdness and there are lots of interesting ideas in it, such as concubines made from genetically modified chickens. Definatly a good fun pulp-y read, but I gave it three stars cause I couldn't really reccomend it to everyone. It reads a bit like a much trashier Willam Gibson. Also, since it was actually written in 1972, it is the definatly the first cyberpunk novel.
—christopher
