Journals of the Plague Years

The most basic (and best) science fiction stories are those that take a current condition and extrapolate to the future. Here Spinrad writes of a future threatened by a sexually transmitted disease that started in Africa worked its way through the gay and drug communities and now is at large in the general population. The term "AIDs" is not used at all in the story, only mentioned in the author's afterword. The disease is particularly deadly because as each successful vaccine is found, the virus mutates to a resistant strain almost immediately. Spinrad's story follows 4 characters: A soldier in a military division of the infected (nicknamed The Army of the Living Dead), a fundamentalist Christian politician who heads a new Quarantine Bureau of the government, an infected young girl who tries to bring sexual solace to as many of the infected as she can, and a research scientist looking for the ultimate vaccine. Because the disease requires repeated vaccines to counteract the many mutations, the drug companies don't want this "SuperVaccine" found. Starting with these vastly different characters, Spinrad spins a web of intrigue until the story culminates in the quarantined San Francisco. The story is tense and exciting. All the characters grow, for example, the girl becomes almost a religious icon to the infected. All of this is set in a world where sex is done through machines and various interfaces to protect the quickly diminishing ranks of the uninfected. This is an excellent SF tale with an adult theme and frightening settings.