Camp Concentration

I like sf books that take place in the present day, or rather, the present day of their composition. Camp Concentration was published in 1972. An expanded version of the Vietnam War seems to be underway. Robert MacNamara is mentioned frequently, and Disch assumes that his readers will know what Dwight Eisenhower looked like.

Sachetti is a jailed conscientious objector, a "conchie" who finds himself transferred from a federal prison to the luxurious Camp Archimedes. HIs new digs are spacious and he may decorate them as he wishes. The food is equal to a five star restaurantt, the library is something akin to the Library of Congress. There are only a handful of internees, and they all seem like nice enough fellows although a couple of them a clearly ill.

Sachetti's role at the camp, according to Haast, the ex-military man with a dubious record and a mystical streak who runs the place, is to simply record what he observes. What he observes is an experiment involving an new drug that greatly increases one's mental capacity but unfortunately is fatal. Brillliant visionaries surround Sachetti, but each has only a few months to live.

The military hopes their lab rats will come up with brilliant weapons, but they tend more toward alchemical experiments and arcane theological discussions. Almost anything else I say about the plot will be a spoiler, so I will only say this about the writing. Disch is one of those highly praised sf writers that I have always assumed would not live up to his reputation. That does not prove to be the case. He has written a modernist novel crammed with ideas -- admittedly some have become more familiar over time -- and he tells his story in short bursts of Sachetti's diary that credit the reader with the ability to keep up and even anticipate things Sachetti himself does not see coming.

I do recommend keeping a dictionary app open on your phone while reading. I look forward to using the word chyme in polite conversation.