Norman Spinrad has demonstrated a remarkable senility with his latest column in Asimov’s, claiming that the only reason that a “socialist novel” like The Iron Council was published in the States was because it was Book Three in a trilogy. (Never mind the American coverage from Michael Dirda in the Washington Post or Gerald Jonas in the New York Times that might have had a hand in the novel’s awareness.) Fortunately, The Mumpsimus is there to call him on his whiny, self-serving horseshit.