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Page compiled by Henry W.Targowski, with input from: Patrick Kearney
ISBN 0-86130-023-8 (UK pbk, 1980)
novel, science fiction, erotica, germ warfare, aphrodisiac
With a special introduction by Philip José Farmer [UK pbk, 1980].
*note: The publishing information for The Gas is uncertain. My copy [UK pbk, 1980] of the book is unclear about its early publishing history. Here's an e-mail which may explain it:
"A delicious erotic dream explodes into an uncontrollable nightmare of perversion, violence, and insanity. An accident at a secret germ-warfare laboratory allows a deadly vapour to infect all of Southern England. The vapour is an aphrodisiac that releases every pent-up human urge. Within 24 hours society self-destructs in a vast orgy of lust, aggression, and psychosis, as men and women everywhere act out their deepest, weirdest obsessions.
"As a breathless ride into depravity, The Gas is unique. As a witty, ironic exposé of the repressions and hypocrisies that make us 'civilized', The Gas is a salutory comment on our society.
"For almost a decade this amazing journey into sexual compulsion has been an underground classic, considered too explicit for the British market. Commissioned originally for the notorious Essex House series of erotic science fiction, The Gas was published in America in 1970, and became an instant collectors' item. Now, for the first time, Savoy Books makes this unique novel available to the British public, with a new introduction by Philip José Farmer." [jacket blurb, UK pbk, 1980]
"An excellent novel." --Maurice Girodias (publisher of Olympia Press).
"I believe I am correct in saying that Platt's novel The Gas was never published at Paris by the Olympia Press, nor by Essex House either. It was in fact first published at New York in 1970 by the Olympia Press, as vol. OPH-216 of the Ophelia Press series. I am unaware of its subsequent history." --Patrick Kearney.
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Return to Mark/Space
Page compiled by Henry W.Targowski, with input from: Patrick Kearney