Bug Jack Barron is among the few novels with a near-future setting where it hardly matters that the author guessed wrong on details, because its larger issues are still important. Television is still a prime mover and shaper of pub lic opinion and politics. We still struggle with decisions about life and death, made harder by technology's new promises. Not a few of us also recognize its characters' dilemmas. Can personal values be kept while working for a corrupt system? Even while holding power in it? Can one make progress, in fact, only by working within the system for change? Can an old love be revived?

There is much material in the novel for rewarding discussion. Whether it starts out considering the public issues or the individual ones, a group is likely to touch on both eventually.

1. Jack Barron and Lucas Greene's Social Justice party are...