Along the lines of “What would happen if he had found another outlet”, I recommend tracking down a copy of The Iron Dream. Norman Spinrad writing under the persona of an alternate Adolf Hitler. It’s a rather horrifyingly successful pastiche, taking the 50’s SF hero defending the universe from the evil aliens and exaggerating it just a bit to become an Aryan ubermensch protecting his people from the evil mutants. It’s a brilliant sent-up of many of the pulp SF tropes which simultaneously takes us on a tour of the mind of a less-than-stable “author”.
(And just to nail it down, the final chapter is an “afterword” essay by a fictional psychologist commenting on the book’s themes.)
Great example of how it takes an unusually good writer to credibly write like an unusually bad writer… while keeping it readable. Quite a tour de force of writing skill. I don’t feel a need to re-read it, but I’ve kept it in my library to lend out to folks who haven’t seen it yet.
