Camp Concentration

I read this as a relative youngster, just out of my teens - and it was so impressive, that it has stayed with me ever since.

The premise of using syphilis - because that is what the "germ" was - to render captives super-intelligent, in a bizarre alternative version of the Tuskeegee Experiment - was masterful. What Disch does with that super-intelligence, even more so. The characterisation is superb; the writing taut but poetic. Still one of my best-ever reads, and thoroughly recommended.