i want a new drug...
lucky
Apologies to Huey Lewis.
In another 'monster' thread drug issues were touched. I, in a vain attempt
at topicality, tried to OBSF it:
Books that deal with future drugs or touch on the issue. I thought of three
writers off the top of my head: Niven's wireheads [Spider Robinson borrowed
the concept as well] Herbert's, spice and Aldous Huxley's Soma.
[For the purposes of brevity and clarity I will define 'drugs' - meaning
'recreational drugs'- as substances taken for their mood and mind-altering
properties through physiological effects and is often physically or
psychologically habit forming to some degree. Note1: this definition
excludes a video gaming 'addiction' as a form of drug. Note2: I am not
claiming this is the one and only definition, just the one I am using. Feel
free to present your own.]
I'm sure through the 60's-70's and in the cyber-punk genre more writing has
been done about drugs. It seems like it might be an under-addressed topic
in sf.
A surely as porn was the first surefire commercial success of the internet,
new drugs would be - if not the first - a very early surefire success of new
pharma. Example: Viagra. It went from an anti-impotence drug to recreational
in nothing flat. Example 2: Ritalin. Example 3: Valium. Example 4. Percocet
I figure drugs can fall into 3 broad categories: stimulants, depressants
and hallucinogens. What future developments will occur in drugs?
Ritalin - a stimulant paradoxically is used to treat children with ADD and
is aggressively now being marketed towards adults, once the preserve of the
Valiums and Prozacs. Given that a black market in Ritalin among children
developed I'm sure adults will follow.
Not much big pharma research seems to go into hallucinogens. That R&D seems
to be left to Hell's Angel's bikers, 60's hippy burnouts, and the discovery
of naturally occurring substances like poison toads and various fungii.
So. Anyone want to speculate on the future of drugs?
Dr. Dave
>
> I figure drugs can fall into 3 broad categories: stimulants, depressants
> and hallucinogens.
Aren't 'euphorics' generally classified separately? Or is that a
category that cuts across the other three?
Other SFnal drug stuff:
Philip Dick: Ubik, Can-D, etc.
Iain M. Banks's "Culture" novels, wherein most humans are modified to
be able to 'gland' various mood-altering chemicals at will, directly
into the bloodstream.
Walter Jon Williams's _Metropolitan_ et al, with both pharmaceutical
drugs and plasm abuse.
David Tate
lucky
"Dr. Dave" <dt...@ida.org> wrote in message
news:1138814443.8...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> lucky wrote:
>>
>> I figure drugs can fall into 3 broad categories: stimulants, depressants
>> and hallucinogens.
>
> Aren't 'euphorics' generally classified separately? Or is that a
> category that cuts across the other three?
I thought, and even typed euphorics but many do seem to fit into other
categories - at a glance it seems mostly depressants oddly enough.
I claim no expertise. Mine is certainly a lay knowledge.
John Pelan
wrote:
Been there, done that... ;-)
http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/pelan02
There's also Brian Hodge's terrific novel NIGHTLIFE...
Cheers,
John
John
Peter D. Tillman
David Cowie
> Books that deal with future drugs or touch on the issue. I thought of three
> writers off the top of my head: Niven's wireheads [Spider Robinson borrowed
> the concept as well] Herbert's, spice and Aldous Huxley's Soma.
A few more that touch on the issue:
_Virtual Light_ by William Gibson. There's a drug called "Dancer" which
makes its abusers "inhumanly fast and clinically psychotic". I don't
recall Gibson saying *why* people take it - they just do.
In a Jerry Pournelle CoDominium novel, there's a passing mention of Borloi
(described by an offical report as "The perfect intoxicating drug") which
is grown on an alien planet, and given to people living in welfare islands.
Thionite in the Lensman books. If you take it, it feels as if all your
dreams and desires have come true. Including the ones you don't like to
own up to, or wish you didn't have.
--
David Cowie
Containment Failure + 19442:17
trike
>
>Philip Dick: Ubik, Can-D, etc.
>
>Iain M. Banks's "Culture" novels, wherein most humans are modified to
>be able to 'gland' various mood-altering chemicals at will, directly
>into the bloodstream.
>
>Walter Jon Williams's _Metropolitan_ et al, with both pharmaceutical
>drugs and plasm abuse.
The _Dune_ books have spice.
_A Clockwork Orange_ has moloko -- milk spiked with hallucinogens.
_A Scanner Darkly_ had some drug in it, as I recall, but I forget the
name.
The title of _Snow Crash_ refers to a drug, but I don't remember if it
was recreational.
Doug
Justin Fang
trike <dougtr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>The title of _Snow Crash_ refers to a drug, but I don't remember if it
>was recreational.
I thought it referred to a computer failure mode.
--
Justin Fang (jus...@panix.com)
Sea Wasp
> Apologies to Huey Lewis.
>
> In another 'monster' thread drug issues were touched. I, in a vain attempt
> at topicality, tried to OBSF it:
>
> Books that deal with future drugs or touch on the issue. I thought of three
> writers off the top of my head: Niven's wireheads [Spider Robinson borrowed
> the concept as well] Herbert's, spice and Aldous Huxley's Soma.
Brian Daley's "Floyt/Fitzhugh" books (Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds,
Jinx on a Terran Inheritance, and Fall of the White Ship Avatar) have
a fair amount on future drugs.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
trike
>>was recreational.
>
>I thought it referred to a computer failure mode.
It's really good sh!#, man....
Maybe I'm misremembering. Was it a drug or a virus? Or a virus
disguised as a drug?
Doug
Esa Perkio
: _Virtual Light_ by William Gibson. There's a drug called "Dancer" which
: makes its abusers "inhumanly fast and clinically psychotic". I don't
: recall Gibson saying *why* people take it - they just do.
A book or a short story I've happily forgotten had a stoooopid
recreational drug / plot device which caused amnesia from the moment of
ingestion onwards until the end of the effect. It was described as
habit-forming and widely abused. I do wonder why.
(Yep, of course one can imagine uses for this, but most of them are not
recreational as such.)
--
Esa Perkiö
Wayne Throop
: It's really good sh!#, man....
Huh? Shouldn't that be #!sh ?
Oh, no wait, the path isn't consulted, so it'd have to be #!/bin/sh
or else it'd ... um ... fail. So... OK, so now I'm confused.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Dr. Dave
> David Cowie <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> : _Virtual Light_ by William Gibson. There's a drug called "Dancer" which
> : makes its abusers "inhumanly fast and clinically psychotic". I don't
> : recall Gibson saying *why* people take it - they just do.
You don't see the appeal of being inhumanly fast? Really?
> A book or a short story I've happily forgotten had a stoooopid
> recreational drug / plot device which caused amnesia from the moment of
> ingestion onwards until the end of the effect. It was described as
> habit-forming and widely abused. I do wonder why.
Are you thinking of 'Cloud', from the Lee & Miller Korval books?
That's pretty much what it does. The one addict (recovered) that we
meet used it to self-medicate for post-traumatic shock disorder.
> (Yep, of course one can imagine uses for this, but most of them are not
> recreational as such.)
How many are? People tend to take drugs because they like the way they
feel while high better than they like the way they normally feel.
There's scope for all sorts of different effects there, depending on
how it is you normally feel.
ObSF: When Ekaterin is given Fast Penta in _Komarr_, and says "It
doesn't hurt!". Her interrogator mistakenly interprets this as "The
effects of fast penta are painless", when what she meant was "Fast
penta makes my ever-present emotional pain go away".
David Tate
Taki Kogoma
allegedly declared to rec.arts.sf.written...
>>>The title of _Snow Crash_ refers to a drug, but I don't remember if it
>>>was recreational.
Marketed as a recreational drug and appearntly made part of the
worship practices of Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates(tm).
>>I thought it referred to a computer failure mode.
That's the origin of the name...
>It's really good sh!#, man....
>
>Maybe I'm misremembering. Was it a drug or a virus? Or a virus
>disguised as a drug?
Yes.
Gym "It's also allegedly transmissible via the optic nerve." Quirk
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.
art...@yahoo.com
lucky wrote:
> Apologies to Huey Lewis.
>
> In another 'monster' thread drug issues were touched. I, in a vain attempt
> at topicality, tried to OBSF it:
>
> Books that deal with future drugs or touch on the issue. I thought of three
> writers off the top of my head: Niven's wireheads [Spider Robinson borrowed
> the concept as well] Herbert's, spice and Aldous Huxley's Soma.
put a drug into the water supply that wiped out peoples memories. One
person who was in an asylum because of horrible guilt (he was having an
affair while the rest his family died in an accident) was "cured" by
this drug and helped push the drug as a means of salvation.
Peter Meilinger
> Esa Perkio wrote:
> > David Cowie <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> > : _Virtual Light_ by William Gibson. There's a drug called "Dancer" which
> > : makes its abusers "inhumanly fast and clinically psychotic". I don't
> > : recall Gibson saying *why* people take it - they just do.
>
> You don't see the appeal of being inhumanly fast? Really?
Reminds me of something that I think comes from the old
Cyberpunk 2020 RPG. There was this guy, see, a Solo or
Street Samurai or whatever the game called heavily cybered
combat types, and he was wired to the gills with reflex
enhancing cyberware. He was also carousing with friends
and doped to the gills on some drug or other that turned
out to interact weirdly with his wired reflexes. When
someone else at the table pulled out their gun and
fired at the ceiling, just for fun, this guy reached out
and caught the bullet, just for fun.
Had to get a replacement hand, of course, but he
figured it was a small price to pay for a story that
was going to get him free drinks for the rest of his
life.
There's a possible topic - good flavor text writing in
RPGs. My favorite is probably Castle Falkenstein.
The S. John Ross GURPS books are pretty good,
too.
Pete
William December Starr
"trike" <dougtr...@hotmail.com> said:
> _A Scanner Darkly_ had some drug in it, as I recall, but I
> forget the name.
Makesyoustupidandboringandthenkillsyou,youboringstupidfool. (TM)
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Rob Kerr
Jeff Noon's "Vurt", "Pollen", and "Nymphomation" have various
drugs that alter consciousness in them. IIRC, administered
virtually by means of feathers.
Rob Kerr
trike
>> forget the name.
>
>Makesyoustupidandboringandthenkillsyou,youboringstupidfool. (TM)
Never chase uppers with Jolt, dude.
Doug
lzdjs
other dimensions, other planes of existence, dimensions which are here
normally but can't be seen each similar to this one with the same laws
of physics--it's not a difficult leap to think that someday there might
be a consciousness to consciousness exchange with this 'other' world.
Perhaps even travel there--. L
Dr. Dave
>
> There's a possible topic - good flavor text writing in
> RPGs. My favorite is probably Castle Falkenstein.
> The S. John Ross GURPS books are pretty good,
> too.
I'm biased, but I think highly of my friend Chad Underkoffler's work.
"Dead Inside: The Roleplaying Game of Loss and Redemption" (and its
sequel, "Cold, Hard World") is particularly good, with some nice
illustrative fiction vignettes. More people are probably familiar with
his writing from his "Campaign in a Box" column at Pyramid Online.
ObPlug: Atomic Sock Monkey Press,
http://www.atomicsockmonkey.com/products.asp
David Tate
Nyrath
It is indeed one of the ironies of fate that research into the so-called
consciousness-expanding drugs proved that they did exactly the opposite,
by leading to the detection of the naturally occurring "apothetic"
chemicals in the brain. The discovery that the most devout adherent of
any faith could be converted to any other by a judicious dose of 2-4-7
ortho-para-theosamine was, perhaps, the most devastating blow ever
received by religion.
Nyrath
the main character trying to find a supply of an alien
drug called "flare."
Nyrath
will expand your mental capacity a bit.
But for a few it will backfire, turning one into
an idiot. And for a few more it will go into
overdrive, making them into super-geniuses.
Jens Kilian
> Was it a drug or a virus?
Yes. Both a biological and a computer virus, too. Also a religion.
"What's the difference?" - Juanita, _Snow Crash_
--
mailto:j...@acm.org As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish,
http://www.bawue.de/~jjk/ so is contempt to the contemptible. [Blake]
http://del.icio.us/jjk
Tim McDaniel
<luck...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Books that deal with future drugs or touch on the issue. ...
>
> [For the purposes of brevity and clarity I will define 'drugs' -
>meaning 'recreational drugs'- as substances taken for their mood and
>mind-altering properties through physiological effects and is often
>physically or psychologically habit forming to some degree.
> I figure drugs can fall into 3 broad categories: stimulants,
>depressants and hallucinogens. What future developments will occur in
>drugs?
There was a book where the protagonist takes a "drug": the outside of
the capsule is anthrax or some such, and the inside is an antibiotic.
It is said to work by making the person feel interestingly woozy from
the first symptoms, and then clear up the disease. (Leave aside the
obvious comments on the amazing faith in antibiotics and the notion of
taking an infectious disease.)
Unfortunately,
- I can't remember the book or author (was it perhaps that
time-line one with Spiders versus Snakes?)
- it's not "physically or psychologically habit forming"
It is, however, imaginative.
--
"Me, I love the USA; I never miss an episode." -- Paul "Fruitbat" Sleigh
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tm...@panix.com
Kat Richardson
> In article <drqhup$7ub$1...@news.datemas.de>, lucky
> <luck...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Books that deal with future drugs or touch on the issue. ...
>>
>> [For the purposes of brevity and clarity I will define 'drugs' -
>>meaning 'recreational drugs'- as substances taken for their mood and
>>mind-altering properties through physiological effects and is often
>>physically or psychologically habit forming to some degree.
> ...
>> I figure drugs can fall into 3 broad categories: stimulants,
>>depressants and hallucinogens. What future developments will occur in
>>drugs?
>
> There was a book where the protagonist takes a "drug": the outside of
> the capsule is anthrax or some such, and the inside is an antibiotic.
> It is said to work by making the person feel interestingly woozy from
> the first symptoms, and then clear up the disease. (Leave aside the
> obvious comments on the amazing faith in antibiotics and the notion of
> taking an infectious disease.)
Richard K. Morgan plays with the idea of viruses as recreation a little in
Woken Furies. It's a minor point, but interesting, in that the people in
question have been around, doing extreme things, for so long that they have
to find a new way to alter their perceptions or they'll be bored stiff.
--
Kat Richardson
Greywalker--coming from Roc in October, 2006
http://www.katrichardson.com/
Dan Clore
> Apologies to Huey Lewis.
>
> In another 'monster' thread drug issues were touched. I, in a vain attempt
> at topicality, tried to OBSF it:
>
> Books that deal with future drugs or touch on the issue. I thought of three
> writers off the top of my head: Niven's wireheads [Spider Robinson borrowed
> the concept as well] Herbert's, spice and Aldous Huxley's Soma.
>
> [For the purposes of brevity and clarity I will define 'drugs' - meaning
> 'recreational drugs'- as substances taken for their mood and mind-altering
> properties through physiological effects and is often physically or
> psychologically habit forming to some degree. Note1: this definition
> excludes a video gaming 'addiction' as a form of drug. Note2: I am not
> claiming this is the one and only definition, just the one I am using. Feel
> free to present your own.]
>
> I'm sure through the 60's-70's and in the cyber-punk genre more writing has
> been done about drugs. It seems like it might be an under-addressed topic
> in sf.
>
> A surely as porn was the first surefire commercial success of the internet,
> new drugs would be - if not the first - a very early surefire success of new
> pharma. Example: Viagra. It went from an anti-impotence drug to recreational
> in nothing flat. Example 2: Ritalin. Example 3: Valium. Example 4. Percocet
>
> I figure drugs can fall into 3 broad categories: stimulants, depressants
> and hallucinogens. What future developments will occur in drugs?
>
> Ritalin - a stimulant paradoxically is used to treat children with ADD and
> is aggressively now being marketed towards adults, once the preserve of the
> Valiums and Prozacs. Given that a black market in Ritalin among children
> developed I'm sure adults will follow.
>
> Not much big pharma research seems to go into hallucinogens. That R&D seems
> to be left to Hell's Angel's bikers, 60's hippy burnouts, and the discovery
> of naturally occurring substances like poison toads and various fungii.
>
> So. Anyone want to speculate on the future of drugs?
A few years ago I made some posts on the subject of drugs in
fantasy and science fiction. Looks like a good excuse to
repost some stuff (not to mention crosspost and add mailing
lists).
*****
I thought this post I recently made on the Zothique Nights
mailing list might be of interest.
stevenfama wrote:
> Well, this evening I rolled into The Plutonian Drug near
the end of
> Lost Worlds and that was a fun one, even with the very
predictable
> ending.
> Can someone kindly supply some background as to whether
there was a
> tradition of these drug tripping tales that CAS was
working in when
> he wrote and first published this one in 1934. There's
other CAS
> stories, I know, where drugs / philtres etc. play a big
part, but The
> Plutonian Drug, with its focus on the effects of the
drug, seemed
> particularly charged in that manner. About ten years
before the
> fact, CAS's descriptions of Balcoth's experience could
have maybe fit
> into those offered by Hofmann about his bicycle ride.
wwhateley added:
> CAS had used drugs as a metaphor for the
consciousness-expanding
> powers of the imagination earlier, notably in "The
Hashish-Eater."
> One predecessor was Baudelaire's "The Artificial
Paradise," of course,
> but I can't think of any sf stories using drugs in the
same manner.
> Something in the back of my mind is whispering "H. G.
Wells," but I
> haven't looked at him for thirty years and can't say for
sure. I
> personally relate this story to such tales as "A
Star-Change" (deals
> with alteration of sensory apparatus) and "The Chain of
Aforgomen"
> (use of drug to reawaken memories of past lives leads to
playing out
> of karmic doom) and "Ubbo-Sathla" (similar plot, only
uses a crystal
> as a focus of mental energies leading to unfortunate
consequences).
> I think that Dan Clore might be able to shed some
light on this,
> as we sort of touched on this in some emails on a
casebook on "The
> H-E" I was thinking about a while ago.
Indeed the Clore can shed some light. Clark Ashton Smith was
most definitely working in a literary tradition in this
tale. He was well aware of the fact, and knew many of his
forebears works quite well.
Among the non-fiction contributions to the genre, one must
instance De Quincey's _Confessions of an English Opium
Eater: Being an Extract from the Life of a Scholar_,
Baudelaire's _Les Paradis artificiels_ (usually translated
as "The Artifical Paradise", though the originally is quite
intentionally in the plural), Gautier's "Le Club des
Hachichins" (usually translated as "The Hashish Club", but
literally "The Club of the Hashishin or Assassins"), and
Fitz-Hugh Ludlow's _The Hasheesh Eater: Being Passages from
the Life of a Pythagorean_. From Smith's references to these
works I believe that he knew and read all of them. He most
likely did not read or know of Aleister Crowley's excellent
essay on "The Psychology of Hashish".
In fiction and verse, the genre presented many examples of
opium-, hashish-, and absinthe-induced fantastic visions or
other effects. These occur particularly among the Decadents,
Symbolists, Aesthetes, and similar writers, and this
tradition is what Smith is adapting to science-fiction
purposes in "The Plutonian Drug". Some examples of fantasy
stories in this tradition would include: Lord Dunsany's "The
Hashish Man", who uses the drug to visit Bethmoora, and "A
Tale of London", in which a Sultan's hashish-eater describes
his fantastic visions of that city; Arthur Machen, in the
"Novel of the White Powder", involving the _Vinum Sabbati_
(from recipes given by witches and witch-hunters, this would
likely include an anti-cholinergic deliriant such as
scopolamine), whose effect in the story is decidedly
physical as well as psychological (on another note, in "The
Great Return" Machen compares the mystical experience of
those who witness the Holy Graal to peyote visions);
Algernon Blackwood's "A Psychical Invasion", which gives a
very good, detailed description of the effects of large
doses of hashish (Blackwood is known to have experimented
with the drug), which recalls LeFanu's "Green Tea" in that
use of the drug brings about the haunting; H.P. Lovecraft's
"Celaphais" includes the use of hashish to reach certain
strange regions; Smith himself contributed "The
Hashish-Eater; or, The Apocalypse of Evil" and unfinished
fragment "In a Hashish-Dream" (earlier titled "A Tale of
Hashish-Land"). Smith also refers to cocaine, peyote, and
kava kava in his tales.
This is far from exhaustive, and interesting examples can be
found all over the place. James Joyce's _Ulysses_, for
example, includes the incredible Nighttown sequence, in
which Dedalus and Bloom wander through Dublin's red light
district tripping on absinthe. The basic idea here is
similar enough to some scenes in Machen's _The Hill of
Dreams_ (where the drug is apparently laudanum) that I
wonder if there wasn't a direct influence involved--and _The
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ would certainly seem
to bear a good deal of similarity to _The Hill of Dreams_ as
well. But that is neither here nor there.
Fantasy and science fiction that adds fictional drugs to the
pharmacy include, among many others, Frank Belknap Long's
"The Hounds of Tindalos", in which the drug _Liao_ has
interesting effects not irrelevant to "The Plutonian Drug"
(Long's poem "The Hashish Eater" should also be mentioned).
I have not yet read Leonard Cline's 1927 novel _The Dark
Chamber_, so I am not certain whether the drugs in it are
real or imaginary (possibly both, I think). This, though,
was praised highly by both Lovecraft and Smith. There is
also A. Merritt's 1928 novel _Seven Footprints to Satan_, in
which the Fu Manchu-like Satan uses the drug _kehft_ to
enslave his followers in the manner lesser villains such as
Rohmer's Fu Manchu and Robert E. Howard's Skull-Face use
heroin or hashish.
Smith made a good number of contributions to this
fantastical pharmacy. "An Adventure in Futurity", for
example, tells of the Martian weed _gnultan_, which is
similar to hashish or opium but physically harmless.
Naturally enough, the government bans it anyway. "Vulthoom"
seems to combine Fu Manchu, Skull-Face, Cthulhu, and
Merritt's Satan, and intends to use an unnambed imaginary
like in the same manner as the last. In "The Chain of
Aforgomon" the drug _souvara_ appears, it being used in the
mystic Orient to give memories of one's past lives. (See
also Henry Kuttner's later story "The Invaders" in this
connection, in which a recipe from _De Vermis Mysteriis_
allows one to recall ancestral memories. I guess James
Allison had it easy.) The story "Double Cosmos" concerns a
drug which allows the user to see into other dimensions,
though what he sees is not exactly a pleasant revelation. It
is unfortunate that "Mnemoka" was never completed, as the
manner in which this drug, which allows one to relive
memories, becomes less than pleasant could be very
interesting.
"The Plutonian Drug" is probably Smith's greatest
contribution in this area. The story is, in my opinion,
satisfying in every way, providing a novel and interesting
premise, and told in an effective manner. It is a model of
the well-wrought tale in which all elements are carefully
orchestrated to create a strong, unified effect in the
reader. The tale's premise seems to me a worthy
extrapolation from the idea used earlier by Long, Cline, and
Smith himself, so that the drug allows the user to see not
only back in time but forward as well. Likewise, he does a
decent job describing what this experience might be like.
One element here might benefit from explanation. He refers
to "futuristic" painting, referring to the early 20th
century art movement known as Futurism. This was an art
movement in Italy, Russia, and elsewhere, related to Cubism
and Dada, and variously aligned with fascism, anarchism, and
communism. In painting, one technique Futurists frequently
employed was to depict the same object at a number of points
in time, so as to reveal motion. Examples can be found at
http://www.futurism.org.uk/ for those interested. (Futurism
is mentioned by Lovecraft as well, so this is of more
general interest.)
That's probably enough for now.
*****
There's still a few blanks in it, but I think I'll consider
this done anyway.
Jean Pierrot's _The Decadent Imagination, 1880-1900_ (1981)
identifies drugs as one of the major themes of decadent
writing.
Tzvetan Todorov's book _The Fantastic: A Structural Approach
to a Literary Genre_ (1970) includes Alan Watts' study of
psychedelics _The Joyous Cosmology_ as well as things like
Gautier's essay about hashish.
The Arabian Nights includes some stories about hashish
eaters.
Jan Potocki's _Manuscrit trouve a Saragosse_ (first integral
edition 1987, English translation as _The Saragossa
Manuscript_) explains some of its supernatural events as a
drug-induced dream.
Samuel Taylor Coleridges' poem "Kubla Khan" was famously
written during a laudanum-induced dream.
George Crabbe's "Sir Eustace Grey" is based on the author's
opium-induced nightmares.
Gerard de Nerval. _Voyage en Orient_ or _Voyage to the
Orient_ () tells the story of the Caliph Hakim, a
tenth-century hashish-eater. Hakim is allegedly the founder
of the sect of Druzes or Druses.
Alexandre Dumas. _The Count of Monte Cristo_ () includes the
hashish-eating character Sinbad the Sailor, based on Hassan
ibn Sabbah.
Lewis Carroll's classic children's book _Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland_ (1865) famously includes hookah-smoking
caterpillar perched on a psychedelic mushroom. Carroll had
apparently read about the use of _amanita muscaria_ by
Siberian shamans, including effects such as Brobdingnagian
and Lilliputian hallucinations. Many have speculated that
Carroll experimented with the fungus himself.
Arthur Rimbaud, who wrote under the influence of hashish and
absinthe, wrote the prose-poem "The Time of the Assassins".
Guy de Maupassant's story "Reves" (1882; translated as
"Dreams") describes the effects of ether.
Jean Moreas. "Reve d'absinthe" (1884) describes the visions
of an "alcoholic and neurotic" writer who indulges in too
much of the "green fairy".
Paul Bonnetain's novel _L'Opium_ (1886) involves a decadent
poet who travels to Indochina.
Marie Corelli. _Wormwood: A Drama of Paris_ (1889) describes
the dangers of absinthe in excruciating detail;
absinthe-drinkers, it seems, indulge in the substance for
the sheer evil pleasure of undermining civilization, and
like to make speeches like this: 'I love to think that I and
my compeers in Absinthe are a blot and a disgrace to the
fairest city under the sun!--I love to meditate on the crass
stupidity of our rulers, who though gravely forbidding the
sale of poisons to the general public, permit the free
enjoyment of Absinthe everywhere!--I watch with a scientific
interest the mental and moral deterioration of our young
men, and I take a pride in helping them on to their
downfall!--I love to pervert ideas, to argue falsely, to
mock at virtue, to jeer at faith, and to instil morbid
sentiments into the minds of those who listen to me;--and I
smile as I see how "_La revanche_" is dying out, and how
content the Absinthe-drinker is to crouch before the
stalwart, honest, beer-bred Teuton! It is a grand
sight!--and we are a glorious people!--just the sort of
beings who are constituted to caper and make mouths at
"_perfide Albion_"--and capture mild English tourists in
mistake for German spies! All is for the best!--Let us drink
and dream and dance and carouse and let the world go by! Let
us make a mere empty boast of honor,--and play off sparkling
witticisms against purity,--let us encourage our writers and
dramatists to pen obscenities,--our painters to depict
repulsive nudities--our public men to talk loud
inanities--our women to practise all the wiles of wantons
and cocottes!'
Edward Bellamy never wrote this story: "Hasheesh Ghost
Story: Modify story so as to make the object of the hasheesh
delusion be the conveying to a person of an important
secret, supposed to be known only to the supposed dead
person. This makes ghost scene essential to development of
story."
Madame Blavatsky employed hashish to induce memories of her
past lives and other revelations and mystical insights.
Adolphe Rette's book of prose poems, _Thule des brumes_
(1891), includes pieces inspired by hashish.
Marcel Schwob's story "The Portals of Opium" (1891) is a
brief symbolic tale.
Jules Boissiere's story collection _Les Fumeurs d'opium_
(1896) employs Indochina as an exotic Oriental setting.
Alfred Jarry. _Days and Nights () includes a session of
hashish-induced inane dialogue based on puns and
misinterpretations. This is somewhat similar to some scenes
in Phil K. Dick's _A Scanner Darkly_.
In _The Varieties of Religious Experience_ () William James
devotes a section to drug-induced mystical states,
describing his own experiences with nitrous oxide in the
third person and quoting Benjamin Paul Blood's _The
Anaesthetic Revelation and the Gist of Philosophy_ (1874).
H.G. Wells' story "The Purple Pileus" (1896) has a henpecked
husband attempt to kill himself by eating poisonous
toadstools. Instead, he goes into a violent frenzy and wins
the respect of his wife. I suspect that Wells was aware that
Nordic berserkers are supposed to have taken _amanita
muscaria_ in order to go berserk (Wells also mentions fly
agaric by name). In "The New Accelerator" () an inventor
creates a stimulant so powerful that those who take it are
effectively invisible to others, and their experiences are
used as a means of defamiliarization as they see, for
example, a bee that looks like it's hanging motionless in
the air. They nearly burn themselves to death from friction
against the air. Nonetheless, they decide to mass produce
the drug, and to make a corresponding Retarder with opposite
effects. (Erle Stanley Gardner's "Year in a Day" (1930)
features a criminal who uses a drug like the Accelerator.
Where's Perry Mason when you need him?)
L. Frank Baum's classic children's book _The Wonderful
Wizard of Oz_ (1900) features the Deadly Poppy Field. The
poppies give off a perfume that causes sleep and eventually,
death. (This has been somewhat altered in the movie. Flowers
which give off a deadly perfume are a staple of fantasy and
weird fiction.)
I don't recall ever seeing Lord Dunsany's story "The Strange
Drug of Dr. Caber".
Sax Rohmer wrote a novel titled _Dope_ (1919), but I haven't
read either this or the Fu Manchu series.
H.P. Lovecraft. "Old Bugs" (1919) tells of an aging user of
deadly drugs such as alcohol and hasheesh. "The Crawling
Chaos" (1920/21) describes a nightmare vision induced by an
overdose of opium. _At the Mountains of Madness_ (1931)
informs us that according to the _Necronomicon_, no shoggoth
has been seen on earth except in the dreams of those who
have chewed a certain rare alkaloidal herb. Robert Anton
Wilson and Robert Shea give us the actual quote from the Dee
translation in their _Illuminatus!_ trilogy: "Onlie those
who have eaten a certain alkaloid herb, whose name it were
wise not to disclose to the unilluminated, maye in the
fleshe see a Shoggothe. "
Clark Ashton Smith's plot idea and unfinished fragment for
"Slaves of the Black Pillar" (originally "The Drug from
Algol") introduces yet another imaginary drug.
Haldan Macfall, _The Three Students_ (1926), is an
historical fantasy novel with Omar Khayyam as protagonist,
and Hassan i Sabbah as villain.
Robert Bloch. "Black Lotus" (1935) is a great Oriental
fantasy written when Bloch was sixteen. An Eastern potentate
has sated himself on opium, and turns to the fabled black
lotus, which he has read of in a forbidden tome, and which
produces dreams which surpass reality, or blend with it in
new and unhallowed ways. In a style reminiscent of that of a
William Beckford or a Clark Ashton Smith, this is a very
untypical production from Bloch's pen.
E. Hoffman Price, "Hasheesh Wisdom" (1936). I haven't seen
it.
Robert E. Howard. _Three-Bladed Doom_ (pubished posthumously
1977). A direct descendant of Hassan ibn Sabbah recreates
the order of Assassins. From their secret base in
Afghanistan, he sends these hemp-maddened fanatics out to
engage in terrorist attacks on the West. _Skull-Face_
(1929). The Fu Manchu-like Atlantean wizard Kathulos employs
hashish and opium in the manner typical of Oriental
villains. "Lord of the Dead" (published posthumously in
1978). In addition to opium, the Oriental villain Erlik Khan
employs the "Smoke of Shaitan", the dust of the black lotos,
to implant post-hypnotic suggestions. He has also put an
entire Chinese Tong into a cataleptic trance with other
imaginary drugs. I haven't seen the essay "Hashish Land" (),
which REH wrote while doing research for _Skull-Face_.
Aldous Huxley's _Brave New World_ (1932) adds the drug soma
to the pharmacopeia. Huxley was introduced to the use of
peyote by Aleister Crowley, and he went on to author the
non-fiction classics _The Doors of Perception_ (1954) and
_Heaven and Hell_ (1956), and the psychedelic utopia
_Island_ (1962), where the drug moksha is used. And it looks
like this barely scratches the surface of his work involving
psychetropic drugs.
John Dickson Carr's detective thriller _The Crooked Hinge_
(1937) involves modern witches who trip on belladonna.
David H. Keller. "The Opium Eater" (included in _Tales from
Underwood_, 1952). I haven't seen it.
Cyril Kornbluth. "The Two Dooms" (published posthumously in
1958). A WWII physicist working to develop the atomic bomb
takes a dose of psychedelic mushrooms given to him by an
Indian shaman and wakes in a future in which America is
divided between Nazis and Japanese because the bomb was
never developed. Lucky for him, he finds some more
mushrooms, comes back, and makes the bomb.
Rog Phillips "The Yellow Pill" (1958) is a nifty little
reality vs. illusion story which has been anthologized
often.
Louis Charbonneau. _Psychedelic-40_ (1964). I haven't seen
it.
Michael Moorcock's "The Deep Fix" (1964, also published
under the pseudonym James Colvin) is something of a tribute
to William S. Burroughs, after whom the protagonist is named
Lee W. Seward (Burroughs is also mentioned by name). It adds
M-A 19 (Mescalin-Andrenol Nineteen) to the fantastical
pharmacopeia. Moorcock also authored something I haven't
seen called _The LSD Dossier_ under the pseudonym Roger
Harris.
Harlan Ellison. "Shattered Like a Glass Goblin" (1968) is a
classic anti-drug horror story, and from the titles I'd
guess "Gentleman Junkie" (1961) and "Opium" (1978) belong on
the list as well.
James Wade's "The Deep Ones" appeared in the 1969 version of
_Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos_ but is omitted from the 1990
version of that anthology. It involves a hippy cult who use
LSD to fight Cthulhu and his foul minions--dolphins. Pretty
lame story, but Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea borrowed
from it in the _Illuminatus!_ trilogy.
Norman Spinrad has written a number of stories on the topic
of psychotropic drugs. "The Weed of Time" (1970) adds a
plant called _tempis ceti_ [I'm guessing that _tempis_ is a
misprint or mistake for _tempus_] or Temp to the fantastical
pharmacopeia. This drug makes the taker simultaneously aware
of his entire existence, extending from birth to death, and
even works retroactively so that the taker has had this
awareness since birth. (Cf. Clark Ashton Smith's "The
Plutonian Drug".) "No Direction Home" (1971) tells of a
future in which drug use is constant. It adds methalin,
canabinolic acid, cocanol, eucomorfamine, nadabrin, lebemil,
peyotadrene, mescamil, metadrene, paxum, and orodalamine to
the fantastical pharmacopeia. A character decides to go
without drugs, but after twelve hours discovers that reality
is the worst trip he's ever been on--it doesn't occur to him
that he's suffering from withdrawal.
Stanislaw Lem's _The Futurological Congress_ (1971,
translation 1974) is a sort of tribute to Philip K. Dick,
which adds an amazing array of imaginary drugs to the
fantastical pharmacopeia. Most of these are given
neologistic names created from puns and portmanteau words.
To give an idea: 'In just the last issue of _Science Today
there had been an article on some new psychotropic agents of
the group of co-called _benignimizers_ (the
N,N-dimethylpeptocryptomides), which induced states of
undirected joy and beatitude. Yes, yes! I could practically
see that article now. Hedonidol, Euphoril, Inebrium,
Felicitine, Empathan, Ecstasine, Halcyonal and a whole spate
of derivatives! Though by replacing an amino group with a
hydroxyl you obtained, instead, Furiol, Antagonil,
Rabiditine, Sadistizine, Dementium, Flagellan, Juggernol,
and many other polyparanoidal stimulants of the group of
so-called phrensobarbs (for these prompted the most vicious
behavior, the lashing out at objects animate as well as
inanimate--and especially powerful were the
cannibal-cannabinols and manicomimetics).' Highly
recommended.
Hunter Thompson's _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ (1971)
must win the prize for all-time greatest true drug horror
story. Thompson and his lawyer ingest an enormous amount of
a wide variety of psychotropics, including marijuana,
peyote, LSD, cocaine, amphetamines, amyl nitrite, ether,
tobacco, and alcohol. At one point Thompson takes a drug
that is supposed to be adrenochrome, which--so he informs
us--can only be obtained from the adrenaline glands of a
*live* human body. His attorney claims to have gotten this
as payment for defending a Satanist on child molestation
charges. The movie version does a very good job portraying
the altered states of consciousness, but might be hard to
follow for those who haven't read the book.
Fritz Leiber. "The Terror from the Depths" (1976). The
narrator takes an experimental drug designed in the
laboratories of Miskatonic University. Supposed to induce
dreams, it makes him hear voices that drone an endless list
of Cthulhu Mythos references. Samples are provided
throughout the story.
Paddy Chayefsky, _Altered States_ (). Haven't read it,
haven't seen the movie. Based on John Lilly's experiments
with the sensory deprivation tank and LSD.
Poppy Z. Brite's tribute to Lovecraft, "His Mouth Will Taste
of Wormwood" (1990) features absinthe.
Don Webb often includes psychotropic drugs in his stories.
Some examples from _Uncle Ovid's Exercise Book_ (1988)
include "Metamorphosis No. 11", in which the Comte de
Lautreamont and the Comte d'Erlette drink an oily greenish
fluid that tastes like absinthe, turn into octopi, and
influence Arkham House to produce all those tomes bound in
Black Novolex. "Metamorphosis No. 26" refers to a
"lycanthropy drug". "Metamorphosis No. 40" features mandrake
and _amanita muscaria_. In "Metamorphosis No. 71" a huffer
nicknamed EtherHead is employed by ghouls to suck the
embalming fluid out of corpses. "Metamorphosis No. 82"
mentions _mnophka_ and plutonium, both from Clark Ashton
Smith's "The Plutonian Drug". The story "Alchemy" (in _The
Explanation and Other Good Advice_ (1998)) involves a plot
by aliens to addict earthling to di-oxy-hydro-heroin. (In
_Naked Lunch_, Burroughs hypothesized that
di-hydro-oxy-heroin would be six times stronger than
heroin.) It also mentions the imaginary drug logozine, a DMT
variant with a fourth-dimensional hitch in the indole ring,
and gives it the alternative name burroughszine after Edgar
Rice Burroughs.
The _Book of the SubGenius_ (1983) and other sacred writings
tell of the drug Habafropzipulops (or 'Frop for short),
which only grows on the graves of holy men and Yeti
droppings. ("Wouldn't you like to smoke what's in Bob's
pipe?") An artificial concentrated equivalent of Frop is
known as PILs. ("More them kind PILs, Bob!") The stories in
the _Three-Fisted Tales of Bob_ (1990) anthology tend to
include many references to these and other drugs. Notable
among them are Harry Robbins' "The Smoker in the Shadows"
and Robert Anton Wilson's "The Horror on Howth Hill".
A few things from other media seem worth mentioning.
Hector Berlioz, in his "opera without words" _Symphonie
Fantastique_ (1830), musically portrays the nightmares of
the story's protagonist, who has attempted to commit suicide
by overdosing of opium. His visions include a march to the
gallows and a witches' Sabbat.
The classic Disney movie _Fantasia_ (1940) includes a lot of
suggestive sequences, notably one involving some dancing
mushrooms. In _Dumbo_ (1941) the elephant gets drunk and
hallucinates "Pink Elephants on Parade". Shouldn't someone
have told them that withdrawal causes delirium tremens, and
shouldn't an elephant hallucinate pink humans?
In _I Was a Teen-Age Werewolf (), an injection of
scopolamine causes a young Michael Landon to become a
lycanthrope.
In _The Tingler_ (1959), mortician Vincent Price discovers
that fear creates a centipede-like creature on the spinal
column. It is destroyed by screaming. Price, a true
scientist in search of knowledge, injects himself with LSD,
hoping for a bad trip that will scare up a nice tingler,
which he plans to extract and study. He succeeds in getting
a bad trip, but cannot suppress his screams, and so the
experiment fails. This is apparently the first portrayal of
the effects of LSD on screen.
Vincent Price appears again as the villain in an episode of
_Get Smart_, "Is This Trip Necessary?" (1969). Mad villain
Price plots to put a new hallucinogenic drug into the water
supply--by dropping a gigantic tablet into the reservoir.
The animated Beatles movie _Yellow Submarine_ (1968)
includes a fair amount of drug-imagery.
Rock music critic Sandy Perlman took the term "heavy metal"
from William Burroughs' novels, in which it is an imaginary
drug, and applied it to the musical genre. He also wrote the
Blue Oyster Cult song "Flaming Telepaths" (1973), which
concerns the use of experimental drugs to induce telepathy.
Here are the liner notes for Big Black song "Ergot" (on
_Songs about Fucking_, 1987): "psychedelic fungus
infestation of european grain, not divine inspiration, as
responsible for many of the 'visions' so lovingly portrayed
in the christian paintings of antiquity. how many people
were pressed under stones or drowned or burned for satanism
while those of faith were quietly tripping their brains out
on *bad bread*?"
And finally, here's an anthology I'd love to get a copy of:
Strange Ecstasies, ed. Michel Parry (1974)
Contains the following works:
The Big Fix by Richard Wilson
The Dream Pills by F. H. Davis
The Hounds of Tindalos by Frank Belknap Long
Introduction (Strange Ecstasies) by Michel Parry
The New Accelerator by H. G. Wells
Pipe Dream by Chris Miller
The Plutonian Drug by Clark Ashton Smith
The Secret Songs Fritz Leiber
Subjectivity by Norman Spinrad
What to Do Until the Analyst Comes by Frederik Pohl
The White Powder by Arthur Machen
I'd probably like this one too:
Dream Trips, ed. Michel Parry (1974)
Contains the following works:
The Adventure of the Pipe by Richard Marsh
As Dreams Are Made On by Joseph F. Pumilia
Dream-Dust from Mars by Manly Wade Wellman
The Good Trip by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Hashish Man by Lord Dunsany
Introduction (Dream Trips) by Michel Parry
The Life Serum by Paul S. Powers
Morning After by Robert Sheckley
No Direction Home by Norman Spinrad
The Phantom Drug by A. W. Kapfer
Under the Knife by H. G. Wells
*****
It started with an offhand question, but when I get started
on something interesting to me....
This installment won't be the last, either. I hope I'm
doling these out irregularly enough that no one gets
addicted to them....
(Earlier installments can of course be found in archives or
deja-google and further references are always welcome.)
_The First Occult Review Reader_, ed. Bernhardt J. Hurwood,
reprints an essay by L. Still about "Visions Induced by an
Oriental Powder" recounting his 1906 experiment's with one
of Mr. Woodcock's Eastern Powders, burnt as an incense and
breathed in. I don't know what drug this would have been.
Arkon Daraul's _A History of Secret Societies_ (1962)
recounts an experience the author had in a lamasary of the
Pamir, near the site where the borders of Russia, China, and
India meet. During a ritual he experienced time dilation and
other psychedelic effects. He managed to obtain some of the
food they had been fed beforehand, and chemical analysis
revealed the presence of alkaloids including scopolamine,
hyoscine, and atropine. The concoction thus likely derived
from belladonna, mandrake, or similar plants. (But hyoscine
is another name for scopolamine; perhaps this is a mistake
for hyoscamine, another alkaloid in the same class which
also occurs in these plants.)
Jean Lorrain was a minor French Decadent addicted to ether.
His story collection _Sensations et Souvenirs_ (1895;
translates as _Sensations and Memories_) has been translated
by Brian Stableford as _Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker_.
Edgar Saltus. The essay "The Quest of Paradise" appears as
Chapter VIII of the collection _The Pomps of Satan_* (1906).
Saltus discusses opium, "haschisch", and mescaline, drawing
on descriptions of their experiences by De Quincey,
Baudelaire, and Havelock Ellis respectively.
*I found this in Powell's Books' section of "Christian
Fiction", which classification was a bad guess on both
counts.
A. Merritt was likely a user of psychedelic drugs. He early
on traveled in Central America and was initiated by American
Indians, which would most likely include taking peyote,
mushrooms, or another psychedelic plant. He kept a garden of
rare and poisonous plants including belladonna, mandrake,
datura, and aconite, all of which are anticholinergic
deliriants in sublethal doses. His novels frequently include
striking passages describing the typical kaleidoscopic,
iridescent visions induced by such drugs, one notable
example being the poppy fields in _The Metal Monster_. (I
would appreciate any more information on Merritt's likely
drug use that anyone might happen to have. Merritt
apparently also published articles on some of these plants
in botanical journals.)
Leonard Cline's _The Dark Chamber_ (1927) involves the use
of a rather large array of psychotropic drugs: "There is
chloroform in the collection. The odor of it sometimes seeps
through every hall and closet, and I pace the floor tense
with anxiety, and when next Sally comes creeping through the
eternal gloom to summon me I perceive raw burns scarring red
the sunken plaster cheeks of Richard Pride. Ether is here;
it serves on occasion to put Pride to sleep when he is
exhausted. There are bottles of paregoric and an abundance
of morphine, store of cocaine and a flask of tincture of
cannabis indica, and pounds of opium; and there are packages
of those curious hashish cigarettes from Mexico. But
eventually after some tests Richard Pride finds most
suitable the drug hyoscine hydrobromide, the twilight-sleep
anesthetic of the obstetrical hospital, which he swallows in
the powerful hypodermic dose of a hundredth of a grain."
Hyoscine is more commonly known as scopolamine, and its use
during birth has gone out of favor. Characters in the novel
also drink araq flavored with wormwood, making it equivalent
to absinthe.
H.P. Lovecraft. The protagonist of "Dagon" (1917) takes
morphine to make life endurable after his horrifying
experience at sea, and becomes addicted. At the end of the
story, there is a noise at the door and he believes that
Dagon's hand is at the window--but it's probably just a drug
bust. The protagonist of "Hypnos" (1922) mentions that he
and his friend take unnamed "exotic drugs" for their
psychotropic effects, inducing strange dreams and the like.
Considering the association with the god of sleep, the
effects described, and that the bust the narrator carves is
"poppy-crowned", it seems likely that the drug in question
is opium or a derivative narcotic. The narrator of "In the
Walls of Eryx" (1936, with Kenneth Sterling) runs across a
Venusian mirage-plant whose blossoms give forth a
hallucinogenic gas.
Robert H. Barlow. "The Flower God" in "Annals of the Jinns"
() features yet another blossom with a narcotic perfume.
Donald Wandrei. "A Race through Time" (1933) features a mad
scientist who specializes in "drugology", and invents two
new drugs: first, "anadrenalin", which supposedly has
effects opposite to those of adrenalin (now usually called
epinephrine), and equivalent to H.G. Wells' Retarder or
Decelerator; and "corporal", a preserving fluid derived from
his study of Egyptian mummies. Using them together, they
effectively work as a means of time-travel into the future.
Robert Graves. His non-fiction often touches on psychedelic
drugs and their use in various religions. He demonstrates,
for examples, that the ingredients given in alleged recipes
for ambrosia, nectar, and _kykeon_ (comsumed at the rites of
Eleusis) are actually acronyms for Greek words meaning
mushroom. That would seem to clinch the matter but as far as
I can tell this work has simply been ignored by scholars in
the relevant fields. I expect his fiction includes
dramatizations of the same sort of drug experiences as he
discusses in his non-fiction, but I haven't read any of it
yet.
Katherine MacLean and Mary Kornbluth. "Chicken Soup" (1973).
The soup is made from a historical recipe for the witch's
brew, including henbane, thorn apple, and green hemp, and
transports its eaters to a Sabbat.
Brian McNaughton. "The Art of Tiphytsorn Glocque" in _The
Throne of Bones_ (1997) involves a drug that induces
synaesthesia. It's a good entry in the "what is really
real?" tradition.
*****
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1587154838/thedanclorenecro/
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
Richard Todd
> There was a book where the protagonist takes a "drug": the outside of
> the capsule is anthrax or some such, and the inside is an antibiotic.
> It is said to work by making the person feel interestingly woozy from
> the first symptoms, and then clear up the disease. (Leave aside the
> obvious comments on the amazing faith in antibiotics and the notion of
> taking an infectious disease.)
>
> Unfortunately,
> - I can't remember the book or author (was it perhaps that
> time-line one with Spiders versus Snakes?)
Dunno what "that timeline one with Spiders vs Snakes" is, but the bit with
anthrax as a recreational drug is from _Slave Ship_ by Frederik Pohl.
Bradford Holden
> Kat Richardson <null....@lycos.com> wrote in
> news:XpudnaACPbs...@comcast.com:
>
> > Richard K. Morgan plays with the idea of viruses as recreation a
> > little in Woken Furies. It's a minor point, but interesting, in that
> > the people in question have been around, doing extreme things, for so
> > long that they have to find a new way to alter their perceptions or
> > they'll be bored stiff.
>
> Didn't one of Iain M. Banks' Culture stories also feature people catching
> colds for the fun of it?
I vaguely remember that. It was the crew of a spacecraft that the POV
character caught a lift on. (maybe in _Player of Games_?)
It was not pleasent, per se. If I remember correctly, it was noted
that the crew on small ships often got a bit odd.
--
Bradford Holden
"Decaf? Decaf is for children!" - Jim Thompson
Johan Larson
> Dunno what "that timeline one with Spiders vs Snakes" is, but the bit
> with anthrax as a recreational drug is from _Slave Ship_ by Frederik
> Pohl.
Time-travel with spiders and snakes? That's _The Big Time_ by Fritz Leiber.
Johan Larson
Peter D. Tillman
Kat Richardson <null....@lycos.com> wrote:
> > There was a book where the protagonist takes a "drug": the outside of
> > the capsule is anthrax or some such, and the inside is an antibiotic.
> > It is said to work by making the person feel interestingly woozy from
> > the first symptoms, and then clear up the disease. (Leave aside the
> > obvious comments on the amazing faith in antibiotics and the notion of
> > taking an infectious disease.)
>
> Richard K. Morgan plays with the idea of viruses as recreation a little in
> Woken Furies. It's a minor point, but interesting, in that the people in
> question have been around, doing extreme things, for so long that they have
> to find a new way to alter their perceptions or they'll be bored stiff.
This is a pretty old idea. Someone nearby cites a Banks use, and I'm
trying to recall earlier one(s). It was the same setup, bored fuuture
richfolk looking for a new thrill.
A similar idea is Urban Surgery, used by WJ Williams in one of his early
cyberpunk stories [isfdb's]. "Video Star"(86), I think -- it's the one
set in Flagstaff, AZ, with big-city drug-dealers from Phoenix.
Incidentally, his first SF sale, "Side Effects" (85) is still spot-on,
re MD's faking Big Pharma drug-studies for extra $$$.
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
sean penguin
day!
ram...@ramsey-campbell.com
David Lindsay's THE VIOLET APPLE was very reminiscent of the effects of
LSD.
Al Smith
> David Lindsay's THE VIOLET APPLE was very reminiscent of the effects of
> LSD.
So what's the whole LSD thing like, anyway? You start seeing with
your fingers and smelling geometric shapes? Cartoon characters try
to beat you up? Christ asks for your advice? I've never done
drugs, so I have no idea what LSD does. I might have tried some
when I was young and stupid, but Timothy Leary always seemed to be
somewhere else. Probably riding around in that Volkswagen van with
the flowers painted on the side.
RPN
Al Smith wrote:
> > The artist David Griffiths pointed out to me that the central scene in
> > David Lindsay's THE VIOLET APPLE was very reminiscent of the effects of
> > LSD.
>
> So what's the whole LSD thing like, anyway? You start seeing with
> your fingers and smelling geometric shapes?
They call them fingers, but I've never seen them fing.
Oh, there they go . . .
RPN
lucky
"Al Smith" <inv...@address.com> wrote in message
news:7oSEf.15523$VV4.1...@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
>> The artist David Griffiths pointed out to me that the central scene in
>> David Lindsay's THE VIOLET APPLE was very reminiscent of the effects of
>> LSD.
>
> So what's the whole LSD thing like, anyway?
Ask 10 people who experienced LSD and you'd probably get 20 different
answers. The short answer varying degrees of auditory and visual
hallucinations, intense thirst and a lot of energy. Probably don't count on
sleeping for 12 hours or so after.
Al Smith
>>>>> David Lindsay's THE VIOLET APPLE was very reminiscent of the effects of
>>>>> LSD.
>>
>>>
>>> So what's the whole LSD thing like, anyway?
>
>
> Ask 10 people who experienced LSD and you'd probably get 20 different
> answers. The short answer varying degrees of auditory and visual
> hallucinations, intense thirst and a lot of energy. Probably don't count on
> sleeping for 12 hours or so after.
Intense thirst? Doesn't sound so fun. I wonder if anyone
hallucinates that they're not thirsty?
Gene Ward Smith
lucky wrote:
> Not much big pharma research seems to go into hallucinogens. That R&D seems
> to be left to Hell's Angel's bikers, 60's hippy burnouts, and the discovery
> of naturally occurring substances like poison toads and various fungii.
Sometimes these produce effects which are bizarre but not especially
pleasant, for instance DIPT:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diisopropyltryptamine
The main effect of this is to temporarily wreck your hearing, making it
impossible to appreciate music. Not a lot of recreational future in
that, and mostly interest has been shown by researchers. However, here
in the US our government is on the job, and might arrest you for
messing with it anyway.
Gene Ward Smith
Al Smith wrote:
> >>>The artist David Griffiths pointed out to me that the central scene in
> > Ask 10 people who experienced LSD and you'd probably get 20 different
> > answers. The short answer varying degrees of auditory and visual
> > hallucinations, intense thirst and a lot of energy. Probably don't count on
> > sleeping for 12 hours or so after.
>
> Intense thirst? Doesn't sound so fun. I wonder if anyone
> hallucinates that they're not thirsty?
It's not true, so I wouldn't worry about it. Nor are the visual
distortions such a big deal. The big deal is in its psychological
effects. A high enough dose profoundly impacts your thinking, and
dissolves your ego. You've spent years learning a bunch of stuff you
think of as you, and suddenly this drug blows it all away, raising the
question of who you are, really.
Chris
It's a "magic" drug, in that it allows users to exchange experiences
with versions of themselves living in parallel worlds.
lucky
I probably should not have said that. What I meant to say is that one will
tend to drink a lot, usually meaning alcohol which would explain [next day]
thirst.
sean penguin
Lichen' features an anti-ageing drung called 'antigerone'.
sean penguin
sean penguin wrote:
> Not sure if this quite fits in, but John Wyndham's 'Trouble with
> Lichen' features an anti-ageing drung called 'antigerone'.
It also features an anti-ageing DRUG...
Kat Richardson
The idea of extreme or life-threatening actions as recreation crops up again
and again in SF, especially in any story where bodies can be exchanged or
repaired or where lifespan is extraordinarily long or personality is
"salavagable". IIRC Kiln People had a bit of it, too, with golems sent out
to the rough parts of town to get into fights and so on as a way of
gathering a thrill for the owner to upload later.
Al Smith
That must have been the effect John Lennon was after. Not sure it
would work for me. It caused Lennon to wear his hair long and put
on a dress. I would look silly in long hair.
Gene Ward Smith
lucky wrote:
> I probably should not have said that. What I meant to say is that one will
> tend to drink a lot, usually meaning alcohol which would explain [next day]
> thirst.
"One" meaning you? Most people won't.
lucky
"Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1139090875.9...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
No, meaning people I have known who have engaged in such youthful
experimentation.
Gene Ward Smith
lucky wrote:
> > "One" meaning you? Most people won't.
>
> No, meaning people I have known who have engaged in such youthful
> experimentation.
That you knew a couple of drinkers who took LSD is not the same as
saying taking LSD inclines you towards taking a drink. There is no
relationship whatever between taking LSD and a desire for a cold
brewski.
lucky
But it does go to my initial assertion that you would find more
descriptions than people describing -- and seeing how this is cross-posted,
something I try to avoid participating in, - I'll bow out.
Jim Lovejoy
news:drqhup$7ub$1...@news.datemas.de:
>
>
> Apologies to Huey Lewis.
>
> In another 'monster' thread drug issues were touched. I, in a vain
> attempt
> at topicality, tried to OBSF it:
>
> Books that deal with future drugs or touch on the issue. I thought of
> three
> writers off the top of my head: Niven's wireheads [Spider Robinson
> borrowed the concept as well] Herbert's, spice and Aldous Huxley's
> Soma.
>
> [For the purposes of brevity and clarity I will define 'drugs' -
> meaning
> 'recreational drugs'- as substances taken for their mood and
> mind-altering properties through physiological effects and is often
> physically or psychologically habit forming to some degree.
George O. Smith _Hellflower_ Recreational drug that intensifies the sex
act. Take it too long and it burns the sensationsin that area.
E E Smith's Thionite was mentioned, but he also mentions something he calls
'benny' formally bentlam. And I'm pretty sure that he's got some other
novel drugs, that's just what popped into my head.
David Cowie
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diisopropyltryptamine
>
> The main effect of this is to temporarily wreck your hearing, making it
> impossible to appreciate music.
ObSF: the Amusica virus from _Century Rain_ by Alastair Reynolds. It makes
it permanently impossible for sufferers to appreciate music. One faction
inflicted it on another to damage morale.
--
David Cowie
Containment Failure + 19560:41
David McMillan
> David Cowie <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> : _Virtual Light_ by William Gibson. There's a drug called "Dancer" which
> : makes its abusers "inhumanly fast and clinically psychotic". I don't
> : recall Gibson saying *why* people take it - they just do.
>
> A book or a short story I've happily forgotten had a stoooopid
> recreational drug / plot device which caused amnesia from the moment of
> ingestion onwards until the end of the effect. It was described as
> habit-forming and widely abused. I do wonder why.
>
> (Yep, of course one can imagine uses for this, but most of them are not
> recreational as such.)
Brin had a short where the protagonist was hooked on a drug that let
the user re-live happy memories in full-sensory detail. The problem
cropped up when he started having to relive *all* his memories , in
order, and tried a more potent variant of the drug. *That* one let
him re-live his first re-livings of his happier memories, but he got
stuck in the same loop again, this time with two layers...
rja.ca...@excite.com
>
> Reminds me of something that I think comes from the old
> Cyberpunk 2020 RPG. There was this guy, see, a Solo or
> Street Samurai or whatever the game called heavily cybered
> combat types, and he was wired to the gills with reflex
> enhancing cyberware. He was also carousing with friends
> and doped to the gills on some drug or other that turned
> out to interact weirdly with his wired reflexes. When
> someone else at the table pulled out their gun and
> fired at the ceiling, just for fun, this guy reached out
> and caught the bullet, just for fun.
>
> Had to get a replacement hand, of course, but he
> figured it was a small price to pay for a story that
> was going to get him free drinks for the rest of his
> life.
Some difficulty picking them up... (Yes, I know. And he started out
cybernetic anyway, I think you mean. And of course Larry Niven gave us
Gil The Arm.)
rja.ca...@excite.com
rja.ca...@excite.com
And some short stories, but I don't recall particularly interesting
drugs. The novel is essentially set as a visit to the camp followers,
so recreational modes of all sorts were available - and alcohol isn't
unknown in the short stories.
rja.ca...@excite.com
rja.ca...@excite.com
> So. Anyone want to speculate on the future of drugs?
More are interested in Science-Fiction Drugs I Have Read About. Harry
Harrison offered an interesting idea in _The Stainless Steel Rat_ -
mental illness is sufficiently well understood in the future that its
common forms can be cured /or/ induced by appropriate drugs, which are
sometimes used recreationally. The Rat takes a trip.
I don't think _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ was original in
suggesting that the soldiers of the near-future will be drugs-powered -
I'm thinking of the first episode where Q turned up in a series of
"historical" military gear; the twenty-second century one (or was it
earlier?) had a snorter worn on the chest, I think. This was revisited
later in the Jem'Hadar, bred as soldiers and kept in line by control of
the supply of their drug. Possibly this has more force to some of the
audience than to me, i.e. making them hideous bogeymen. I'm not
familiar with drugs users today and am disinclined to trust them
particularly, but I'm not appalled at their life-choice.
In practice I doubt it works, but no doubt there are commentaries on
recent policy of drugs tolerance or otherwise in various nations' armed
forces. In peacetime in the UK we hear from time to time that some
soldiers or pilots or navy crew failed a drug test and are now
unemployed.
The Red Dwarf novelisation added to the game "Better Than Life" which
you more-or-less specifically excluded but I'll tell you anyway - it
simply presents a realistically simulated environment of persistent
gratification that you can't give up; one character traps himself in
the finale of _It's A Wonderful Life_ on repeat - anyway, besides that
they have God, a drug that makes you think you're God.
What will really happen... already we have unlicensed pharmaceuticals
such as bodybuilders' drugs, effective or not. One reason they may not
be licensed is that they're harmful. Drugs that supposedly affect
brain function favourably will appear. For that matter we also have
Viagra (which apparently doesn't).
"Better" recreational drugs, if that's what you want to discuss, may
avoid causing measurable biological damage in most cases, but
nevertheless establish a psychological dependence together with
self-neglect that must be harmful.
Michael Stemper
>"lucky" <luck...@hotmail.com> wrote in news:drqhup$7ub$1...@news.datemas.de:
>> Books that deal with future drugs or touch on the issue.
>E E Smith's Thionite was mentioned, but he also mentions something he calls
>'benny' formally bentlam. And I'm pretty sure that he's got some other
>novel drugs, that's just what popped into my head.
Besides thionite and bentlam, the Lensman series also had hadive
and ladolian.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
William December Starr
Nyrath <nyr...@projectrho.com.INVALID> quoted:
> from THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE by Arthur C. Clarke.
>
> It is indeed one of the ironies of fate that research into the
> so-called consciousness-expanding drugs proved that they did
> exactly the opposite, by leading to the detection of the naturally
> occurring "apothetic" chemicals in the brain. The discovery that
> the most devout adherent of any faith could be converted to any
> other by a judicious dose of 2-4-7 ortho-para-theosamine was,
> perhaps, the most devastating blow ever received by religion.
How many of those most devastating blows ever did Clarke deliver to
religion over the course of his fiction career? There's that one,
and there's the fly-by of the alien "Starglider" craft in, er, also
in _Fountains of Paradise_. And I think I'm forgetting at least one
other thing by him too (no, not "The Star").
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Gene Ward Smith
Hmmm. Would it be a devistating blow to philosophy if someone were to
find a drug which could convert any person's belief in one
philosophical position to another? Or could we even refute mathematics
by showing we could convert any mathematician to the belief in any
given proposition, no matter how absurd?
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
And for that matter, I can recall at least two "anti-blows" in Clarke.
The conversion to Buddhism in _The Deep Range_, and the fact that
the monks are correct in "The XXXXX Names of God".
Ted
Karl Johanson
> How many of those most devastating blows ever did Clarke deliver to
> religion over the course of his fiction career?
Religion delivers the blows to itself. Clarke just has the clear vision
to see it & the writing skills to point it out well.
>There's that one,
> and there's the fly-by of the alien "Starglider" craft in, er, also
> in _Fountains of Paradise_. And I think I'm forgetting at least one
> other thing by him too (no, not "The Star").
To me, "The Star" is less about religion and more about a true beliver
discovering doubt.
"Childhood's End" has some interesting points about religion.
From Page 23
"You know why Wainwright and his kind fear me, don't you?" Asked
Karellen. His voice was sombre now, like a great organ rolling its notes
from a high cathedral naive. "You will find men like him in all the
world's
religions. They know that we represent reason and science, and, however
confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow
their gods. Not necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler
fashion. Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by
disproving its tenets. No one has demonstrated, so far as I am aware,
the
non-existence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now. The
Wainrights deaf, too,
that we know the truth about the origins of their faiths. How long, they
wonder, have we been observing humanity? Have we watched Mohammed begin
the hegira, or Moses giving the Jews their laws Do we know all that is
false
in the stories they believe?"
"And do you?" whispered Stormgren, half to himself.
"That, Rikki, is the fear that torments them, even though they will
never admit it openly. Believe me, it gives us no pleasure to destroy
men's
faiths, but all the world's religions cannot be right, and they know
it."
Karl Johanson
Lefty Lefty
Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hmmm. Would it be a devistating blow to philosophy if someone were to
>find a drug which could convert any person's belief in one
>philosophical position to another? Or could we even refute mathematics
>by showing we could convert any mathematician to the belief in any
>given proposition, no matter how absurd?
Mathematicians are already ready to accept any given proposition, no
matter how absurd. They only have problems accepting two contradictory
propositions simultaneously.
--
"Lefty" lefty...@mindspring.com
jtingle
<karljo...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>"but all the world's religions cannot be right, and they know
A friend of mine once defended agnosticism as the safest choice, since
if one of the world's umpty-zillion religions turned out to be right,
your defense at the judgement day would be that you couldn't make out
the signal for all the noise, but at least didn't pick the wrong one.
:)
Regards,
Jack Tingle
Gene Ward Smith
Karl Johanson wrote:
> Religion delivers the blows to itself. Clarke just has the clear vision
> to see it & the writing skills to point it out well.
So you say. But given the right drug, might you not say something else?
John Schilling
says...
>In article <1140414045.7...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>Gene Ward Smith <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>William December Starr wrote:
[A.C. Clarke v. Religion, _Fountains of Paradise_]
>>> How many of those most devastating blows ever did Clarke deliver to
>>> religion over the course of his fiction career? There's that one,
>>> and there's the fly-by of the alien "Starglider" craft in, er, also
>>> in _Fountains of Paradise_. And I think I'm forgetting at least one
>>> other thing by him too (no, not "The Star").
>>Hmmm. Would it be a devistating blow to philosophy if someone were to
>>find a drug which could convert any person's belief in one
>>philosophical position to another? Or could we even refute mathematics
>>by showing we could convert any mathematician to the belief in any
>>given proposition, no matter how absurd?
>And for that matter, I can recall at least two "anti-blows" in Clarke.
>The conversion to Buddhism in _The Deep Range_, and the fact that
>the monks are correct in "The XXXXX Names of God".
Doesn't count. Neither of those involved Christianity, and everyone knows
that "Religion" means "Christianity", or Judeo-Christian-ish Theism at
least.
Well, OK, not everyone knows this. But a significant fraction of militant
Atheists do, and Clarke seens to have been one of them.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
James Nicoll
John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>Doesn't count. Neither of those involved Christianity, and everyone knows
>that "Religion" means "Christianity", or Judeo-Christian-ish Theism at
>least.
>
>Well, OK, not everyone knows this. But a significant fraction of militant
>Atheists do, and Clarke seens to have been one of them.
>
Still is, as far as I know.
I do recall one religious sort presented by ACC as a bit odd but
basically a decent chap: the Church of Jesus Christ, Astronaut worshipper.
I'm hard pressed at just this moment to recall a Hindu, Moslem
or Jew in Clarke's fiction. I think its all bonzes and ministers, and
the odd crafty priest.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Mike Stone
"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:dtgo7k$ise$1...@reader2.panix.com...
>
> I'm hard pressed at just this moment to recall a Hindu, Moslem
> or Jew in Clarke's fiction. I think its all bonzes and ministers, and
> the odd crafty priest.
And one "Prophet" figure - The Master in _The City and The Stars_ , who
somehow comes over as both frudulent and somehow genuine at the same time.
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough, England
"To be good is noble.
To teach others to be good is yet nobler - and far less trouble."
Mark Twain
Gene Ward Smith
John Schilling wrote:
> Doesn't count. Neither of those involved Christianity, and everyone knows
> that "Religion" means "Christianity", or Judeo-Christian-ish Theism at
> least.
>
> Well, OK, not everyone knows this. But a significant fraction of militant
> Atheists do, and Clarke seens to have been one of them.
Clarke invented Christlam, don't forget, though possibly Eldridge
Cleaver got there first. Not to mention Chrislam...anyway, Clarke's
idea that some brain-damaged syncretism could sweep all before it tells
me he doesn't understand Christianity or Islam very well. People are
dug in, and to dig them out would require more than stupid fluff.
Justin Fang
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <ffydnURPasgXsH_e...@io.com>,
>Nyrath <nyr...@projectrho.com.INVALID> quoted:
>> from THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE by Arthur C. Clarke.
>> perhaps, the most devastating blow ever received by religion.
>How many of those most devastating blows ever did Clarke deliver to
>religion over the course of his fiction career? There's that one,
>and there's the fly-by of the alien "Starglider" craft in, er, also
>in _Fountains of Paradise_. And I think I'm forgetting at least one
>other thing by him too (no, not "The Star").
In _The Songs of Distant Earth_ careful statistical analysis shows that
there is no difference in outcomes (for anything, I think) between
believers and nonbelievers.
In _Childhood's End_, the past-viewer reveals the true origins of every
religion.
--
Justin Fang (jus...@panix.com)
Karl Johanson
news:1140451033.0...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
:) Or exposed to the right zealot with instruments of tourture.
Karl Johanson
Joe Bernstein
<null....@lycos.com> wrote:
(and she wrote this too)
> >> Richard K. Morgan plays with the idea of viruses as recreation a
> >> little in Woken Furies.
Eight years ago, someone showed up on rec.arts.sf.composition wanting
advice on auctorial voice and on structure, and I wound up trading
e-mail with him at some point. (I don't write fiction, so this
makes no sense, but yes, I had the chutzpah to give him advice anyway.)
This dismays me because I'd always thought the snippets I wrote, I'd
*posted*, where maybe someday someone would like them well enough
to do something with them, but apparently not, go figure. Anyway,
though, I did write some snippets, basically reworking snippets
this guy had posted to bring out some of the points I was making
about them, and the bit I liked best from *my* versions was a
description of a market full of goods from Mars (the last place
the freighter in question had stopped); these included
"Tharsis allspice and Burroughs Red for pleasure, the latest
philosophical viri by Arvi Kacheti for enlightenment, or
the mass-produced Martian steroids for body weight".
Thank you for giving me this chance to quote it gratuitously. My own
words will still make up significantly less than half of this post,
though, so I'll continue doing so, even more gratuitously:
"The shop after that gave a more respectable solace, the latest
Martian virtual children, and was much patronised by ambitious
unmarried officers".
OK, might-have-beens all done with, now...
> >> It's a minor point, but interesting, in
> >> that the people in question have been around, doing extreme things,
> >> for so long that they have to find a new way to alter their
> >> perceptions or they'll be bored stiff.
(but this is Pete Tillman)
> > This is a pretty old idea. Someone nearby cites a Banks use, and I'm
> > trying to recall earlier one(s). It was the same setup, bored fuuture
> > richfolk looking for a new thrill.
(and back to Kat Richardson again)
> The idea of extreme or life-threatening actions as recreation crops up
> again and again in SF, especially in any story where bodies can be
> exchanged or repaired or where lifespan is extraordinarily long or
> personality is "salavagable".
'We were drunk with happiness in those early years. Everybody was,
especially the young people. These were the first years of the
Rediscovery of Man, when the Instrumentality dug deep in the treasury,
reconstructing the old cultures, the old languages, and even the old
troubles. The nightmare of perfection had taken our forefathers to
the edge of suicide. Now under the leadership of the Lord Jestocost
and the Lady Alice More, the ancient civilizations were rising like
great land masses out of the sea of the past.
'I myself was the first man to put a postage stamp on a letter,
after fourteen thousand years. I took Virginia to hear the first
piano recital. We watched at the eye-machine when cholera was
released in Tasmania, and we saw the Tasmanians dancing in the
streets, now that they did not have to be protected any more.
Everywhere, things became exciting. Everywhere, men and women worked
with a will to build a more imperfect world.
'I myself went into a hospital and came out French. Of course
I remembered my early life; I remembered it, but it did not matter.
Virginia was French, too, and we had the years of our future lying
ahead of us like ripe fruit hanging in an orchard of perpetual
summers. We had no idea when we would die. Formerly, I would be
able to go to bed and think, "The government has given me four
hundred years. Three hundred and seventy-four years from now, they
will stop the stroon injections and I will then die." Now I knew
anything could happen. The safety devices had been turned off.
The diseases ran free. With luck, and hope, and love, I might live
a thousand years. Or I might die tomorrow. I was free.'
- "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard", Cordwainer Smith, 1961. Admittedly
this is not all at quite his lyrical best, but I was sorely
tempted to quote that bit about the Tasmanians dancing in the
streets from memory...
And I must thank y'all's collective inability to name examples
older than a decade or so, for prompting me to go find <The Best
of Cordwainer Smith> (which I had unaccountably removed from my
favourites shelves), after deciding I didn't trust my memory
enough.
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/> "She suited my mood, Sarah Mondleigh
did - it was like having a kitten in the room, like a vote for unreason."
<Glass Mountain>, Cynthia Voigt
Joe Bernstein
rja.ca...@excite.com <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
> lucky wrote:
> > So. Anyone want to speculate on the future of drugs?
> More are interested in Science-Fiction Drugs I Have Read About.
Well, yeah; I come here to talk about books, not to speculate...
> I don't think _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ was original in
> suggesting that the soldiers of the near-future will be drugs-powered -
> I'm thinking of the first episode where Q turned up in a series of
> "historical" military gear; the twenty-second century one (or was it
> earlier?) had a snorter worn on the chest, I think. This was revisited
> later in the Jem'Hadar, bred as soldiers and kept in line by control of
> the supply of their drug.
This just seems *profoundly* recursive to me, and here's why.
One of James Tiptree's early stories (written 1968, published 1969)
is "Beam Us Home"; it presents a young <Star Trek> fan in a thinly
disguised Vietnam War (set in Venezuela) for whom Heaven turns out
to be the <Enterprise>. Tiptree also wrote a <Star Trek> fanfic
called "Meet Me at Infinity" in 1968 (apparently published in 1972
but never to appear again).
So fast forward two decades, and Tiptree writes about a Latin
American war *again* - and in this one, Drugs Are Everything.
What soldiers do, basically, is:
- take Battle Zones (BZs) to release their inhibitions about
killing;
- take Maintenance (M) to feel OK at other times;
- take Sleepers to keep themselves from dreaming of their work.
"Yanqui Doodle", written in 1986 and published posthumously in 1987.
So I don't know the dates of the episodes you're referring to,
but is Tiptree simply riffing on <Star Trek> again, or are the
<Trek> writers actually reading her?
Joe Bernstein
wrote:
> I'm sure through the 60's-70's and in the cyber-punk genre more
> writing has been done about drugs. It seems like it might be an
> under-addressed topic in sf.
Connie Willis, of all people, has a cyberpunkish book, <Remake>,
with several new drugs in it, but only describes one with new effects.
Klieg burns a visual image into your "neocortex", unforgettably.
I'm less clear on whether the image then recurs uncontrollably,
or just sits there waiting for you to call it up.
Michael S. Schiffer
news:dtpko9$ei$1...@reader2.panix.com:
>...
>
> One of James Tiptree's early stories (written 1968, published
> 1969) is "Beam Us Home"; it presents a young <Star Trek> fan in
> a thinly disguised Vietnam War (set in Venezuela) for whom
> Heaven turns out to be the <Enterprise>. Tiptree also wrote a
> <Star Trek> fanfic called "Meet Me at Infinity" in 1968
> (apparently published in 1972 but never to appear again).
>
> So fast forward two decades, and Tiptree writes about a Latin
> American war *again* - and in this one, Drugs Are Everything.
> What soldiers do, basically, is:
>
> - take Battle Zones (BZs) to release their inhibitions about
> killing;
> - take Maintenance (M) to feel OK at other times;
> - take Sleepers to keep themselves from dreaming of their work.
>
> "Yanqui Doodle", written in 1986 and published posthumously in
> 1987.
>
> So I don't know the dates of the episodes you're referring to,
> but is Tiptree simply riffing on <Star Trek> again, or are the
><Trek> writers actually reading her?
Tiptree's stories predated the referenced Trek episodes. (TNG's
first episode aired in 1987, the Jem'Hadar were introduced in Deep
Space Nine in the mid-90s). Whether there was any influence, I
can't say, though it doesn't sound as if there's enough similarity
to really raise my suspicions. For the Jem'Hadar, the "drug" was
really a survival necessity-- it's not so much that it made them
battle-ready as that lack of it made them quickly go into withdrawal
and die. Given that they were born "addicted", it's really only a
drug in that it's a manufactured compound rather than a naturally-
occurring substance. In terms of its role in their lifecycle, it
was more like air or food.
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Chris Thompson
>>And for that matter, I can recall at least two "anti-blows" in Clarke.
>>The conversion to Buddhism in _The Deep Range_, and the fact that
>>the monks are correct in "The XXXXX Names of God".
>
>Doesn't count. Neither of those involved Christianity, and everyone knows
>that "Religion" means "Christianity", or Judeo-Christian-ish Theism at
>least.
I think that's seriously off-target, at least as regards "The Nine Billion
Names of God". One of the reasons it's such a memorable story is that
it is self-mocking: you know the author doesn't believe the ending can
possibly be happening any more than the computer engineers can.
--
Chris Thompson
Email: cet1 [at] cam.ac.uk
Peter D. Tillman
Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
> 'I myself went into a hospital and came out French. Of course
> I remembered my early life; I remembered it, but it did not matter.
> Virginia was French, too, and we had the years of our future lying
> ahead of us like ripe fruit hanging in an orchard of perpetual
> summers. We had no idea when we would die. Formerly, I would be
> able to go to bed and think, "The government has given me four
> hundred years. Three hundred and seventy-four years from now, they
> will stop the stroon injections and I will then die." Now I knew
> anything could happen. The safety devices had been turned off.
> The diseases ran free. With luck, and hope, and love, I might live
> a thousand years. Or I might die tomorrow. I was free.'
>
> - "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard", Cordwainer Smith, 1961. Admittedly
> this is not all at quite his lyrical best, but I was sorely
> tempted to quote that bit about the Tasmanians dancing in the
> streets from memory...
>
> And I must thank y'all's collective inability to name examples
> older than a decade or so, for prompting me to go find <The Best
> of Cordwainer Smith> (which I had unaccountably removed from my
> favourites shelves), after deciding I didn't trust my memory
> enough.
Yeah, it's be hard to over-read ol' Cordwainer, even with the
sadly-limited supply he left us.
"In my stories I use exotic settings, but the settings are like the
function of a Chinese stage. They are intended to lay bare the human
mind, to throw torches over the underground lakes of the human soul,
to show the chambers wherein the ageless dramas of self-respect,
God, courage, sex, love, hope, envy, decency and power go on forever."
-- Cordwainer Smith, www.cordwainer-smith.com
Indeed.
Happy reading--
Pete Tillman