field-testing on behalf of a Congressman running for re-election c.
1980. As he prepares to enter a suburban district controlled by his
candidate’s powerful opponent, he doses himself with _MST_, a newly
invented psychic energizer that “multiplied the powers of observation
and the rate and quality of thought by a factor somewhere between three
and seven.” Under the influence of _MST_ he is able to detect the
frightening psychological techniques by which the suburb is held in
control.
——————————————————————————————
Author: McCombs, Larry and White, Ted
Title: The peacock king
Journal: _Fantasy and Science Fiction_, Vol. 29, No. 5, 23–36
Publisher: Mercury Press, New York
Date: November 1965
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: The United States is planning its first expedition
into interstellar space, using a radical space-drive that permits
faster-than-light travel. Preliminary experiments have shown that a
faster-than-light trip will have grave psychological impact on the
crew, and therefore LSD is used as part of the training discipline
for the crew (a man and a woman). Through acid experiences they make
themselves capable of handling the interstellar jump through hyperspace.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
CONTEMPORARY PERIOD
(1965–Present)
Author: Guin, Wyman
Title: Beyond bedlam
In: _Living Way Out_
Publisher: Avon Books, New York
Pages: 155–208
Date: 1967 (1951 First Issue)
Format: Short novel
Descriptor: Drugs as panaceas
Annotation: During the late 20th century drugs were developed to aid
schizophrenics by permitting their warring inner personalities to
live side by side, controlling the body alternately. By the following
century the element of schizophrenia is recognized in all persons and
it becomes mandatory to use the drugs, giving everyone a prime ego and
an alternate ego, in fact separate persons, who undergo drug-induced
shifts of dominance every five days. The author explores the concept of
ego-shift by following the fortunes of a number of protagonists whose
doubled personalities engage in complex interactions.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Collins, Hunt (Pseud. of Evan Hunter)
Title: _Tomorrow and Tomorrow_
Publisher: Pyramid Books, New York
Pages: 190 pp.
Date: 1956
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as reality-testers
Annotation: The novel, set in a near-future Earth dominated by
advertising and television, describes the conflict between two groups
of differing social philosophies: the Vikes, who advocate vicarious
pleasure and indulge in heroin-like narcotics to escape from reality,
and the Rees, or Realists, an austere Puritan movement hostile to all
mind-altering substances.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Dick, Philip K.
Title: We can remember it for you wholesale
Journal: _Fantasy and Science Fiction_, Vol. 30, No. 4, 3–16
Publisher: Mercury Press, Inc., New York
Date: April 1966
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-controllers
Annotation: A technique is developed by which, using a hypnotic drug
called _narkidrine_, false memories can be implanted in a human brain.
The memory-implant technique can be used to provide the vicarious
illusion of pleasurable experience, but also—as the story unfolds—we
see that it can be used for purposes of political intrigue.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Dick, Philip K.
Title: _The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch_
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, New York
Pages: 278 pp.
Date: 1965
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: An illegal hallucinogen, _Can-D_, allows Earth
colonists on Mars, Venus, and other nearby worlds to stave off
the crushing boredom of daily life by permitting them to enter
a highly schematicized common fantasy world where they share in
the adventures of two imaginary lovers who are larger-than-life
Hollywood dream-figures. Complications ensue when a competitive
reality-destroying drug, _Chew-Z_, is introduced surreptitiously by
beings from another solar system.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Dick, Philip K.
Title: _Now Wait for Last Year_
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, New York
Pages: 214 pp.
Date: 1966
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: In the war-torn world of the 21st century, Americans
escape from the horrors of their time by addictive use of _JJ-180_,
a drug that allows the consciousness to detach from present time
and return to earlier eras, or even to travel forward in time. The
protagonist, initially attempting only to deal with his wife’s
addiction to the time-travel drug, eventually becomes entangled in
global politics and the progress of the interstellar war as he himself,
under the influence of _JJ-180_, oscillates backward and forward in
time.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Harrison, Harry
Title: _Make Room! Make Room!_
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, New York
Pages: 213 pp.
Date: 1966
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as euphorics
Annotation: The year is 1999 and the population of New York City is
35 million. In this hideously overcrowded society marijuana and LSD
are the chief means of escape from stress, and their use is far more
pervasive than it is today. Filmed as _Soylent Green_.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Aldiss, Brian W.
Title: The night that all time broke loose
In: _Dangerous Visions_ (Edited by Harlan Ellison)
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, New York
Pages: 151–160
Date: 1967
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: Comic story about _time gas_, piped through mains to
suburban houses the way heating gas is distributed. Using _time gas_,
subscribers can dial themselves back to any period in their lives they
prefer to re-experience. Story concerns a break in the gas main that
floods the region with _time gas_ and touches off a great gusher that
carries mankind back into prehistoric times, with dinosaurs imminent as
the time-effects grow more powerful.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Anderson, Chester
Title: _The Butterfly Kid_
Publisher: Pyramid Books, New York
Pages: 190 pp.
Date: 1967
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: In this comic novel, set among the drug-using
counter-culturists of Greenwich Village, trouble starts when _Reality
Pills_ become available—a “projective hallucinogen” that creates
hallucinations visible not only to the user but to those around him.
It develops that _Reality Pills_ have been invented and distributed by
blue lobster-like beings from another planet in order to facilitate
their conquest of Earth—a conquest ultimately thwarted by the
dedication of a fearless band of hippies.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Dick, Philip K. and Nelson, Ray
Title: _The Ganymede Takeover_
Publisher: Ace Books, New York
Pages: 157 pp.
Date: 1967
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: In this satiric novel intelligent worm-like beings
from Ganymede, moon of Jupiter, conquer the Earth despite the best
efforts of such individuals as Rudolph Balkani, Chief of the Bureau of
Psychedelic Research, who has been working on a mind-blocking weapon.
The world that Ganymede conquered is in fact devoted on all levels
to the use of psychedelics, and the novel raises questions about the
nature of “reality” as the action unfolds.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Lupoff, Richard A.
Title: _One Million Centuries_
Publisher: Lancer Books, New York
Pages: 352 pp.
Date: 1967
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: A man of the twentieth century is thrust forward in time
to the world of the unimaginably distant future. As he explores the
civilization he finds himself among, he learns that the people of the
era habitually chew _samra_, a hallucinogenic drug, and a woman he
meets takes him on a _samra_ trip. It is a soaring visionary experience
in which he perceives the birth and death of the solar system.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Spinrad, Norman
Title: Carcinoma angels
In: _Dangerous Visions_ (Edited by Harlan Ellison)
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, New York
Pages: 489–497
Date: 1967
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: Protagonist suffering from terminal cancer seeks remission
of disease. With the aid of massive doses of various hallucinogenic
agents he reaches an ostensible mental state in which he is capable
of entering his own body to do psychic battle with the cancer cells.
In series of metaphorical contests he destroys the invaders, but is
unable to return to real-world consciousness and is remanded to mental
institution, trapped within his own body.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Wilson, Colin
Title: _The Mind Parasites_
Publisher: Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin
Pages: 222 pp.
Date: 1967
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: A research project involving heavy doses of mescaline and
LSD leads to perceptions revealing the existence of invisible “mind
parasites,” alien invaders who have long controlled and influenced
human life. With the aid of the drug, experimenters unleash mental
powers with which to combat the invaders.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Disch, Thomas
Title: _Camp Concentration_
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, New York
Pages: 184 pp.
Date: 1968
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as intelligence-enhancers
Annotation: The novel is the journal of a U.S. political prisoner of
the near future who is assigned to observe and record the progress of
an experiment in which volunteer prisoners at a secret internment camp
are treated with _Pallidine_, an intelligence-enhancing drug derived
from the organism that causes syphilis. In the course of nine months
the drug turns the prisoners into supermen of extraordinary mental
capacity while destroying their bodies with disease.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Herbert, Frank
Title: _The Santaroga Barrier_
Publisher: Berkley Books, New York
Pages: 255 pp.
Date: 1968
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: An outsider penetrates a remote California valley
inhabited by reclusive farmers who discourage all contact with
strangers. He discovers that they have built a society based on
consumption of _Jaspers_—a psychedelic drug going far beyond acid in
its effects, fostering a sense of community through its ability to
allow takers to perceive the ultimate relationships linking all aspects
of the universe. He is drawn into the valley society and becomes part
of it.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Moorcock, Michael
Title: _The Final Programme_
Publisher: Avon Books, New York
Pages: 191 pp.
Date: 1968
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: Satiric comic novel of near future, in which
hallucinogenic drugs are used in a variety of ways—as, for example,
_LSD gas_, employed as a protective device and discharged to muddle the
minds of burglars breaking into a mansion. More conventional use of
drugs (i.e., as euphorics and hallucinogens) is common in the book.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Silverberg, Robert
Title: How it was when the past went away
In: _Earth’s Other Shadow_ (By Robert Silverberg)
Publisher: New American Library, New York
Pages: 66–127
Date: 1973 (First Issue 1969)
Format: Short novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-injurers
Annotation: One day in 2003 an unknown malcontent dumps an
amnesia-producing drug into the water system of San Francisco. Within
a few hours virtually everyone in the city has lost his memory, and
the effects of the memory drug linger for several days, causing great
complications. Story follows the reactions of several characters to the
varied effects of sudden amnesia. As story ends things are returning
to normal for most people, but one unstable individual has obtained a
supply of the drug and is preaching its use in a new cult of oblivion.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Spinrad, Norman
Title: _Bug Jack Barron_
Publisher: Walker Books, New York
Pages: 327 pp.
Date: 1969
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: In the closing years of the 20th century the work of a
foundation for life-extension research becomes the center of fierce
political controversy. The tensions growing out of the search for
immortality are depicted against the background of a near-future world
in which marijuana and the psychedelic drugs are legal and widely
consumed.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Aldiss, Brian W.
Title: _Barefoot in the Head_
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, New York
Pages: 281 pp.
Date: 1970
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-injurers
Annotation: In Europe of the near future, political tensions have led
to the bombing of the entire continent by the Arab state of Kuwait
with psychedelic weapons—odorless, tasteless, and enormously potent.
In the aftermath of the war all of Europe finds itself on a perpetual
LSD trip, since the drug’s aftereffects prove ineradicable. Industrial
society breaks down, reason becomes extinct, and the novel itself
dissolves into a Joycean verbal phantasmagoria as the old society gives
way to one in which insanity is the norm.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Silverberg, Robert
Title: Sundance
In: _The Cube Root of Uncertainty_ (By Robert Silverberg)
Publisher: Collier Books, New York
Pages: 219–239
Date: 1970
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: Protagonist is part of a team of Earth men annihilating
a semi-intelligent alien race on an extrasolar world prior to
colonization of the planet. Protagonist is emotionally disturbed—his
American Indian ancestry makes him bitter about the genocide he feels
is taking place—and his sympathies toward the aliens lead him to take
part in their rites and to consume a hallucinogenic plant, used by
them, that induces synesthesia and a sense of racial communion.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Vonnegut, Kurt
Title: Welcome to the monkey house
In: _Welcome to the Monkey House_ (By Kurt Vonnegut)
Publisher: Delacorte Press, New York
Pages: 28–47
Date: 1970
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-controllers
Annotation: At a time when the world’s population is 17 billion,
compulsory ethical birth control comes into effect. On pain of fine,
everyone must take birth control pills three times a day. The pills do
not interfere with reproduction, but, by making people numb from the
waist down, “take every bit of pleasure out of sex.”
——————————————————————————————
Author: Benford, James
Title: Pulse
Journal: _Fantastic Science Fiction_, Vol. 20, No. 6, 22–25
Publisher: Ultimate Publishing Company, New York
Date: August 1971
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: Young woman describes her LSD trip to her psychotherapist:
a vision of another world (she thinks it is the moon) marked by
strange geological formations and flora. He listens patiently to her
descriptions of this obviously illusory experience, but she maintains
the drug actually transported her, and as she goes on talking he is
drawn into the illusion and finds himself mysteriously transported
(without the aid of the drug) to the world of her narrative.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Lafferty, R. A.
Title: Sky
In: _New Dimensions One_, (Edited by Robert Silverberg)
Publisher: Doubleday and Co., New York
Pages: 149–161
Date: 1971
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: Protagonists in future civilization make use of _Sky_, a
drug derived from an amanita mushroom. Stated powers of this drug are
to provide sensations of mastery and union-with-cosmos, especially
during parachute drops. Protagonists attain successively more ecstatic
states in series of _Sky_-enhanced parachute drops, until, seeking the
perfect high, they deliberately fail to use their parachutes on one
_Sky_ trip and, after a descent marked by moments of stunning ecstasy,
perish as they hit the ground.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Panshin, Alexei
Title: How can we sink when we can fly?
In: _Four Futures_, a science-fiction anthology
Publisher: Hawthorn Books, New York
Pages: 94–130
Date: 1971
Format: Short novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: At some period in the future a drug called _tempus_ is
developed which enables people to travel backward in time, literally
or perhaps in mind alone. Young people are required to take _tempus_
journeys as part of the educational process. Story takes place in
contemporary United States, c. 1970, and analyzes current problems by
confronting the protagonist with a _tempus_-using visitor from the
future.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Sheckley, Robert
Title: Down the digestive tract
In: _Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?_ (By Robert
Silverberg)
Publisher: Doubleday and Co., New York
Pages: 145–147
Date: 1971
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as reality-testers
Annotation: An underground chemist gives a friend a mixture of
hallucinogenic drugs guaranteed to send him into a true trip. Friend
waits impatiently for the hallucinations to hit. Chemist and friend are
actually not human but alien insecto-reptilian creatures, and it turns
out that the hallucination the friend has is that of being a human
being in our contemporary world.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Silverberg, Robert
Title: _Downward to the Earth_
Publisher: New American Library, New York
Pages: 176 pp.
Date: 1971
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: The venom of a serpent found on an alien planet that has
been colonized by Earthmen proves to have medicinal value, serving as a
catalyst in limb-regeneration work; but when used in a different dosage
it has psychological effects, evoking in Earthmen the illusion that
they have been transformed into the elephant-like intelligent species
that is the dominant native life-form of the planet. Illicit use of the
drug for this purpose is common among the Earthmen stationed there.
Protagonist, expiating old guilts, goes among the elephant-beings and
eventually is admitted into ecstatic communion with them through use of
the drug.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Silverberg, Robert
Title: _A Time of Changes_
Publisher: New American Library, New York
Pages: 220 pp.
Date: 1971
Format: Novel
Descriptors: Drugs as mind-expanders, drugs as a means of
communication
Annotation: Scene is a planet of the future dominated by stern culture
that makes a fetish of privacy and personal reticence. Narrator obtains
from a “primitive” culture on another continent a drug which attacks
the basics of his native culture by making possible direct telepathic
contact between minds. He attempts to found a subculture of love and
openness based on use of the drug, but, although he is a prince of the
realm, he is proscribed and hunted down.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Silverberg, Robert
Title: _The World Inside_
Publisher: Doubleday and Co., New York
Pages: 201 pp.
Date: 1971
Format: Novel
Descriptors: Drugs as mind-expanders, drugs as a means of
communication
Annotation: In world of 24th century, most of mankind lives in
thousand-story apartment buildings each of which has a population of
more than 800,000. Chapter three of the novel follows the adventures
of a musician who, after performing at a concert, drugs himself with
a _multiplexer_, a mind-expanding drug that temporarily induces a
telepathic contact simultaneously with all 800,000 residents of his
building, so that he perceives their lives and thoughts in one vast
intricate construct.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Davis, Grania
Title: My head’s in a different place now
In: _Universe Two_, (Edited by Terry Carr)
Publisher: Ace Books, New York
Pages: 151–172
Date: 1972
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: Young American married couple, weary of life on welfare
in a large city, travel into Central American jungle in search of a
drug-using primitive tribe of which they have heard. Eventually they
find an Eden-like place where the natives, though dominated by fears
of supernatural beings, seem whole and happy. The Americans discover
hallucinogenic mushrooms near the village, begin using them, and settle
into an amiable life of tripping and telepathic contact with animals,
insects, and plants. As story ends they are planning to turn on the
unsuspecting villagers.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Hollis, H. H.
Title: Stoned counsel
In: _Again, Dangerous Visions_, (Edited by Harlan Ellison)
Publisher: Doubleday and Co., New York
Pages: 270–281
Date: 1972
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: In world of near future hallucinogenic drugs have become
a routine part of the legal process. Lawyers examine evidence that
is fed to them in direct association with LSD and other drugs, and
trials are conducted with prosecutors and defense attorneys both in a
drug-enhanced mental state. Approach of the story is sympathetic and
detached; drug-enhancement is depicted as a new phase, not necessarily
negative in implication, in courtroom procedure.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Jones, Langdon
Title: The eye of the lens
In: _The Eye of the Lens_ (By Langdon Jones)
Publisher: Collier Books, New York
Date: 1972
Pages: 53–90
Format: Short novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: Avant-garde story without summarizable plot: it attempts
to depict various cinematic and psychedelic modes of perception and
includes (p. 84) an explicitly psychedelic scene within a British
cathedral of the near future where hallucinatory religious rituals take
place.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Nelson, Ray
Title: Time travel for pedestrians
In: _Again, Dangerous Visions_, (Edited by Harlan Ellison)
Publisher: Doubleday and Co., New York
Date: 1972
Pages: 140–159
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: Protagonist, using crushed “flower seeds” plus
auto-hypnotic techniques, embarks on a trip in which his consciousness
perceives past existences. He travels mentally to medieval northern
Europe, to Egypt shortly after the time of Jesus, to medieval southern
France, and other eras.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Niven, Larry
Title: The fourth profession
In: _Best Science Fiction of the Year_, Vol. I, (Edited by
Terry Carr)
Publisher: Ballantine Books, New York
Pages: 293–340
Date: 1972
Format: Short novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation: Alien beings known as Monks come to Earth and, to serve
purposes of their own, distribute a variety of strange pills. One of
these drugs is an intelligence-enhancer, another is a memory-destroyer,
another induces instantaneous transport from one place to another.
Story explores the effects of these and other alien-given drugs and the
motivations of the aliens who distribute them.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Silverberg, Robert
Title: _Dying Inside_
Publisher: Charles Scribner’s and Sons, New York
Pages: 245 pp.
Date: 1972
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as means of communication
Annotation: Story takes place in 1976. Narrator is middle-aged New
York intellectual who has had the power of telepathy since childhood
and now is losing it. The power has embittered him by rendering him a
freak, and he has taken pains to conceal knowledge of it from others.
He tells how, in 1968, a close love relationship of his was terminated
when he and his woman friend took LSD together; the trip had the
unexpected effect of opening a two-way telepathic channel between them,
so that not only could he read her mind as usual but she briefly had
access to his, giving her a bad trip and causing her to recoil from him.
——————————————————————————————
Author: Spinrad, Norman