Eight Science Fiction Stories About Drugs

Eight Science Fiction & Fantasy Stories About Drugs

Starting in the New Wave era, sci-fi writers began to examine drugs as a portal to recreation, mind expansion, strange phenomena, and maybe, too, some danger. These adventures borrowed heavily from the counterculture and the treatment of drugs in the alternative media (like underground comix).

The entry for drugs in the 'Science Fiction Encyclopedia' is broad, slotting recreational drugs in amongst drugs as agents for increasing intelligence, life extension, lie detection, physical transformation, aphrodesiacs, etc., etc. With the list below, I'm focusing on lesser-known short stories that depict 'trips' occasioned by recreational drugs. The trip can be good, it can be bad, but in the end, well, it's a trip !

I'm concentrating on stories that were released in the era covered by this blog (i.e., late 1960s to early 1990s), and as such, the stories (such as those published in the National Lampoon), are not easy to access. But hopefully, if this is a category you find engrossing, you can be on the lookout for the publications that contain these entries.

 

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'Psychedelic Flight,' by Robert Ray: this tale appeared in the 1972 anthology ‘Generation: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction,’ edited by David Gerrold. In 'Flight,' some hippies find that their new choice of recreational drug triggers unpleasant revelations. This story stands alongside Harlan Ellison’s ‘Shattered Like A Glass Goblin,’ and Avram Davidson and Grania Davis’s ‘The New Zombies,’ as an effective treatment of the dark side of the hippie movement.
 

Then there’s Gerrold’s own entry: ‘All of Them Were Empty,’ from the same anthology, in which junkies Deet and Woozy enter a decaying tenement in search of a strange new trip.
 

In his introduction to the story, Gerrold proudly states that he wrote it spontaneously after smoking pot, and listening to the Donovan Leitch song Sunny Goodge Street. Ominously, Gerrold states that the published story is (aside for some grammatical corrections) a first draft. Be that as it may, under its 'trippy' prose, this story has a functioning plot and a convincing denouement. Hooray ? 

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'Sleepwalkers,' a John Shirley story from 1988, showcases cyberpunk themes with its depiction of a group of junkies (the opening pages detail the process of cooking, and shooting up, meth) living in squalor in a bad neighborhood of a near-future Los Angeles. Needing money, would-be rock star guitarist Jules decides to temporarily rent his body to the Sleepwalkers Agency. Upon waking from his 'rental' period, Jules leaves the Agency 200 dollars richer.........but with an ache between his legs..............This story can be found in Shirley’s 1989 anthology ‘Heatseeker.’

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'Lifeguard,' by Arthur Byron Cover: Bob Strawn has a part-time job as a pool lifeguard, and is enjoying a carefree summer, in Blackton, Virginia. That is, until he takes a toke of some really powerful ‘grass’…… This story can be found in the anthology ‘The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series IV’ (1976).

 

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Shirley’s 'Six Kinds of Darkness,' which first appeared in High Times magazine in 1988, and also is included in ‘Heatseeker,’ features a near-future New York City where the 'Hollow Head' drug den offers users a genuinely life-changing experience. The first page of the story is quintessential cyberpunk and, I would argue, an exemplar of how to begin any story, novelette, or novel in the genre. 

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Chris Miller's 'Pipe Dream' is about a New York City slacker who finds some truly amazing 'grass'. 'Pipe Dream' mixes stoner and sci-fi themes in a comic fashion. It's a great story that should be an entrant in any anthology covering sci-fi and drugs. You can only find it in the National Lampoon, June 1972.

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Another tale from Miller, ‘Telejester,’ from the August 1973 issue of the Lampoon, deals with a couch potato who does a little too many drugs….and brings strange things to life on TV screens. Everyone’s TV screens. This story has the absurdist quality that many New Wave sci-fi authors dearly wanted to express, but could not do as adroitly as Miller.

 

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‘Black Coral,’ by Lucius Shepard, is about Prince, an American expat who lives a dissipated life on an island off the coast of Honduras. Prince makes a fateful decision to smoke a local blend called ‘black coral’, and winds up on a very, very bad trip………. This story first was printed in the anthology ‘Universe 14’ (1984) and also can be found in the anthology ‘The Jaguar Hunter’ (1989).

Pulp Power

Pulp Power

by Neil McGinness

Abrams, July 2022

 

'Pulp Power' was published by Abrams in July, 2022. At that time, it was something I was interested in, but it also had a cover price of $65, which made it a little over my budget.

 

I was fortunate to find a brand-new copy last month at Ollie's Bargain Outlet, for only $17. 

Ollie's does have a large section of overstock books that the company purchases by the pallet-load; these overstocks are not remainders, and thus have no stripes or dots on their page blocks like remainders do. Whether these overstocks, such as Justin Timberlake's 2018 book 'Hindsight: & All the Things I Can't See in Front of Me,' are particularly desirable, is of course up the individual........

 

At 352 pages, measuring 13 1/4 x 10", and weighing over 5 lbs, 'Pulp Power' is a coffee-table book: formidably bound, and printed on thick paper.

As the flyer states, the book is a homage to the Street and Smith pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s and focuses, in particular, on the Shadow and Doc Savage, two of the best-known heroes of that era. Many of the original paintings and published magazine cover paintings of these characters, by artists such as George Rozen, Graves Gladney, and Walter Baumhofer, receive full-page presentation.

The text accompanying the illustrations is rather spare, providing vignettes of the publisher, the authors, and the contemporary impact of the pulp heroes, rather than an in-depth explication. There is a conscious effort by author McGinness to frame the content and characters of these nearly century-old media in the wider context of 20th popular culture; for example, the influence of Doc Savage on the creation of Superman by Siegel and Shuster, and of the Shadow, on Bob Kane's Batman.

I can't say that the Shadow was all that engrossing to me when I was younger and in the 1970s, reading the pulps in their paperback incarnations. It was mainly Doc Savage books that I read, and it's interesting to see the titles that were issued by Bantam Books represented here in their original appearances.

Along with reproductions of the magazine covers, the book presents a large selection of the black-and-white interior illustrations that were part and parcel of the pulps, but alas, didn't make it into the paperbacks.

While the pulp-era Shadow and Doc Savage magazines get the most prominent coverage in 'Pulp Power,' additional chapters cover the other hero pulps, such as Nick Carter, and the Avenger, issued by Street and Smith.

 

 

Then there is a chapter devoted to the reprinting of the pulps for the paperback market, starting in the 1960s on through to the 1990s. Artists such as James Bama, Jim Steranko, and George Gross are profiled. 

 

 

'Pulp Power' closes with an overview of the appearance of the pulp heroes in comic books, from the postwar era to the 2000s.

 

Who will want a copy of 'Pulp Power' ? Well, at a discounted price, it's a good acquisition for fans of the pulp heroes, as well as those with an interest in popular culture. That said, I don't see many people under 50 (?) being all that interested in spending time with a coffee table book devoted to the topic of pulp heroes. 

 

The sad truth is, the generation who experienced the heroes when they first emerged has passed on, and those of us who embraced the heroes as part of the paperback reprint boom of the sixties and seventies, are aging out in our own turn. Perhaps the best way to approach 'Pulp Power' is as a legacy tome, one that hopefully will endure in the coming decades and keep the flag waving for a little longer.

Book Review: Moon of Ice

May is 'Third Reich Triumphant' Month at the PorPor Books Blog

Book Review: 'Moon of Ice' by Brad Linaweaver

0 / 5 Stars

 

'Moon of Ice' was issued by Tor Books as a mass-market paperback edition (279 pp.) in April, 1993, and features cover art by Matt Stawicki.

 

The title of the novel derives from the quasi-mystical cosmological theories of the Austrian engineer Hanns Horbiger (1867 - 1931), who claimed that the moon, and the planets of the solar system, all  were composed of a sort of frozen ether that Horbiger called 'ice.' 

'Moon' first appeared as a novella in the March, 1982 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories. It was reprinted in the 1986 anthology 'Hitler Victorious: Eleven Stories of the German Victory in World War II.' Lineweaver expanded the novella into his 1988 novel. 

'Moon of Ice' deals with the misadventures of the Joseph Goebbels and his daughter Hilda (b. 1934), in a world where, instead of the Goebbels family committing suicide in May 1945, amidst the defeat of Nazi Germany, Hitler Wins in 1944 (due to developing the atomic bomb and V-3 rockets).

 

After Hitler nukes London and deters Operation Overlord, the war ends with an uneasy truce between the Roosevelt administration and the Fuhrer. The US proceeds to defeat Japan, while Germany assumes control of all of Europe through to the Ural mountains, beyond which is a wildland occupied by Soviet partisans, German deserters, bandits, and other malcontents.

 

The opening chapters of the novel are set in New York City in 1975. Hilda, having emerged as an anti-Nazi agitator, is publishing the diary of her late father Joseph, these diaries promising to expose appalling acts (i..e, the Holocaust) committed by the Hitler regime. Hilda is at ease with discrediting her father and the Reich, having become - in her words - an 'anarchist' hostile to all forms of 'statism.'

 

The narrative largely is taken up with excerpts from the diary of Goebbels, written by him during the mid-1960s, following the death of Hitler of old age in April, 1965. The passing of his friend and commander sparks a ruminative mood in Goebbels; in the diary, he expatiates on how the Third Reich triumphed, and how it is to be maintained for the desired thousand years. Linaweaver provides exhaustive discourses on Goebbels' political and philosophical theories, and these were imposed on the German populace via demagoguery. These chapters of the novel are dull and plodding.

 

Later on in the novel the plot merges with that of the novella, with the merge point introducing some improbable, pulp-style events involving mad scientists, castles and dungeons, conspiracies between competing Nazi factions, super-soldiers, occult phenomena, monsters, and unholy religious ceremonies. I won't disclose spoilers, save to say that as goofy as this stuff was, I found it a welcome respite from the static quality of the initial two-thirds of the novel.

 

The closing chapters of the novel move from the pulpy to the cringe, when, in the alternate world of 'Moon of Ice,' Hilda Goebbels and her publisher attend the 1984 PAXCON science fiction convention in South Africa. In attendance are none other than the dynamic personality and science fiction fan Forry Ackerman, accompanied his wife Mathilda 'Wendayne' Wahrman. 

 

[Ackerman is among the sci-fi authors and editors listed in Linaweaver's Acknowledgements.]

 

This sort of clumsy toadying, when combined with a lackadaisical narrative devoid of any momentum, means that 'Moon of Ice' gets a Zero Star Rating. Stay away from this novel !

Heavy Metal May 1979

Heavy Metal

May, 1979

 

May, 1979, and atop the Billboard Hot 200 chart for albums sits the Doobie Brothers with Minute by Minute. Fast rising, and soon to take over the top slot, is Supertramp's Breakfast in America. Also in the top five is Spirits Having Flown by the Bee Gees; little did anyone know that it would be the last time a Bee Gees LP ever would top the charts.........

I have gone to Gordon's Cigar Store with my hard-earned cash and picked up the May issue of Heavy Metal magazine. This is a good issue. The front cover, 'The Wizard of Anharitte,' is by UK artist Peter Jones, and the back cover, a glowing fantasy by Clyde Caldwell, titled 'Centaur's Idol.'

 

Lots of quirky material inside, material best taken in with the accompaniment of herbal substances.

While Moebius continues to contribute 'Airtight Garage,' frustratingly, Sean Kelly and Julie Simmons insist on parceling it out in very brief (i.e., two- and three-page) installments. 

Also presented in an installment is part 4 of the novel 'Starcrown,' by John Pocsik. While it got a nice treatment from artists like Gil Kane, 'Starcrown' never advanced beyond a limited serialization in Heavy Metal.

 

Perhaps the major feature in this May issue is the first installment of a serialization of the opening chapter (i.e., 16 pages) of the graphic novel accompanying the upcoming film Alien. The graphic novel, by Walt Simonson, was the first such publication ever to appear on the New York Times bestseller list for paperbacks.

Also noteworthy were some original pieces, such as 'Night Angel,' by Paul Abrams, the continuation of the 'New Tales of the Arabian Nights,' by Richard Corben, and a retro-style adventure, starring a comely female: '8 Bells; Amora,' by Grey Morrow. All good stuff !

 

 

 

The late Al Sarrantonio contributes 'Roger in the Womb,' a three-page story about a most unusual fetus. It's humorous, but also with a rather offbeat, disconcerting note at the ending. 

One of the more interesting pieces in this May issue is a black-and-white comic by Ben Katchor, titled 'A Proposed Architect.' Katchor, who would go on to produce comics and graphic novels featuring a Jewish urbanite named Julius Knipl, focuses on cityscapes and their buildings. In 'Architect,' there are no tits and no ass (rather unusual for Heavy Metal). Still, it succeeds as a memorable excursion into the surreal.

 

 

 

 

Book review: Fatherland

 May is 'Third Reich Triumphant' Month at the PorPor Books Blog

Book Review: 'Fatherland' by Robert Harris

3 / 5 Stars

'Fatherland' first was published in hardcover in 1992. This Harper Paperbacks edition (380 pp.) was issued in May, 1993. 

UK author Robert Harris (b. 1957) has published a number of novels in the thriller and mystery genres, such as 'The Ghost Writer' (aka 'The Ghost') which was made into a 2010 feature film starring Ewan McGregor. 'Munich' (2017) and 'V2' (2020) are historical adventures centering on the European theater of World War Two. 'The Second Sleep' (2021) is set in a future, post-apocalyptic Britain and thus qualifies as science fiction.

In 'Fatherland,' Germany has won the Second World War by defeating Russia in 1943, the UK a year later. After devastating Japan with the A-Bomb, in 1946 the US is obliged to make peace with Germany when Hitler flies a V3 rocket over New York City, demonstrating the Third Reich's ability to strike at America from afar and the reality of mutual deterrence.

It's now April, 1964, and the only territory in Europe still resisting the Nazis is eastern Russia, where partisans, covertly supported by the US, wage a war of attrition that is draining manpower and money from the otherwise triumphant Reich. Hitler's seventy-five birthday is approaching, and the nationwide celebration will be centered in the massive Chancellery complex in downtown Berlin. Lending considerable importance to the celebration is the thawing of relations between the Reich, and the US and its President, Joseph P. Kennedy.

The protagonist of 'Fatherland' is Xavier March, a stolid, but intelligent, man in his early 40s, a veteran of the U-Boat campaign, and the Battle of the Atlantic. March is an officer in the Berlin Kriminalpolizei, or the branch of the government devoted to civilian police affairs. As the novel opens, March has been called to the grounds of the Schwanenwerder causeway in suburban Berlin. A cadet at the Sepp Dietrich Academy, out for an early morning jog, has found an elderly man's corpse in the shallow waters of the shore of Lake Havel.

March is cynical - dangerously so -  about the Reich and its transformation of German society, but he is a dedicated investigator, so he is conscientious in pursuing what seems to be an unremarkable missing persons case. But it turns out that the deceased man is a former high-ranking official in the Nazi party, someone who was involved in the party from its earliest days. A man with connections to other, very influential, people.

Soon enough, there are orders from the Kriminalpolizei bureaucracy that the upper echelons of the Gestapo will handle the investigation themselves. But March is stubborn, choosing to ignore the red flags out of detestation for the Gestapo general, the loathsome Odile Globocnik. Staying one step ahead of Globocnik, March discovers that the dead man was involved in a criminal enterprise that, should word of it be exposed to the public, greatly would embarrass the Party, and the Fuhrer, on the eve of the latter's birthday.

Aided by an American journalist named Charlotte Maguire, who is in Berlin as a representative of World European Features to cover the celebration of the Fuhrer's birthday, March digs even deeper into the workings of the inner circle of the Reich. But time is running out for March, and if he fails, any chance for ending the Nazi domination of Europe fails with him.......

'Fatherland' is a Three-Star novel. It starts off as a very readable, well-plotted mystery, with a believable portrayal of Berlin as the capital of a Nazi empire, its streets overwhelmed by massive Brutalist architecture, and the heraldry of the Reich. Author Harris also is good at depicting a society steeped in the doctrines of National Socialism, where the state surveils its citizens and shows no hesitation in crushing dissent.

Where the book falters is in its Big Revelation, which I suspect most, if not all, readers will see coming well in advance. As a result, as the second half of the novel ladles out one divulgence after another, these inevitably have a perfunctory quality.

As well, the denouement, which goes on for over 50 pages, generates suspense by having the lead characters make stupid decisions, never a good tactic in composing a storyline. By the time I got to the closing chapters a tiredness was permeating the narrative, and I found the conclusion more than a little predictable.

Summing up, 'Fatherland' is a competent, is not overly imaginative, 'Hitler Wins' novel. 

May is 'Third Reich Triumphant' month

 May is 'Third Reich Triumphant' Month at the PorPor Books Blog

Here at the PorPor Books Blog, occasionally we like to devote a month to providing reviews and profiles of books that deal with a particular topic. For May 2025, we're going to focus on science fiction and alternate history works that posit a victory by the Third Reich in the Second World War. 

(I had to be careful in phrasing this topic, so as to avoid being flagged for promoting 'Nazi' or 'extremist' content online)

It's been 80 years since May, 1945, when the Reich came crashing down in the ruins of Berlin. However, what if the Reich had avoided destruction, and persevered ?

We'll be looking at an anthology of 'Hitler Wins' stories, as well as three novels that present a world in which the Third Reich holds sway over Europe. All works designed to shock, appall, and provoke !

Get ready for a triumphant Third Reich, all month here at the PorPor Books Blog !