![]() This is the most disgusting of all the fictional drugs. Black meat is made from the ground flesh of a specimen that can reach six feet long. Black Meat ( Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs) Anyone suffering from chilopodophobia (fear of centipedes) please look away now. The novel’s Russian title translates as “Predatory Things of Our Times”, which pretty much sums it up.ĥ. People long to return there, and many of them die on repeat trips, their brains overloaded. Slug transports the user into an artificially generated world far more intense than reality. And anyway, the Strugatsky brothers probably got there first, back in 1965. Slug ( The Final Circle of Paradise by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky) I was thinking of including William Gibson’s “cyberspace” in this list, because it acts very much like a drug on the human psyche, but I have to be strict. Here lies the dark realism at the heart of Dick’s visionary craziness.Ĥ. Substance D is a psychoactive it produces an initial euphoria, which is great until the user finds out what the D stands for: Despair, Desertion, Dumbness, and in its final incarnation, Death. He certainly put in the research in his own life, spending whole weeks off his head. He used it as plot generator, a source of transformative energy – and a way to both escape reality and experience it more fully. Substance D ( A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick) Dick is perhaps the most prolific of the drug inventors. This is drug as merchandise, and as a gateway to the stars.ģ. This property makes it highly desirable, and entire empires rise and fall in the struggle to control its procurement and distribution. In large amounts it enables the user to travel through the folds of space. In small doses it brings on a perfect high and increases sensual awareness of the world around you. Melange ( Dune by Frank Herbert) The most famous drug in science fiction – and one of the most powerful – melange or “spice” is found on the desert planet of Arrakis, produced and guarded by giant sandworms. ![]() From which we can only conclude that he kept the best drugs for himself.Ģ. In contrast, Huxley’s own mescaline-induced journey through the “doors of perception” gave him a glimpse of the mystery of pure being. This is a drug used as a political metaphor, a form of mass entertainment taken to its ultimate level, a replacement for religion. ![]() The World State of Huxley’s dystopian novel issues the drug as a means of control, to quell rebellious feelings. Soma ( Brave New World by Aldous Huxley) Soma is used to calm and pacify, suspending people in a state of permanent bliss. Here are some modern examples from the pharmacopoeia of dangerous delights.ġ. The practice of drug invention goes back to the ancient Greeks ( Moly, Lethe) and Shakespeare (Oberon’s love potion). Fictional drugs are miniature rocket ships: they take characters to places unknown and strange.
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