Page:Drug Themes in Science Fiction (Research Issues 9).djvu/34

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Author: Devaux, Pierre and Viot, H. G.
Title: The stolen minute
Journal: Science Fiction Plus, Vol. 1, Nos. 4 and 5, 44-61, 42-52
Publisher: Gernsback Publications, Inc., New York
Date: June and August 1953
Format: Novel
Descriptor: Drugs as mind-expanders
Annotation:A French molecular physicist develops a drug known as hexostyromolybdenum, HSM, which has the property of vastly increasing the human metabolism. Motion, body speed, the rate of living, and other functions are accelerated 100,000 times. Protagonists make use of HSM to achieve desired political goals.




Author: Phillips, Rog (Pseud. for Roger Philip Graham)
Title: The yellow pill
Journal: Astounding Science Fiction, Vol. 62, No. 2. 51-61
Publisher: Street & Smith Publications, New York
Date: October 1958
Format: Short story
Descriptor: Drugs as reality-testers
Annotation:Psychiatrist encounters a patient who has committed murder and who has the delusion that he was on board a spaceship, defending himself against lizard-men from Venus, at the time of the killing. Patient totally denies the reality of actual world, and tells psychiatrist to take a yellow pill that will awaken him to the true reality of the spaceship-world. Psychiatrist is amused by concept of a yellow pill that can bring one out of a delusion; but then he finds a bottle of yellow pills in his locker and the story becomes an exploration of ambiguous levels of reality, with the pills serving as conduits between one "real" world and the other.






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