British author Jeff Noon compiled this top 10 list for the Guardian. Here's Jeff's article in its entirety:
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Science-fiction
writers are always looking for ways to bring about change, whether in
society, in the nature of the physical world or in the human mind. And
making up new drugs is a powerful way of inducing alteration on all
these levels.
In my own work I’ve invented drugs such as Vurt,
Metaphorazine, Lucidity, Wave, Haze and many more. My latest novel A Man
of Shadows sees people enjoying a concoction called kia, shortened from
chiaroscuro, a time-altering drug created from a flower that blossoms
only at dusk.
Fictional drugs are miniature rocket ships: they
take characters to places unknown and strange. The practice of drug
invention goes back to the ancient Greeks (Moly, Lethe) and Shakespeare
(Oberon’s love potion). Here are some modern examples from the
pharmacopoeia of dangerous delights.
1. Soma (Brave New World by Aldous Huxley)
Soma
is used to calm and pacify, suspending people in a state of permanent
bliss. The World State of Huxley’s dystopian novel issues the drug as a
means of control, to quell rebellious feelings. This is a drug used as a
political metaphor, a form of mass entertainment taken to its ultimate
level, a replacement for religion. In contrast, Huxley’s own
mescaline-induced journey through the “doors of perception” gave him a
glimpse of the mystery of pure being. From which we can only conclude
that he kept the best drugs for himself.
2. 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. In small doses it brings on a perfect
high and increases sensual awareness of the world around you. In large
amounts it enables the user to travel through the folds of space. Wow.
This property makes it highly desirable, and entire empires rise and
fall in the struggle to control its procurement and distribution. This
is drug as merchandise, and as a gateway to the stars.
3. Substance D (A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick)
Dick
is perhaps the most prolific of the drug inventors. He used it as plot
generator, a source of transformative energy – and a way to both escape
reality and experience it more fully. He certainly put in the research
in his own life, spending whole weeks off his head. Still, the books
were written. 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. Here
lies the dark realism at the heart of Dick’s visionary craziness.
4. 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. And anyway, the Strugatsky brothers probably got there
first, back in 1965. Slug transports the user into an artificially
generated world far more intense than reality. People long to return
there, and many of them die on repeat trips, their brains overloaded.
The novel’s Russian title translates as “Predatory Things of Our Times”,
which pretty much sums it up.
5. Black Meat (Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs)
Anyone
suffering from chilopodophobia (fear of centipedes) please look away
now. Black meat is made from the ground flesh of a specimen that can
reach six feet long. This is the most disgusting of all the fictional
drugs. It causes extreme nausea in users as well as more delicious
feelings, and is highly addictive. Fearlessly writing from the centre of
his being, Burroughs transforms his own heroin addiction into a new
kind of narrative, where even language crumbles into new shapes.
6. Moloko Plus (A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess)
Burgess
reinvents the hooligan and sets him loose in a twisted version of 60s
England. Alex and his gang of droogs hang out at the Korova bar and
drink their Moloko Plus, a milk-based drink laced with a choice of other
ingredients, hence the plus. Add-ons include barbiturates, opiates and
synthetic mescaline. Alex likens this to drinking milk “with knives in
it”, something to sharpen you up. The perfect aperitif to a nice little
spot of ultraviolence.
7. “Drink Me” (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll)
Or
as the dealers call it: Lysergic Alice Diethylamide. This is probably
most readers’ first introduction to the concept of substances that can
change the way you think, the way you act, and even the shape of your
body. Without the precise usage of both Drink Me and Eat Me, our heroine
would never have gained entrance to the magic garden through the tiny
door. It’s all there, waiting to be unravelled. And then there’s the
“acid flashback” effect: just a few years later, Alice is glimpsing
shapes in the mirror …
8. Dylar (White Noise by Don DeLillo)
This
may be the ultimate drug of escape, for the simple fact that it removes
the human fear of death. Soon people are desperate to find black-market
supplies of the still experimental substance. Philosophical questions
abound. If we have no sense of our own mortality, can we still call
ourselves human? Would religion have a place, would art be created in
anything like the same quantities? And then there are the side effects,
which consist mainly of losing the ability to “distinguish words from
things”. The very mention of the phrase “speeding bullet” is enough to
cause a user to dive to the floor for cover. Now that’s scary.
9. Weirdcore (The Destructives by Matthew de Abaitua)
A
downer for the soul, weirdcore sends the user to a lower level of
sapience, below the “standard” setting. After consuming a coil of this
stuff, the addict feels shallower, less emotional, more like an object:
they might think of their skin for instance as a sentient tabletop. This
is a good thing, apparently. Shallowness is intoxicating. Mind you, the
hangover is fierce, bringing with it feelings of unshakeable dread.
That will be reality slapping you in the face. Use with caution.
10. The Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams)
What
better way to extend our bookish bender than a glass of this lively
cocktail invented by Zaphod Beeblebrox, ex-President of the Universe.
Ingredients include Santraginean seawater, Fallian marsh gas and the
dissolved tooth of an Algolian Suntiger. The effect of the drink has
been likened to “having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon,
wrapped round a large gold brick”. Lovely. Make mine a double.
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