Project Gutenberg
2009-12-21
Public domain in the USA.
122
Spinrad, Norman
1940
Spinrad, Norman Richard
Summers, Leo
1925
1985
Summers, L.R.
Summers, L. R.
Summers, Leo Ramon
Subjectivity
Produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction January 1964.
Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
"Subjectivity" by Norman Spinrad is a science fiction novella written in the early 1960s. The story explores the psychological consequences of a long-duration spaceflight and the desperate measures taken by a unified Solar Government to ensure humanity's venture to the stars. The narrative revolves around a group of ten uniquely flawed individuals who are tasked with crew duties aboard a spaceship designed for interstellar travel, specifically experimenting with a powerful hallucinogenic drug to cope with the psychological strains of the journey. As the crew of starship Number Thirteen embarks on their sixteen-year mission to Centaurus, they ingest the hallucinogenic substance called Omnidrene, which becomes a crutch that fuels both their creativity and descent into madness. The crew's shared hallucinations begin to evolve, leading to a breakdown of control as their imagined creatures manifest in increasingly alarming forms. While they initially enjoy a beautiful garden within the spaceship's confines, the line between reality and fantasy blurs as their creations spiral out of control, culminating in a chaotic confrontation with their own minds. Ultimately, the crew miraculously returns to Earth not in traditional form but accompanied by the monstrous manifestations of their collective consciousness, leaving behind a profound commentary on the nature of reality and human psyche in the face of isolation. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Reading ease score: 77.5 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read.
en
Science fiction
Short stories
PS
Text
Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy
Category: Psychiatry/Psychology
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