an anthology of sf short stories was published in the 60s certainly in britain but not sure about the u.s. it had a "trendy,hippy "theme and i think the title was from a chart topping record ,possibly bob dylan . the two stories i remember from it were both about drugs ,in one ; society as a whole habitually uses hallucenogenics 24/7 but the hero decides to experiment and find out what its like to spend a day unstoned and comes to the conclusion that the universe is an immense empty space with some proportionatly minute amounts of matter within it ,contaminated here and there with trace amounts of life quote "biological clockwork ,slowly running down " . the other story i recall was about a guy who took a drug that caused him to experience time as a whole instead of sequentially so that he simultaneously felt the sensation of being born ,being on his death bed and all of his life in between .if any one can help with the title /publisher i
ll be v. greatful !cheers .
There’s a short story and a book of collected stories by Norman Spinrad both called “No Direction Home.” It’s a little later (the story in 1971 and the book in 1975) than what you want, but it’s taken from a Bob Dylan song. The story originally appeared in the British science fiction magazine New Worlds. I don’t recall exactly what the story was about, but it might be about drugs.
Judith Merril edited an anthology titled England Swings SF in 1968.
Here’s the table of contents:
• The Island • Roger Jones • ss Science-Fantasy #69 ’65
• Ne Deja Vu Pas • Josephine Saxton • ss, 1967
• Signals • John Calder • ss New Worlds #166 ’66
• Saint 505 • John Clark • ss New Worlds Jan ’67
• The Singular Quest of Martin Borg • George Collyn • ss New Worlds Feb ’65
• The First Gorilla on the Moon • Bill Butler • pm *
• Blastoff • Kyril Bonfiglioli • ss, 1964
• You and Me and the Continuum • J. G. Ballard • ss Impulse Mar ’66
• Who’s in There with Me? • Daphne Castell • ss *
• The Squirrel Cage • Thomas M. Disch • ss New Worlds Oct ’66
• Manscarer • Keith Roberts • nv New Writings in SF. 7, ed. John Carnell, London: Dobson, 1966
• The Total Experience Kick • Charles Platt • ss New Worlds Dec ’66
• The Silver Needle • George MacBeth • pm New Worlds Jan ’67
• The Baked Bean Factory • Michael Butterworth • ss New Worlds Oct ’67
• The Hall of Machines • Langdon Jones • ss New Worlds Mar ’68
• The Run • Christopher Priest • ss Impulse May ’66
• All the King’s Men • Barrington J. Bayley • nv New Worlds Mar ’65
• Still Trajectories [Colin Charteris] • Brian W. Aldiss • ss New Worlds Sep ’67
• Sun Push • Graham M. Hall • ss New Worlds Jan ’67
• Report on a Supermarket • Michael Hamburger • pm
• Dr. Gelabius • Hilary Bailey • vi New Worlds Apr ’68
• The Heat Death of the Universe • Pamela A. Zoline • ss New Worlds Jul ’67
• The Mountain • Michael Moorcock • ss Boys World #21; ; as by James Colvin, New Worlds Feb ’65
• Psychosmosis • David I. Masson • ss New Worlds Mar ’66
• The Idea of Entropy at Maenporth Beach • Peter Redgrove • pm, 1967
• Same Autumn in a Different Park • Peter Tate • ss Fantastic Sep ’67
• The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race • J. G. Ballard • ss Ambit #29 ’66; New Worlds Feb ’67
• Plan for the Assassination of Jacqueline Kennedy • J. G. Ballard • ss Ambit #31 ’66
And I just have to take the opportunity to ask:
In the thread Strange comma spacing on the Web ,and sometimes email, elmwood asked:
Nobody there gave a good answer. But since you do it in your threads, Lust4Life, maybe you can tell us.
Cheers Wendell! "No direction home "it certainly was ,I`m all the more impressed that you nailed it when i had the wrong decade!
Er I was actually taken to task about my spacings and lack of capital letters on this board by, I assume one of the moderators .On the other boards that I post on (which are U.K.based) it is actually considered to be bad manners to use upper case in postings so I leave extra spacing around punctuation marks(or rather I DID!lol) to prevent everything becoming snarled together in one solid wedge of print to the exclusion of comprehensibility(the worst being an exclamation mark followed by a sentence begining with “l”. But now that Ive joined an altogether much higher caliber of forum I
ve seen the error of my ways and shall transgress no more lol! Mind you I expect that it doesnt always help when Icome back from the pub full of opiniated enthusiasm and an alcoholic ,warm glow.(and those are my alibi
s and I`m sticking to them!)
Great question, Lust4Life. If Wendell hadn’t jumped in there I would have totally nailed it (had I known the answer).
I miss New Wave sf. (Maybe I miss reading about dystopias instead of watching one being born.)