| Author |
Spinrad, Norman, 1940- |
| Illustrator |
Summers, Leo, 1925-1985 |
| Title |
Subjectivity
|
| Note |
Reading ease score: 77.5 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read.
|
| Credits |
Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
|
| Summary |
"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.)
|
| Language |
English |
| LoC Class |
PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature
|
| Subject |
Science fiction
|
| Subject |
Short stories
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| Category |
Text |
| EBook-No. |
30722 |
| Release Date |
Dec 21, 2009 |
| Copyright Status |
Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads |
66 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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