For the present research project I have compiled a group of English-language short stories and novels which deal with the use of mind-altering drugs, all written since 1900 and falling within the literary category of science fiction. I have avoided inclusion of that large body of stories dealing with drugs whose effects are primarily on the body rather than the mind: immortality serums, for example. Some of these stories date from the earliest years of the science-fiction genre, notably from the 1920’s and 1930’s when mass-market science-fiction magazines first began publication. Not surprisingly, however, the majority of the stories within the study date from the post-1965 period, when the use of drugs first pervaded the national life to its present extent. For reasons explained in the accompanying introductory essay, science fiction is more often a reflection of existing societal trends than a prediction of trends to come. The upsurge in drug use is precisely mirrored by the upsurge in the use of such themes in science fiction. Science fiction is as much a guide to where we are as it is a vision of where we are going. A literature so popular with the young, commanding so intense and devoted a following, can be of significant value in revealing the patterns contemporary society is taking and will take in the years just ahead. TABLE OF CONTENTS _Page_ PREFACE v OVERVIEW OF DRUG THEMES IN SCIENCE FICTION 1 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 9 Primitive Period, c. 1900–1935 11 Predictive Period, c. 1935–1965 17 Contemporary Period, c. 1965–1973 31 AUTHOR/TITLE INDEX 53 OVERVIEW OF DRUG THEMES IN SCIENCE FICTION Defining science fiction is no easy task. Some of the definitions that have been proposed are so loose that they would qualify a book like Sinclair Lewis’ _Arrowsmith_ as science fiction—it surely is “fiction about science”—and others are drawn so narrowly that they would exclude much of what is published today in science-fiction magazines and books. With that caveat in mind, therefore, I offer one of the more flexible definitions, one which I think does cover the greater part of what I understand to be science fiction: Science fiction is that branch of fantasy which engages in imaginative speculation about the impact of technology on human society.