Drugs, Hallucinations, and Time-Travel
Most people dive into their drug induced literature in the high school and college years. I didn’t have time for all that – I was in school, a lot of school, back then. So now, in my early thirties – I’ve stumbled into a curiosity I didn’t really have before. I’m not curious enough to DO the drugs – just enough to read about people doing them. Sure, I read James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces 
back in the day. Requiem for a Dream… Fight Club… I’ve read the usual suspects. But sparingly, and not in the same year.This year, however, I noticed a trend. And it wasn’t purposeful. First, Philip K. Dick and then some. Then, this week, City of Dark Magic
by Magnus Flyte and Screw-jack by Hunter S. Thompson.
What is real? What is not real? These are the hard questions for a fiction writer from a long line of dementia patients. But for all my solid grounding in cold hard facts and realism, I’ve always steered pretty clear of drugs and enjoyed the fantastic staying between the pages of a book and not parading around my living room.City of Dark Magic is weird. Really weird. The storyline travels and veers and rants, and I love that about it. No strictly linear annoyingly plot pointed story here. So much so, I refused to shelve it in Fantasy at work, instead I placed it in the literature section, hoping someone would pick it up for the same reason I did – historical dives into Beethoven. Time-travel? Is it? You’ll have to read and find out. I can’t say without spoiling it, but I will warn you, it involves ingesting the genius musician’s toe nails.
Screw-jack was a nice little taste of Hunter S. Thompson. I’d never read anything by him, and obviously I know who he is and what he stands for – because I don’t live *entirely* under a rock – but I’ve managed to never finish any of the stellar movies made about him or his work either. A fan over heard this at work, and handed me Screw-jack to devour over lunch. What a trip! It’s about a 45 minute read (it’s only three short stories), and let’s just say, I hope that last one was really about his cat or I might have some trouble digesting his bio later.
Anakalian Whims 
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