- Carcinoma Angels
Infobox short story
name = Carcinoma Angels
author =Norman Spinrad
language = English
genre =Science fiction short story
published_in =Dangerous Visions
publication_type =anthology
publisher =
media_type =
pub_date = December 1967"Carcinoma Angels" is a short story by
Norman Spinrad , fromHarlan Ellison 'sscience fiction anthology "Dangerous Visions ".It is a humorous story about
cancer .tory
Harrison Wintergreen is a man who has lived his life with the world as his oyster; he is as Larger Than Life as they get.
At age nine, he decides he will become Filthy Rich, and proceeds to save, swap, and earn his way upwards. He becomes Filthy Rich by his standards by the age of twenty-two, then loses his interest in money.
He turns to Doing Good--toppling unpleasant Latin American governments, converting a tribe of Borneo headhunters to
Rosicrucian ism, setting up homes for overage whores, and sterilizing fecund Indian women. He tires of Doing Good at thirty, and moves on.He decides to Leave His Footprints in the Sands of Time, and does so extravagantly until age thirty-eight.
At age forty, he is told that he has an advanced, well-spread, and incurable case of
cancer , and is given an expected year to live.He proceeds to do everything probable to cure it, and when that fails, he turns to his specialty: the improbable. He goes to every source, then starts in on the unsourced.
He sets out to explore and conquer his own internal universe. He prepares a potent potion to be inserted by syringe, containing:
Novocain ;morphine ,curare ; "vlut ", a rare Central Asian poison which induced temporary blindness;olfactorcain , a top-secret smell-deadener used by skunk farmers;tympanoline , a drug which temporarily deadened the auditory nerves (used primarily by filibustering senators); a large dose ofBenzedrine ;lysergic acid ;psilocybin ;mescaline ;peyote extract; seven other highly experimental and most illegal halluncinogens; eye of newt and toe of dog.He succeeds, and cures himself of cancer. But he can't get out.
External links
* [http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/spinrad/spinrad1.html The story online]
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