| The Bitter Pill | |
| Author: | A. Bertram Chandler |
| Country: | Australia |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Science fiction |
| Publisher: | Wren Publishing |
| Release Date: | 1974 |
| Media Type: | |
| Pages: | 158 pp. |
| Isbn: | 0858851113 |
The Bitter Pill (1974) is a science fiction novel by Australian writer A. Bertram Chandler.[1]
The novel is based on an earlier short story by Chandler of the same name.
A. Bertram Chandler's science fiction short story "The Bitter Pill" was published in the June 1970 issue of Vision of Tomorrow.[2]
The story won the Australian SF Achievement Award, Best Australian Science Fiction, in 1971.[3]
In a future Australia a powerful government administration, concerned by the growing number of "old" people, tags all over 45 as senior citizens, forcing them to relinguish their jobs and restricting their privileges. They are also given a suicide pill which they can take if life becomes too difficult for them.
In The Sydney Morning Herald reviewer William Noonan found the author's "fertile imagination" helped provide a novel whose "overall result is absorbing".[4]
Writing in SF Commentary 47 reviewer Christine McGowan was not taken with the book, noting that some mainstream (i.e. non-sf) reviewers had found it "appealing". McGowan noted that "dramatic tension is very much lacking" and that the "principal characters are no more cardboard than is usual in most sf".[5]
After its original publication in 1974 by Wren Publishing the novel was later reprinted as follows: