"Dancing Gerontius"

Submitted by admin on Wed, 02/03/2016 - 16:28
Title"Dancing Gerontius"
Year for Search1969
AuthorsHarding, Lee [John](1937-2023)
Secondary TitleVision of Tomorrow (Sydney, NSW, Australia)
Volume / Edition1.2
Pagination48-54
Date PublishedDecember 1969
KeywordsAustralian author, Male author
Annotation

The story is set in an old age home, one of many Clinics throughout the country in which people are kept weak except for Year Day, the one day a year where they are revived by drugs and mechanical and physical therapy and made up and dressed in colorful clothes so that they can participate in a Carnival-like today with lots of drink, food, and sex. Most of them die and will shortly be replaced by a new group. The few who survive will spend the next year cared for in the Clinic until the next Year Day until they finally die at one.

Additional Publishers

Rpt. in The Second Pacific Book of Australian SF. Ed. John [Martin] Baxter (Sydney, NSW, Australia: Pacific Books, 1972), 118-133; and in The Best Australian Science Fiction Writing: A Fifty Year Collection. Ed. Rob Gerrand (Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Black Inc., 2004), 178-191. 
Holding Institutions

A, M, PU
Author Note

Australian author (1937-2023)
Full Text

1969 Harding, Lee [John] (1937-2023). “Dancing Gerontius.” Vision of Tomorrow (Sydney, NSW, Australia) 1.2 (December 1969): 48-54. Rpt. in The Second Pacific Book of Australian SF. Ed. John [Martin] Baxter (Sydney, NSW, Australia: Pacific Books, 1972), 118-133; and in The Best Australian Science Fiction Writing: A Fifty Year Collection. Ed. Rob Gerrand (Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Black Inc., 2004), 178-191. A, M, PU

The story is set in an old age home, one of many Clinics throughout the country in which people are kept weak except for Year Day, the one day a year where they are revived by drugs and mechanical and physical therapy and made up and dressed in colorful clothes so that they can participate in a Carnival-like today with lots of drink, food, and sex. Most of them die and will shortly be replaced by a new group. The few who survive will spend the next year cared for in the Clinic until the next Year Day until they finally die at one. Australian author.