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The Unteleported Man
Whale's Mouth was a planetary utopia for forty million Earth colonists - but none ever returned. It took only 15 minutes to get there by instant teleportation, but it was strictly a one-way journey. If you wanted to return, it was always possible to go the long way round - 18 years each way by conventional spacecraft. No one relished that, of course. Then one man decided to try it, and encountered some very powerful opposition.
202 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1966
16 people are currently reading
827 people want to read
About the author
Philip K. Dick
2,006 books22.5k followersPhilip Kindred Dick was a prolific American science fiction author whose work has had a lasting impact on literature, cinema, and popular culture. Known for his imaginative narratives and profound philosophical themes, Dick explored the nature of reality, the boundaries of human identity, and the impact of technology and authoritarianism on society. His stories often blurred the line between the real and the artificial, challenging readers to question their perceptions and beliefs.
Raised in California, Dick began writing professionally in the early 1950s, publishing short stories in various science fiction magazines. He quickly developed a distinctive voice within the genre, marked by a fusion of science fiction concepts with deep existential and psychological inquiry. Over his career, he authored 44 novels and more than 100 short stories, many of which have become classics in the field.
Recurring themes in Dick's work include alternate realities, simulations, corporate and government control, mental illness, and the nature of consciousness. His protagonists are frequently everyday individuals—often paranoid, uncertain, or troubled—caught in surreal and often dangerous circumstances that force them to question their environment and themselves. Works such as Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly reflect his fascination with perception and altered states of consciousness, often drawing from his own experiences with mental health struggles and drug use.
One of Dick’s most influential novels is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for Ridley Scott’s iconic film Blade Runner. The novel deals with the distinction between humans and artificial beings and asks profound questions about empathy, identity, and what it means to be alive. Other adaptations of his work include Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle, each reflecting key elements of his storytelling—uncertain realities, oppressive systems, and the search for truth. These adaptations have introduced his complex ideas to audiences well beyond the traditional readership of science fiction.
In the 1970s, Dick underwent a series of visionary and mystical experiences that had a significant influence on his later writings. He described receiving profound knowledge from an external, possibly divine, source and documented these events extensively in what became known as The Exegesis, a massive and often fragmented journal. These experiences inspired his later novels, most notably the VALIS trilogy, which mixes autobiography, theology, and metaphysics in a narrative that defies conventional structure and genre boundaries.
Throughout his life, Dick faced financial instability, health issues, and periods of personal turmoil, yet he remained a dedicated and relentless writer. Despite limited commercial success during his lifetime, his reputation grew steadily, and he came to be regarded as one of the most original voices in speculative fiction. His work has been celebrated for its ability to fuse philosophical depth with gripping storytelling and has influenced not only science fiction writers but also philosophers, filmmakers, and futurists.
Dick’s legacy continues to thrive in both literary and cinematic spheres. The themes he explored remain urgently relevant in the modern world, particularly as technology increasingly intersects with human identity and governance. The Philip K. Dick Award, named in his honor, is presented annually to distinguished works of science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. His writings have also inspired television series, academic studies, and countless homages across media.
Through his vivid imagination and unflinching inquiry into the nature of existence, Philip K. Dick redefined what science fiction could achieve. His work continues to challenge and inspire, offering timeless insights into the human condition a
Raised in California, Dick began writing professionally in the early 1950s, publishing short stories in various science fiction magazines. He quickly developed a distinctive voice within the genre, marked by a fusion of science fiction concepts with deep existential and psychological inquiry. Over his career, he authored 44 novels and more than 100 short stories, many of which have become classics in the field.
Recurring themes in Dick's work include alternate realities, simulations, corporate and government control, mental illness, and the nature of consciousness. His protagonists are frequently everyday individuals—often paranoid, uncertain, or troubled—caught in surreal and often dangerous circumstances that force them to question their environment and themselves. Works such as Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly reflect his fascination with perception and altered states of consciousness, often drawing from his own experiences with mental health struggles and drug use.
One of Dick’s most influential novels is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for Ridley Scott’s iconic film Blade Runner. The novel deals with the distinction between humans and artificial beings and asks profound questions about empathy, identity, and what it means to be alive. Other adaptations of his work include Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle, each reflecting key elements of his storytelling—uncertain realities, oppressive systems, and the search for truth. These adaptations have introduced his complex ideas to audiences well beyond the traditional readership of science fiction.
In the 1970s, Dick underwent a series of visionary and mystical experiences that had a significant influence on his later writings. He described receiving profound knowledge from an external, possibly divine, source and documented these events extensively in what became known as The Exegesis, a massive and often fragmented journal. These experiences inspired his later novels, most notably the VALIS trilogy, which mixes autobiography, theology, and metaphysics in a narrative that defies conventional structure and genre boundaries.
Throughout his life, Dick faced financial instability, health issues, and periods of personal turmoil, yet he remained a dedicated and relentless writer. Despite limited commercial success during his lifetime, his reputation grew steadily, and he came to be regarded as one of the most original voices in speculative fiction. His work has been celebrated for its ability to fuse philosophical depth with gripping storytelling and has influenced not only science fiction writers but also philosophers, filmmakers, and futurists.
Dick’s legacy continues to thrive in both literary and cinematic spheres. The themes he explored remain urgently relevant in the modern world, particularly as technology increasingly intersects with human identity and governance. The Philip K. Dick Award, named in his honor, is presented annually to distinguished works of science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. His writings have also inspired television series, academic studies, and countless homages across media.
Through his vivid imagination and unflinching inquiry into the nature of existence, Philip K. Dick redefined what science fiction could achieve. His work continues to challenge and inspire, offering timeless insights into the human condition a
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December 4, 2012
My Philip K. Dick Project
Entry #35 - The Unteleported Man / Lies, Inc. (written Nov. 1964-Mar. 1965, published Sep. 1964)
Wow! Now this is a MESS. A glorious mess, yes, but still a mess.
In fact, I'd been kind of dreading dealing with the whole The Unteleported Man / Lies, Inc. problem. (See, I don't even know what to call it.).
Actually, scratch that. For the rest of the review, I'll be using Lies, Inc. as that was what Dick titled it during his final rewrite. For PKD fans who are interested in reading this, as I was, but unsure what to do, let me try and clear it up for you as best I can.
There is no definitive version of this story, although I think the newer Mariner edition is the closest. Dick originally wrote "The Unteleported Man" as a short story, or novellette. This was published in a Fantastic Stories magazine, and Dick's editor at Ace Books suggested to Dick that he nearly double the length (by adding to the ending) and they would publish it as a novel. Dick did so, but the editor didn't approve of the material, and so it was published as one half of an Ace Double Novel as it was in the magazine. I believe to read this original version, you would either have to get the original magazine, or the Ace Double, both of which would probably be expensive and hard to track down. Then ten or so years later, when the Ace copyright expired, Dick sought to have the book republished in the longer version, which he had written. However, there were two problems. Dick couldn't figure out how to unite the two halves of the book, and there were four pages missing from his 1965 expansion. Dick set about rewriting and expanding, so he wrote a new opening and rejiggered some of the material in the original novella. Unfortunately, Dick died before he could complete his rewrite, so the Berkeley edition published in 1983 was the original novelette, and the expansion material with three gaps indicated in the text from the missing pages. A later edition found the revisions Dick was making for the Berkeley edition, and another writer filled in the gaps. However, after that, the original missing pages were also found. The most definitive edition now is the Mariner edition, which includes the novel and the expansion with Dick's intended revisions and the missing pages. Dick's revisions also include some minor deletions here and there, so there is no one version that contains every word, however. Whew.
My solution was to buy both the Berkeley edition and the newest revision, which fortunately turned out to be the Mariner edition. In trying to unravel this whole mess, I consulted the internet, but most of the sites I found described the situation before the Mariner edition was published. Fortunately, the afterword in the Mariner version made the situation clear. If you're only going to get one version, I would recommend the Mariner edition. However, I had the interesting experience of reading both side by side, simultaneously, a chapter or two from each at a time.
First of all, they start differently. Dick's new beginning introduces us immediately to Lies, Inc. and the rats, one of my favorite conceits from the beginning of the book. The entire rat subplot (in which protagonist Rachmael ben Applebaum lives a mysterious double life as a rat in some alternate reality) adds a lot of spooky, mystical atmosphere to the beginning of the book but suffers as it disappears completely with no warning about a third of the way through. This is a weakness of the book, probably part of the rewrite Dick never got to finish, disappointingly. It's interesting to compare scenes played straight in the older version, where in the new version, poor Applebaum finds his rat reality superimposing itself over his life.
The rat example is just the most glaring example of a larger problem of this book. It's all over the place, and the tortured publication history is only partially to blame. It can be fairly difficult to follow at times. It's insanely complicated and packed with bizarre ideas, even for a Dick book. I enjoyed it a great deal, but after finishing it and reflecting on it a bit, I started to remember all the dropped plot threads I had been looking forward to more of, and felt some disappointment.
But man, this book is insane. Up to a certain point (anyone who has read this will know exactly what point I mean), it's actually relatively straight-forward for mid-period Dick, but once we go down the rabbit-hole here, you might find yourself needing some air. The expansion here was written not long after Dick's experience with LSD, and Dick did not have nice trips. He had terrifying trips, and he was nice enough to give you a little taste of what that's like here. To me, what it is most frightening here is the fact that time loses its meaning. Applebaum experiences in a short time what to him seems like thousands of years. And he is conscious of his reason and rationality disintegrating, but completely powerless to stop it. Reading this, it was almost viscerally panic-inducing.
After his initial freak-out, Applebaum and others find themselves trapped in para-worlds, a series of terrifying realities, where the rules are written by mysterious forces, and everyone seems to be vaguely malevolent, multi-ocular, self-cannibalizing, sea creatures with obscure motives in disguise, eager to push on you a book that seems to write the future. Did I mention it was weird?
How this all ties into Newcolonizedland on Whale's Mouth, and the Trails of Hoffman company and New Whole Germany's secret war on the UN and Lies, Inc. is unclear. I haven't even mentioned tons of things going on with Dr. Einem von Sepp and his disturbing experiments, the colony itself, Al Dosker and a million other things. There's a lot going on, and I'm not going to lie and say Dick really all brings it all together. But the book has a strange, entrancing logic of its own, and it seems that the various mysteries here might be more satisfying left unsolved, all though it would have been nice to have a little more light shone on them. Or maybe I'm really missing something big here.
Anyway, if you want a confounding, endearing, maddening completely Phildickian ride, you don't need to look much farther than this. The fact that there isn't even one definitive version, or even narrative that can be agreed on, seems to put a suitably meta spin on the whole thing.
My edition: The Unteleported Man: Berkley Books paperback, 1983
Lies, Inc: Mariner Paperback, 2004
Up next: "Counter-Clock World"!
December 4th, 2012
Note: This review is mainly based on the 2004 Mariner edition.
Entry #35 - The Unteleported Man / Lies, Inc. (written Nov. 1964-Mar. 1965, published Sep. 1964)
Wow! Now this is a MESS. A glorious mess, yes, but still a mess.
In fact, I'd been kind of dreading dealing with the whole The Unteleported Man / Lies, Inc. problem. (See, I don't even know what to call it.).
Actually, scratch that. For the rest of the review, I'll be using Lies, Inc. as that was what Dick titled it during his final rewrite. For PKD fans who are interested in reading this, as I was, but unsure what to do, let me try and clear it up for you as best I can.
There is no definitive version of this story, although I think the newer Mariner edition is the closest. Dick originally wrote "The Unteleported Man" as a short story, or novellette. This was published in a Fantastic Stories magazine, and Dick's editor at Ace Books suggested to Dick that he nearly double the length (by adding to the ending) and they would publish it as a novel. Dick did so, but the editor didn't approve of the material, and so it was published as one half of an Ace Double Novel as it was in the magazine. I believe to read this original version, you would either have to get the original magazine, or the Ace Double, both of which would probably be expensive and hard to track down. Then ten or so years later, when the Ace copyright expired, Dick sought to have the book republished in the longer version, which he had written. However, there were two problems. Dick couldn't figure out how to unite the two halves of the book, and there were four pages missing from his 1965 expansion. Dick set about rewriting and expanding, so he wrote a new opening and rejiggered some of the material in the original novella. Unfortunately, Dick died before he could complete his rewrite, so the Berkeley edition published in 1983 was the original novelette, and the expansion material with three gaps indicated in the text from the missing pages. A later edition found the revisions Dick was making for the Berkeley edition, and another writer filled in the gaps. However, after that, the original missing pages were also found. The most definitive edition now is the Mariner edition, which includes the novel and the expansion with Dick's intended revisions and the missing pages. Dick's revisions also include some minor deletions here and there, so there is no one version that contains every word, however. Whew.
My solution was to buy both the Berkeley edition and the newest revision, which fortunately turned out to be the Mariner edition. In trying to unravel this whole mess, I consulted the internet, but most of the sites I found described the situation before the Mariner edition was published. Fortunately, the afterword in the Mariner version made the situation clear. If you're only going to get one version, I would recommend the Mariner edition. However, I had the interesting experience of reading both side by side, simultaneously, a chapter or two from each at a time.
First of all, they start differently. Dick's new beginning introduces us immediately to Lies, Inc. and the rats, one of my favorite conceits from the beginning of the book. The entire rat subplot (in which protagonist Rachmael ben Applebaum lives a mysterious double life as a rat in some alternate reality) adds a lot of spooky, mystical atmosphere to the beginning of the book but suffers as it disappears completely with no warning about a third of the way through. This is a weakness of the book, probably part of the rewrite Dick never got to finish, disappointingly. It's interesting to compare scenes played straight in the older version, where in the new version, poor Applebaum finds his rat reality superimposing itself over his life.
The rat example is just the most glaring example of a larger problem of this book. It's all over the place, and the tortured publication history is only partially to blame. It can be fairly difficult to follow at times. It's insanely complicated and packed with bizarre ideas, even for a Dick book. I enjoyed it a great deal, but after finishing it and reflecting on it a bit, I started to remember all the dropped plot threads I had been looking forward to more of, and felt some disappointment.
But man, this book is insane. Up to a certain point (anyone who has read this will know exactly what point I mean), it's actually relatively straight-forward for mid-period Dick, but once we go down the rabbit-hole here, you might find yourself needing some air. The expansion here was written not long after Dick's experience with LSD, and Dick did not have nice trips. He had terrifying trips, and he was nice enough to give you a little taste of what that's like here. To me, what it is most frightening here is the fact that time loses its meaning. Applebaum experiences in a short time what to him seems like thousands of years. And he is conscious of his reason and rationality disintegrating, but completely powerless to stop it. Reading this, it was almost viscerally panic-inducing.
After his initial freak-out, Applebaum and others find themselves trapped in para-worlds, a series of terrifying realities, where the rules are written by mysterious forces, and everyone seems to be vaguely malevolent, multi-ocular, self-cannibalizing, sea creatures with obscure motives in disguise, eager to push on you a book that seems to write the future. Did I mention it was weird?
How this all ties into Newcolonizedland on Whale's Mouth, and the Trails of Hoffman company and New Whole Germany's secret war on the UN and Lies, Inc. is unclear. I haven't even mentioned tons of things going on with Dr. Einem von Sepp and his disturbing experiments, the colony itself, Al Dosker and a million other things. There's a lot going on, and I'm not going to lie and say Dick really all brings it all together. But the book has a strange, entrancing logic of its own, and it seems that the various mysteries here might be more satisfying left unsolved, all though it would have been nice to have a little more light shone on them. Or maybe I'm really missing something big here.
Anyway, if you want a confounding, endearing, maddening completely Phildickian ride, you don't need to look much farther than this. The fact that there isn't even one definitive version, or even narrative that can be agreed on, seems to put a suitably meta spin on the whole thing.
My edition: The Unteleported Man: Berkley Books paperback, 1983
Lies, Inc: Mariner Paperback, 2004
Up next: "Counter-Clock World"!
December 4th, 2012
Note: This review is mainly based on the 2004 Mariner edition.
October 24, 2007
this book is so bonkers i can't help but to recommend it. seriously, even dick's bad books are worth reading. he may have been a paranoid, pill popping, nutball, but goddamn was this man a genius.
February 7, 2015
‘Whale’s Mouth was a planetary utopia for forty million Earth colonists – but none ever returned. It took only 15 minutes to get there by instant teleportation, but it was strictly a one way journey. If you wanted to return, it was always possible to go the long way round – 18 years each way by conventional spacecraft. No one relished that, of course. then one man decided to try it, and encountered some very powerful opposition…’
Blurb from the 1970 Methuen paperback edition.
Rachmael ben Applebaum is the hero of this, the original novella which was eventually expanded and re-written as LIES Inc.
Applebaum is the heir to a once successful business which constructed interstellar starships. The company was rendered worthless by the development of Telpor gates by rival company Trials of Hoffman Limited. THL is one of the bright new companies of New Whole Germany and has been shipping colonists to a fertile planet known as Newcolonizedland in the Formalhaut system. The only drawback is that it is a one-way trip. The joyful colonists send back video-messages and the media shows scenes of idyllic pastoral perfection, but not one colonist has returned.
Applebaum determines to use the last of his ships – the rest of them having been claimed by THL as a debt-payment – to travel the eighteen year journey ‘unteleported’ since he seems to be the only person who finds something deeply wrong about the situation, a classically paranoid situation, but one which the reader, unsettlingly, shares.
He finds allies in LIES Inc, the UN backed Listening Instructional Educational Services, who confirm his theory that the broadcasts from Newcolonizedland are faked.
At just over a hundred pages it is a slight piece and one that Dick was not particularly proud of. It was hastily written (but then, with Dick, this was often the case) but nevertheless manages to capture the essence of that annoyance many of us feel at those who take as gospel whatever they see or hear in the media.
Dick’s trademark ‘fakes’ appear as usual on various levels. from the synthetic Theodore Ferry who appears on Applebaum’s ship to the names of organisations. LIES and Trails of Hoffman’ both carry connotations of falsehood.
The obligatory dark-haired woman is, in this case, Miss Freya Holm, agent of LIES and mistress of its Head, Matson Glazer-Holliday.
After Applebaum has set off on his eighteen year journey. LIES decides to invade Newcolonizedland and send back what truth they can about the conditions there.
Matson Glazer-Holliday and Freya travel through the Telpor gates and find themselves in ‘Sparta’, a garrison-state in which THL is building an army to re-invade the Earth which will be ruled from new Whole Germany. Matson is killed but Freya manages to send a coded message back and mobilise the LIES forces.
A mini sub-plot shows the perspective of the ‘ordinary man’, Jack McElhatten, whose job is so menial and repetitive that he is being replaced by a trained pigeon. Despite the misgivings of his wife, Jack is swayed by the omnipresent coverage of scenes from the New World and is determined to emigrate and become a goat-farmer.
Despite a rather lacklustre denouement, this short piece – written only twenty years after the end of WWII – has echoes of the Holocaust and the unwillingness (which still persists today in some parts of the world) of the general public to believe the truth.
This is even more relevant to contemporary society where much that we believe is fed to us through the filter of the media.
Dick understood all too well the gullibility of the public and here is at least the beginnings of a major work, seriously flawed, but sometimes exposing the bones of a profound truth.
Blurb from the 1970 Methuen paperback edition.
Rachmael ben Applebaum is the hero of this, the original novella which was eventually expanded and re-written as LIES Inc.
Applebaum is the heir to a once successful business which constructed interstellar starships. The company was rendered worthless by the development of Telpor gates by rival company Trials of Hoffman Limited. THL is one of the bright new companies of New Whole Germany and has been shipping colonists to a fertile planet known as Newcolonizedland in the Formalhaut system. The only drawback is that it is a one-way trip. The joyful colonists send back video-messages and the media shows scenes of idyllic pastoral perfection, but not one colonist has returned.
Applebaum determines to use the last of his ships – the rest of them having been claimed by THL as a debt-payment – to travel the eighteen year journey ‘unteleported’ since he seems to be the only person who finds something deeply wrong about the situation, a classically paranoid situation, but one which the reader, unsettlingly, shares.
He finds allies in LIES Inc, the UN backed Listening Instructional Educational Services, who confirm his theory that the broadcasts from Newcolonizedland are faked.
At just over a hundred pages it is a slight piece and one that Dick was not particularly proud of. It was hastily written (but then, with Dick, this was often the case) but nevertheless manages to capture the essence of that annoyance many of us feel at those who take as gospel whatever they see or hear in the media.
Dick’s trademark ‘fakes’ appear as usual on various levels. from the synthetic Theodore Ferry who appears on Applebaum’s ship to the names of organisations. LIES and Trails of Hoffman’ both carry connotations of falsehood.
The obligatory dark-haired woman is, in this case, Miss Freya Holm, agent of LIES and mistress of its Head, Matson Glazer-Holliday.
After Applebaum has set off on his eighteen year journey. LIES decides to invade Newcolonizedland and send back what truth they can about the conditions there.
Matson Glazer-Holliday and Freya travel through the Telpor gates and find themselves in ‘Sparta’, a garrison-state in which THL is building an army to re-invade the Earth which will be ruled from new Whole Germany. Matson is killed but Freya manages to send a coded message back and mobilise the LIES forces.
A mini sub-plot shows the perspective of the ‘ordinary man’, Jack McElhatten, whose job is so menial and repetitive that he is being replaced by a trained pigeon. Despite the misgivings of his wife, Jack is swayed by the omnipresent coverage of scenes from the New World and is determined to emigrate and become a goat-farmer.
Despite a rather lacklustre denouement, this short piece – written only twenty years after the end of WWII – has echoes of the Holocaust and the unwillingness (which still persists today in some parts of the world) of the general public to believe the truth.
This is even more relevant to contemporary society where much that we believe is fed to us through the filter of the media.
Dick understood all too well the gullibility of the public and here is at least the beginnings of a major work, seriously flawed, but sometimes exposing the bones of a profound truth.
July 9, 2015
In order to understand the various versions of The Unteleported Man, I suggest reading Paul Williams' afterword in the 2004 edition of Lies, Inc. Other Goodreads reviewers have also gone into this in some detail.
As an experiment, I read the 1985 Berkley edition of The Unteleported Man and the 2004 Vintage edition of Lies, Inc. at the same time, to get a feel of how the story evolved. The 1985 edition includes Dick's 1965 expansion to the original novella dropped into the story by Berkley's editors at the point they thought worked best. The 2004 edition includes the '65 expansion and other sections that Dick wrote just before his death with the intention of blending the two parts into a seamless whole. Strangely, in comparing the two versions, I found that the 1985 edition read better and actually seemed more logically constructed than the later "fixed" version. Lies, Inc seemed creaky and cobbled together. Not that The Unteleported Man is particularly clear and logical. To be honest, the plot is a mess, with characters coming and going randomly, and no particular explanation of what's actually happening.
I very much enjoyed Dick's world building in this novel, however. He devotes a section early in the book to the fictional world's backstory, in which the USA and USSR have nearly wiped each other out in a nuclear exchange. A re-unified Germany and China face off in the aftermath. The Germans wage a savage war against the Chinese, and emerge as the sole remaining superpower. Dick was known for his love of German classical music and culture, but here we see his discomfort with the dark side of German history. The legacy of Nazism hangs over much of the story, and several German characters are portrayed as stereotypically harsh, stiff and obedient. The protagonist comes to the conclusion that to paint all Germans with the same brush is wrong, however. Some do resist conformity and authoritarianism at considerable risk. We see Dick attempting to reconcile the aspects of German culture he loved with the parts that repulsed him. A few years earlier, Dick had written The Man in the High Castle, but these issues seem to be still on his mind.
Much of the rest of the novel is bizarre reality warped "paraworlds," an acid trip, and a mishmash of other ideas that don't really gel. Wildly inconsistent, but kind of a fun read if you just relax and go along for the ride.
As an experiment, I read the 1985 Berkley edition of The Unteleported Man and the 2004 Vintage edition of Lies, Inc. at the same time, to get a feel of how the story evolved. The 1985 edition includes Dick's 1965 expansion to the original novella dropped into the story by Berkley's editors at the point they thought worked best. The 2004 edition includes the '65 expansion and other sections that Dick wrote just before his death with the intention of blending the two parts into a seamless whole. Strangely, in comparing the two versions, I found that the 1985 edition read better and actually seemed more logically constructed than the later "fixed" version. Lies, Inc seemed creaky and cobbled together. Not that The Unteleported Man is particularly clear and logical. To be honest, the plot is a mess, with characters coming and going randomly, and no particular explanation of what's actually happening.
I very much enjoyed Dick's world building in this novel, however. He devotes a section early in the book to the fictional world's backstory, in which the USA and USSR have nearly wiped each other out in a nuclear exchange. A re-unified Germany and China face off in the aftermath. The Germans wage a savage war against the Chinese, and emerge as the sole remaining superpower. Dick was known for his love of German classical music and culture, but here we see his discomfort with the dark side of German history. The legacy of Nazism hangs over much of the story, and several German characters are portrayed as stereotypically harsh, stiff and obedient. The protagonist comes to the conclusion that to paint all Germans with the same brush is wrong, however. Some do resist conformity and authoritarianism at considerable risk. We see Dick attempting to reconcile the aspects of German culture he loved with the parts that repulsed him. A few years earlier, Dick had written The Man in the High Castle, but these issues seem to be still on his mind.
Much of the rest of the novel is bizarre reality warped "paraworlds," an acid trip, and a mishmash of other ideas that don't really gel. Wildly inconsistent, but kind of a fun read if you just relax and go along for the ride.
January 9, 2021
I have to reluctantly admit that Lies Inc. is a better version of this story than this one. This, the 1983 Berkley edition, does have the benefit of having something like a resolution for the main character's story arc. I'm not sure why or how that was cut from Lies Inc. I guess I'll have to read the 1972 Ace edition to see how that version ends.
December 5, 2018
One (long) sentence review:
Idea is 5/5 but the form is 1/5 that makes it 3/5 overall, and a warning, read only if you don't mind bad confusing writing and boring descriptions.
Idea is 5/5 but the form is 1/5 that makes it 3/5 overall, and a warning, read only if you don't mind bad confusing writing and boring descriptions.
May 13, 2012
Odd book by one of my favorite writers. Totally schizophrenic book -- two in one. Starts out as straight sci fi -- for Dick, anyway. Halfway through, it morphs into this bizarre, drug-induced psychedelic experiment that destroys the original plot and isn't really brought to a satisfying end, for reasons I won't go into here. I kept wondering while reading the second half if Dick had been reading Williams Burroughs at the time of his writing this book. Cause this definitely has a Naked Lunch feel to it. I hesitantly recommend it, cause it is a good, interesting read, but frustrating at the same time. Still, Dick's worst stuff is better than most others' best...
June 22, 2009
This is my first Dick book. From it I learned that Philip Dick was probably doing a lot of drugs in his life. Knowing nothing of the man himself, and only his writing from the movies that have been based on his novels, I didn't really know what to expect. Except what I got. The book starts with a great premise: two worlds separated by the entire solar system. Rachmael ben Applebaum, in an attempt to save his father's ailing shipping business, determines to travel from Earth (Terra) to the new planet (Whale's Mouth) via ship, a journey which will take him 18 years to complete. He's being stopped by the man who owns a company that operates Telpors, machines that transfer men in seconds from Terra to Whale's Mouth. But once telpored, one cannot return. The Telpor is a one way journey, and ben Applebaum believes that the idyllic life advertised on Whale's Mouth is not idyllic at all. He believes, and he's not alone, that he and everyone else are being lied to. Enter Lies, Inc., a private police firm run by a man who also believes that the utopia on Whale's Mouth is a lie. So we have a giant conglomerate that runs Terra (along with the UN, taken over by a new united Germany that seems to have won the second world war) at odds with a failed business man and a ragtag private security force.
The book falls apart, though, when the unteleported man (that's ben Applebaum) decides to teleport himself to Whale's Mouth to save the woman who magically has become his lover. (Dick lost some pages of the original manuscript of this book, which may explain some of the missing plot developments.) Once ben Applebaum arrives on Whale's mouth, the book takes a turn to the bizarre. Our unteleported-now-teleported hero goes on a 100 page LSD trip through alternate realities, confronting strange creatures that may or may not be real while being hunted by agents of the telpor corporation. Freya, the woman he's gone to rescue, has been captured, while a group of scientists try to use knowledge of the future to force the characters to act. The UN has given ben Applebaum its most powerful weapon, though, a time travel device that is the crux of the end of the novel.
I'm going to spoil the ending of the book now, so don't read further if you don't want to know.
To some extent I didn't mind the deus ex machina ending because it meant that so much of the middle of the book that I completely didn't understand were meaningless. On the other hand, it seemed like such a copout, to get through all that plotting, the entire acid trip which seemed to be taking the story no where (fast) and wipe it clean with a trip back in time. ben Applebaum still has his memory, and he knows how to correct what he's done. I wouldn't have minded the sudden fix if it had been set up earlier, but time travel wasn't even introduced into the book until the last fifty pages or so.
All in all, I enjoyed the read. I was fascinated by the initial story. Maybe I should find the 1983 version of the book as opposed to this original 1964 version.
The book falls apart, though, when the unteleported man (that's ben Applebaum) decides to teleport himself to Whale's Mouth to save the woman who magically has become his lover. (Dick lost some pages of the original manuscript of this book, which may explain some of the missing plot developments.) Once ben Applebaum arrives on Whale's mouth, the book takes a turn to the bizarre. Our unteleported-now-teleported hero goes on a 100 page LSD trip through alternate realities, confronting strange creatures that may or may not be real while being hunted by agents of the telpor corporation. Freya, the woman he's gone to rescue, has been captured, while a group of scientists try to use knowledge of the future to force the characters to act. The UN has given ben Applebaum its most powerful weapon, though, a time travel device that is the crux of the end of the novel.
I'm going to spoil the ending of the book now, so don't read further if you don't want to know.
To some extent I didn't mind the deus ex machina ending because it meant that so much of the middle of the book that I completely didn't understand were meaningless. On the other hand, it seemed like such a copout, to get through all that plotting, the entire acid trip which seemed to be taking the story no where (fast) and wipe it clean with a trip back in time. ben Applebaum still has his memory, and he knows how to correct what he's done. I wouldn't have minded the sudden fix if it had been set up earlier, but time travel wasn't even introduced into the book until the last fifty pages or so.
All in all, I enjoyed the read. I was fascinated by the initial story. Maybe I should find the 1983 version of the book as opposed to this original 1964 version.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 24, 2018
I read the original novella version published in Fantastic magazine (1964 v13n12) which can be found online for free here. PKD's works are members of my "Bad Pizza" categorical set; that is, even bad pizza or bad beer or bad PKD (and I leave a few members of the set unnamed, but I digress) are better than 99% of the remaining choices in food, drink, or sci-fi, respectively.
This is a minor work, but like all PKD material it addresses major themes and it addresses them well. The story begins like this:
Rachmael ben Applebaum (RbA), owner of a space transport business which is now obsolete due to a recent teleportation invention, is pursued by creditors and decides to take his last and greatest asset - the space liner The Omphalos - on an 18-year one-way rescue mission to the Whale’s Mouth colony in the Fomalhaut system. RbA convinces Matson Glazer-Holiday, principal owner of a private police agency called LIES Inc., to help him escape the clutches of his primary creditor Trails of Hoffman Limited (THL) which owns the telpor technology that put RbA out of business and intends to seize or destroy The Omphalos at first opportunity. RbA, based on fake audio he detected in alleged transmissions directed back to Terra from the Whale's Mouth colony, disbelieves THL’s claim that a) the telpor process only works in one direction, only sending people from Terra to the colony with no way of sending them back home, and that b) the 40 million colonists who have already emigrated to Whale's Mouth are happy there. He suspects Terrans are being deceived by ... (wait for it)(wait for it) ... fake news about the colonists, and he fears the colonists who have teleported there may be dead or enslaved with no way out.
This set up is the best part of the story and, along with PKD's distinct empathetic tone and humor, is enough to carry us through the more pedestrian space opera that follows.
This is a minor work, but like all PKD material it addresses major themes and it addresses them well. The story begins like this:
Rachmael ben Applebaum (RbA), owner of a space transport business which is now obsolete due to a recent teleportation invention, is pursued by creditors and decides to take his last and greatest asset - the space liner The Omphalos - on an 18-year one-way rescue mission to the Whale’s Mouth colony in the Fomalhaut system. RbA convinces Matson Glazer-Holiday, principal owner of a private police agency called LIES Inc., to help him escape the clutches of his primary creditor Trails of Hoffman Limited (THL) which owns the telpor technology that put RbA out of business and intends to seize or destroy The Omphalos at first opportunity. RbA, based on fake audio he detected in alleged transmissions directed back to Terra from the Whale's Mouth colony, disbelieves THL’s claim that a) the telpor process only works in one direction, only sending people from Terra to the colony with no way of sending them back home, and that b) the 40 million colonists who have already emigrated to Whale's Mouth are happy there. He suspects Terrans are being deceived by ... (wait for it)(wait for it) ... fake news about the colonists, and he fears the colonists who have teleported there may be dead or enslaved with no way out.
This set up is the best part of the story and, along with PKD's distinct empathetic tone and humor, is enough to carry us through the more pedestrian space opera that follows.
February 9, 2011
I don't remember much of this science fiction novella, later expanded by Dick as Lies, Inc.
October 20, 2015
Bilo bi više da nije pisano u maniru ABNedovih prevoda. Postoje i dobri Nemci.
Read
February 3, 2018Page 166 "It made no sense"
Page 191 "why not hie yourself there?"
Cuts are timed perfectly. LSD induced plot reboot brings the mediocre story with a couple of good gags into a story where the language suddenly becomes thick & flavorful. Happened to know meaning of 'irreal' as I learnt this morning through of Montreal's White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood. Was consistently being annoyed by timing & how that fits with supersea speeds. It was kind of dumb how Rachmael's going after Freya when they have no connection & she's in a position where she'd want to be taking charge on Fomalhaut anyways. Dosker was somewhat discarded. McElhaltten is a weird bipartite short story weaved in, worth it for the pidgeons-stealing-all-our-jobs humor. Comes up again with advanced housefly surveillance. & then it gets to the last pages & it's like seriously? That's the hook up? As Freya says, "Gee"
The compressed language was neat, but needn't've been expanded, especially inside dialogue
Thingisms were pretty punny. Really liked that "Living life over" pun
Page 191 "why not hie yourself there?"
Cuts are timed perfectly. LSD induced plot reboot brings the mediocre story with a couple of good gags into a story where the language suddenly becomes thick & flavorful. Happened to know meaning of 'irreal' as I learnt this morning through of Montreal's White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood. Was consistently being annoyed by timing & how that fits with supersea speeds. It was kind of dumb how Rachmael's going after Freya when they have no connection & she's in a position where she'd want to be taking charge on Fomalhaut anyways. Dosker was somewhat discarded. McElhaltten is a weird bipartite short story weaved in, worth it for the pidgeons-stealing-all-our-jobs humor. Comes up again with advanced housefly surveillance. & then it gets to the last pages & it's like seriously? That's the hook up? As Freya says, "Gee"
The compressed language was neat, but needn't've been expanded, especially inside dialogue
Thingisms were pretty punny. Really liked that "Living life over" pun
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 15, 2021
While ultimately garbled or unfinished or whatever, with chunks toward the end missing, this is an incredibly strong effort by Dick, one I can't believe I'm only reading just now, almost 20 years after becoming obsessed with him. Playing it relatively straight for the first 100 pages, the second half starts weird and gets weirder, constantly, almost with every page. If you think it can't get weirder, it will, weird even by Dick's standards. Paradoxically featuring some of his most profound writing (and a LSD hallucination that is probably the most terrifying thing he ever wrote) leisurely mixed in with some of the goofiest shit he ever imagined in antic, rapid-fire prose, "The Unteleported Man" strikes me as something he wrote in a few days, gobbling amphetamine and not sleeping. So reading it on Adderall put me in the perfect frame of mind. Another version (Lies, Inc.) exists, which I own but have not read, and how it differs from this Berkley paperback I couldn't say. Others here have undoubtedly explained all that. I'll get to it eventually.
March 28, 2020
Solid early novel from Philip K. Dick, full of interesting concepts and a mystery that kept me guessing. Reality itself isn't questioned in the manner you expect in a PKD novel, but the characters are repeatedly forced to make decisions while plagued by doubt in the information they're given.
Read the original version is an Ace Double, paired with PKD's Dr. Futurity. They later released an expanded edition in Lies, Inc., which I'll have to read one of these days.
Read the original version is an Ace Double, paired with PKD's Dr. Futurity. They later released an expanded edition in Lies, Inc., which I'll have to read one of these days.
November 27, 2009
Probably the best description of a bad acid trip ever written. The first half of the novel is a coherent Science Fiction story about a man confronting a conspiracy that may be using a fake teleportation device to sent people nowhere. The second half was written later while Dick was messed up on some serious drugs. The psychedelic nature of the second half is enhanced by the fact that pages were lost from the manuscript and scenes jump and skip like a bad dream. The book was later fixed up and republished as Lies, Inc but I cannot imagine it is better than this hallucinogenic mess.
September 12, 2014
Read this 2 years ago.
What caught my eye was the really attractive title. Also, I think he would have been pretty high when he was writing this novel. Didn't really make much sense til the end.
Everybody is getting shot in the neck with an lsd shot anyway. I guess that inspired Divergent's simulation room.
What caught my eye was the really attractive title. Also, I think he would have been pretty high when he was writing this novel. Didn't really make much sense til the end.
Everybody is getting shot in the neck with an lsd shot anyway. I guess that inspired Divergent's simulation room.
May 9, 2020
I think of this story as Philip Dick's answer to Alice in Wonderland. Maybe there's a hundred pages of weirdness which "never happened" but so what. It's a Mad Hatter's Tea Party involving "Ol' Charley Falks and his little boy Martha." “Das kann nicht sein,” von Einem snarled. Don't fight it. PKD was maybe "trippin balls" when he wrote those hundred pages.
August 15, 2019
Later, this was expanded and published into "Lies Inc." This is essentially but the first half of what becomes that very trippy and confusing novel. "The Unteleported Man" is a quick paced short bit of ACE pulp and not one PKD's master pieces, but is definitely an enjoyable read.
April 24, 2013
Loved the start, but unfortunately it fell apart in a kind of drug induced haze towards the end. Not unlike a lot of Dick's other work.
December 6, 2016
I enjoyed it, but am deeply confused - and unsure whether that's because I'm stupid, or because the book is confusing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 5, 2024
De Eenling
Geschreven door Filip K Dick
ISBN 90 290 1539 1
Eerste druk 1984
Uitgever Meulenhoff SF nummer 205
Vertaling Jaime Martijn
Illustratie omslag John Harris
Copyright 1964 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Co.
Oorspronkelijk verschenen onder de titel “The Unteleported Man” in het tijdschrift Fantastic in 1964
Ik had geen idee dat dit verhaal oorspronkelijk bestond uit een korter verhaal welke herschreven is door PKD met als nieuwe titel Lies Inc. (Incorporated).
Het verkorte verhaal is gepubliceerd in het tijdschrift Fantastic in 1964 en de uitgever van PKD heeft aan hem gevraagd het verhaal in lengte te verdubbelen om als boek gepubliceerd te kunnen worden.
PKD heeft het verhaal uitgebreid en deze versie werd niet goedgekeurd door de editor.
Voor zover ik begrijp is het originele verhaal vervolgens alsnog gepubliceerd in boekvorm uitgegeven onder Ace Double. Dat weet ik dus niet zeker.
Toen de rechten van Ace Double kwamen te vervallen na tien jaar, heeft PKD getracht de twee delen gepubliceerd te krijgen als één verhaal. Hij liep echter tegen een aantal uitdagingen aan om de twee stukken netjes in elkaar over te laten lopen en ook ontbraken er een aantal pagina’s van het tweede deel. PKD heeft een nieuw begin geschreven en ook het bestaande gedeelte herschreven en overleed helaas voor de afronding. Berkely publiceert in 1983 de versie met het tweede gedeelte en drie blanco gedeeltes van de ontbrekende gedeelten.
Dan wordt het heel rommelig en de conclusie is dat de uitgave van Mariner (1984) de herschreven versie is en dat ook de ontbrekende pagina’s (die later teruggevonden zijn), toegevoegd zijn door een andere schrijver. Het nawoord van de Mariner publicatie omschrijft hoe deze laatste versie tot stand gekomen is.
Terug naar de Meulenhoff versie: Ik denk dat dit de originele versie is omdat in de vertaling geen blanco gedeelten voorkomen (de ontbrekende pagina’s van de door PKD herschreven versie) en ook omdat in de Meulenhoff versie onder andere de verhaallijn waarin Rachmael ben Applebaum als rat in een alternatief universie leeft, niet aanwezig is. Of dit ook daadwerkelijk zo is, kan ik op dit moment niet achterhalen, ook omdat ik niet de beschikking heb over de Berkely en de Mariner Publicaties.
Het boek zelf grijpt best wel intens terug naar WOII en Nazi-Duitsland en dat is ook niet zo vreemd gezien de Tweede Wereldoorlog nog maar negentien jaar voorbij is als PKD het verhaal schrijft. Het verhaal begint op 8 december 2014 en dat geeft ook wel een beeld hoe in de jaren 60, het toekomstbeeld was.
Het idee ook dat de Teleportatie-machine maar één richting uit werkt en de aarde meer dan overbevolkt is. Verder is het Nieuwe Duitsland de wereldmacht geworden na een nucleaire confrontatie tussen Rusland en de Verenigde Staten. De uitvinder van de Teleportatie-machine is ook een Duitser die vrij strikt neergezet wordt in het boek.
Het idee van het verhaal is goed, vooral de worsteling van Rachmael ben Applebaum om de restanten van zijn geërfde ruimtevloot bij elkaar te houden samen met zijn onderzoek naar de Muil van de Walvis, zet een goede basis voor het verhaal.
Ik zou het boek echter niet nog een keer gaan lezen omdat het taalgebruik niet meer past in het jaar 2024.
Voor mij een ***-beoordeling.
Met dank aan de review van Jack Stovold uit 2012 die heel verhelderd is.
Lijst met hoofdpersonen:
Rachmael ben Applebaum, erfgenaam van een ruimte-transportvloot.
Particuliere Politiebureau van Lies (Listening Instructional Educational Services) Incorporated.
Matson Glazer-Holliday, eigenaar.
Freya Holm, veldwerkster en maîtresse van Matson.
Al Dosker, ruimtevaart pilot.
Horst Bertold, secretaris van de VN.
Theodoric Ferry, voorzitter van de raad van bestuur van Trails of Hoffman Limited
Dr. Sepp von Einem, uitvinder van de Eenzijdige Telpor.
Het Vossenhol, minuscuul Frans restaurantje in San Diego.
Genet de kelner en Gaspar de gerant.
Jack McElhatten en zijn echtgenote Ruth.
Jack werkt bij Krino Associates en wil graag emigreren.
Geschreven door Filip K Dick
ISBN 90 290 1539 1
Eerste druk 1984
Uitgever Meulenhoff SF nummer 205
Vertaling Jaime Martijn
Illustratie omslag John Harris
Copyright 1964 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Co.
Oorspronkelijk verschenen onder de titel “The Unteleported Man” in het tijdschrift Fantastic in 1964
Ik had geen idee dat dit verhaal oorspronkelijk bestond uit een korter verhaal welke herschreven is door PKD met als nieuwe titel Lies Inc. (Incorporated).
Het verkorte verhaal is gepubliceerd in het tijdschrift Fantastic in 1964 en de uitgever van PKD heeft aan hem gevraagd het verhaal in lengte te verdubbelen om als boek gepubliceerd te kunnen worden.
PKD heeft het verhaal uitgebreid en deze versie werd niet goedgekeurd door de editor.
Voor zover ik begrijp is het originele verhaal vervolgens alsnog gepubliceerd in boekvorm uitgegeven onder Ace Double. Dat weet ik dus niet zeker.
Toen de rechten van Ace Double kwamen te vervallen na tien jaar, heeft PKD getracht de twee delen gepubliceerd te krijgen als één verhaal. Hij liep echter tegen een aantal uitdagingen aan om de twee stukken netjes in elkaar over te laten lopen en ook ontbraken er een aantal pagina’s van het tweede deel. PKD heeft een nieuw begin geschreven en ook het bestaande gedeelte herschreven en overleed helaas voor de afronding. Berkely publiceert in 1983 de versie met het tweede gedeelte en drie blanco gedeeltes van de ontbrekende gedeelten.
Dan wordt het heel rommelig en de conclusie is dat de uitgave van Mariner (1984) de herschreven versie is en dat ook de ontbrekende pagina’s (die later teruggevonden zijn), toegevoegd zijn door een andere schrijver. Het nawoord van de Mariner publicatie omschrijft hoe deze laatste versie tot stand gekomen is.
Terug naar de Meulenhoff versie: Ik denk dat dit de originele versie is omdat in de vertaling geen blanco gedeelten voorkomen (de ontbrekende pagina’s van de door PKD herschreven versie) en ook omdat in de Meulenhoff versie onder andere de verhaallijn waarin Rachmael ben Applebaum als rat in een alternatief universie leeft, niet aanwezig is. Of dit ook daadwerkelijk zo is, kan ik op dit moment niet achterhalen, ook omdat ik niet de beschikking heb over de Berkely en de Mariner Publicaties.
Het boek zelf grijpt best wel intens terug naar WOII en Nazi-Duitsland en dat is ook niet zo vreemd gezien de Tweede Wereldoorlog nog maar negentien jaar voorbij is als PKD het verhaal schrijft. Het verhaal begint op 8 december 2014 en dat geeft ook wel een beeld hoe in de jaren 60, het toekomstbeeld was.
Het idee ook dat de Teleportatie-machine maar één richting uit werkt en de aarde meer dan overbevolkt is. Verder is het Nieuwe Duitsland de wereldmacht geworden na een nucleaire confrontatie tussen Rusland en de Verenigde Staten. De uitvinder van de Teleportatie-machine is ook een Duitser die vrij strikt neergezet wordt in het boek.
Het idee van het verhaal is goed, vooral de worsteling van Rachmael ben Applebaum om de restanten van zijn geërfde ruimtevloot bij elkaar te houden samen met zijn onderzoek naar de Muil van de Walvis, zet een goede basis voor het verhaal.
Ik zou het boek echter niet nog een keer gaan lezen omdat het taalgebruik niet meer past in het jaar 2024.
Voor mij een ***-beoordeling.
Met dank aan de review van Jack Stovold uit 2012 die heel verhelderd is.
Lijst met hoofdpersonen:
Rachmael ben Applebaum, erfgenaam van een ruimte-transportvloot.
Particuliere Politiebureau van Lies (Listening Instructional Educational Services) Incorporated.
Matson Glazer-Holliday, eigenaar.
Freya Holm, veldwerkster en maîtresse van Matson.
Al Dosker, ruimtevaart pilot.
Horst Bertold, secretaris van de VN.
Theodoric Ferry, voorzitter van de raad van bestuur van Trails of Hoffman Limited
Dr. Sepp von Einem, uitvinder van de Eenzijdige Telpor.
Het Vossenhol, minuscuul Frans restaurantje in San Diego.
Genet de kelner en Gaspar de gerant.
Jack McElhatten en zijn echtgenote Ruth.
Jack werkt bij Krino Associates en wil graag emigreren.
July 19, 2023
This one gets a lower rating just because it’s a bit of an unfinished mess. If you don’t know the publication story, just read some other reviews cause folks love re-telling it. This book is full of great ideas, they just don’t mesh and per typical PKD feels like multiple books going on at the same time but unlike PKD, they are never properly reconciled. It’s the story of a newly discovered exoplanet and the company who is teleporting people to live there. Suspicion brews because the trip is on-way and folks start to gather that maybe the actuality is more in line with a form of genocide, the whole idealized planet just a hoax to lure folks to their doom. Along the way, we get some lsd trips as well as teleportation side effects that include the perception of “paraworlds”, alternate realities that have been categorized by folks who have experienced them. It’s all great in pieces, but altogether it’s a difficult read and yeah, a mess. We’ll see what happens with Lies, Inc (the updated version published after his death).
August 8, 2024
Everything the government says is a lie, but really it's the corporations running things anyway... And they wouldn't trick folks into taking a one way trip to a concentration camp just to make a buck, would they? Just to be sure, a secret civilian military watchdog organization decides to check things out... And encounter a endless hell of subjective para-realities... Just to make things interesting, there is a monster eating its own eyeballs that is pretending to be somebody it is not, though this, too, could be a side effect of the weaponized LSD the protagonist was exposed to early in the novel. And as we know, time is relative and can be manipulated... The only thing everyone can all agree on is that the aquatic-horror is the worst reality of them all.
June 28, 2020
Here's my recommendation: don't read this book.
Still here? Ok, well let me elaborate. This book is a perfect example of an author in the midst of drug experimentation who took up the pen. Riddled with dropped subplots and with almost no real clarity for what is going on, the book (starting about halfway through), feels like what I imagine an LSD bad trip would be like. Another reviewer pointed out that, indeed, the author had been experimenting with LSD during this time period, so...yeah.
I kept thinking there's going to be this awesome moment of crystallization when everything is explained. And I mean, kinda? You can sorta get to a point where you understand? But...not really.
Still here? Ok, well let me elaborate. This book is a perfect example of an author in the midst of drug experimentation who took up the pen. Riddled with dropped subplots and with almost no real clarity for what is going on, the book (starting about halfway through), feels like what I imagine an LSD bad trip would be like. Another reviewer pointed out that, indeed, the author had been experimenting with LSD during this time period, so...yeah.
I kept thinking there's going to be this awesome moment of crystallization when everything is explained. And I mean, kinda? You can sorta get to a point where you understand? But...not really.
April 16, 2019
Millions of emigrants are making a one-way trip to another world's promised paradise, but is that world all it's said to be, or is this an interstellar version of the final solution? There's some parallels with Man in the High Castle and Germans' WWII role, but overall this is in the mold of his potboilers like Vulcan's Hammer and Dr. Futurity. While it's a more coherent version of the book that became Lies Inc., it's still fairly incoherent.
Read
November 26, 2022Standard mid-era PKD tropes - corporate government is untrustworthy, reality may not be what it seems, our protagonist is the head of a down-and-out business (in this case an interplanetary shipping firm made bankrupt by the invention of teleportation). Interesting from the perspective of the social ramifications of governmental trust (teleportation is safe but it's only one-way!) but not particularly noteworthy otherwise.
August 13, 2024
it is a mind-bending novella that blends science fiction with psychological thriller elements. set in a dystopian future where interstellar colonization is the norm, the story follows rachmael ben applebaum, who distrusts a corporation offering instant teleportation to a distant planet. as he embarks on a perilous journey to reach the planet the old-fashioned way—by spaceship—he uncovers disturbing truths about the teleportation process and the fate of those who use it.
August 14, 2017
Maybe I should only give this a three but four it is. Not my favorite by this author by any means but it is still an interesting read for a PKD fan. Not recommended for those just trying the author for the first time as it is sometimes hard to follow. Whether one considers it to be because of the author's style or poor writing skills is left for the reader to decide.
June 25, 2025
This is the first published version of what later was re-worked as Lies, Inc.; having read the more recent version first, it is definitely better, and it is unnecessary except to a big fan.
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