Philip K Dick discussion

I read and reviewed another early Philip K. Dick novel back in the summer, "The Cosmic Puppets" which prefigures many of his favourite themes and also predicts the whole Mandela Effect thing.

The setting is very different from PKD's usual cyberpunk-prototype dystopian futures, though. Like most of the other early books of his I've read, it is also nowhere as good as the ones he wrote in the 1960's but still interesting to read.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I read it recently and enjoyed it. It reminded me of Time out of Joint, although the latter is the better of the two.

I liked it as well, it just didn't wow me like PKD's later books did.

It is a sort of mid level book. Nothing near Dick's best but a quick read.

That's my opinion with all the 1950s PKD novels I've read.

I started on Solar Lottery. That and Man Who Japed are the only science fiction books of his published in the 50s that I have not read.

From my point of view Cosmic puppets is a fantasy, not science fiction, I enjoyed read it, the reality shifting, action scene, kids view :)

Qiangpan wrote: "From my point of view Cosmic puppets is a fantasy, not science fiction, I enjoyed read it, the reality shifting, action scene, kids view :)"

I just read it and I agree that it had more horror and fantasy elements than SF. Interesting read for one of the first novels written by PDK. I gave it 4 stars.

II believe this book was written/composed in 1953. Does anyone know if this was his first SF novel or was it something else?

According to the Sutin biography, The Cosmic Puppets was written in 1953. Solar Lottery was written in 1953-54, so I suppose that makes The Cosmic Puppets the first SF novel that Dick wrote.

Paul wrote: "According to the Sutin biography, The Cosmic Puppets was written in 1953. Solar Lottery was written in 1953-54, so I suppose that makes The Cosmic Puppets the first SF novel that Dick wrote."

Thanks !!. I will look for a copy of Divine Invasions by Sutin. Should be interesting.