Status Updates From Dottor Futuro

“Their minds aren’t fixed on the present; it’s the future that’s real to them. Those to come, in a sense, are more real than those who are walking around now.”

“Immortality.” Then death, he realized, has a positive meaning. Not the end of life. And not merely because these people wish to believe, but because it is a fact. Their world is constructed that way.”

“Yet, this was a society built on death. Death was an everyday part of their lives. Individuals died and no one was perturbed, not even the victims. They died happily, gladly. But it was wrong. It was against nature. A man was supposed to defend his life instinctively. Place it before everything else. This society denied a basic drive common to all life forms.”

“You had no way to cope with war and famine and overpopulation because you couldn’t bring yourselves to discuss them. So war happened to you; it was like a natural calamity, not man-made at all. It became a force. We control our society. We contemplate all aspects of our existence, not merely the good and pleasant.”

I should finish it tonight. I have no idea what my rating will be - it’s an odd and fascinating minor novel from PKD, but I gotta take in the last 48 pages.

This book seems to be in that group that SF critics focusing on PKD novels would call the "you can skip them" pile. The lesser Philip K. Dick novels. But, if this is lesser PKD, it still had a very intriguing first four chapters, and I like the premise. I was wrong before, when I said VALIS was the last major PKD novel I needed to get to; I always forget Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said.

Except for VALIS, which I’m not in a hurry to get to, I guess it’s fair to say I really only have minor PKD novels left to read. Suddenly I’ve lucked into copies of three that I most wanted to experience, and I have to bump Futurity to the front of that little queue. If this, Vulcan’s Hammer, and The Unteleported Man, are disappointments, I suspect they will each have some great moments. My PKD Dr is Bloodmoney.

56

AS THE TIME ship moved into the future, Parsons understood at last why Loris had changed her mind. Why she had returned to Nova Albion for him, knowing that he had killed her father.

Dick, Philip K.. Dr. Futurity (p. 157). Mariner Books. Kindle Edition.

"STANDING ALONE in the woods, Parsons thought, I am the man they are searching for. Thirty-five years."

Dick, Philip K.. Dr. Futurity (p. 135). Mariner Books. Kindle Edition.

“Let’s see your friend,” Stenog said. “The one who’s going to do the killing. Send him down.” He put his hands on his hips, his legs wide apart. “I’m waiting.”

Dick, Philip K.. Dr. Futurity (p. 123). Mariner Books. Kindle Edition.