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Gather Yourselves Together by Philip K. Dick

Only the most ardent fans of Philip K. Dick will want to read Gather Yourselves Together, the ones who want to read everything he wrote. I say that not because the novel is bad, but because I can’t imagine it offering much to any reader who isn’t an ardent fan of Philip K. Dick. I rather enjoyed the story, but then I’m the kind of Philip K. Dick fan who wants to read everything he wrote. Gather Yourselves Together is about sex, but not in a graphic way. It’s about a young man’s first sexual encounter with a woman who was bitter and traumatized by her own first sexual experience.

The character Carl Fitter is obviously a stand-in for the author because Carl shares many personality traits with Dick. Scholars disagree over when Gather Yourselves Together was written. Wikipedia says 1948-1950, but some of his biographers extend the date to 1952. Dick could have been revising it for years, while he was submitting it for publication, because the novel seems more polished than a first effort. Gather Yourselves Together is probably Dick’s first completed novel. I’m guessing most of the first draft was written just before, during, or just after Dick’s first marriage because of the novel’s subject matter.

Dick got married to Jeanette Marlin in 1948 when he was nineteen years old. The marriage only lasted from May 14th to November 30th. Dick appears to have gotten lucky with Marlin even before they were married. Dick married Kleo Apostolides in 1950, and it lasted nine years. Gather Yourselves Together feels like the author wrote it before he got married, or at least conceived the novel before the experience of marriage. Dick’s next novel, Voices from the Street is about being married.

After high school, Dick moved into a warehouse converted into apartments, and most of the other tenants living there were gay. Dick’s mother accused him of being gay, and he also worried about being homosexual. Many of his friends were gay, but they didn’t think Dick was. Dick worked at a record store, Art Music, and one of his fellow clerks got him laid with Marlin, presumably to help Dick with his sexual identity crisis. I recommend reading To the High Castle Philip K. Dick: A Life 1928-1962 by Gregg Rickman. Part Three, chapters 16-22 cover 1945-1950 in much detail, far more than I’ve seen in other biographies. Unfortunately, this book is out of print and the cheapest copy I can find is $75. It’s generally over a hundred, with a few copies going for several hundred. It should be reprinted.

In Gather Yourselves Together, Carl Fitter, about the same age as Dick, with some similar physical and emotional characteristics, meets Barbara Mahler, a slightly older woman of twenty-five, which was true of Marlin. Carl Fitter is afraid of having sex and Barbara Mahler has been psychological damaged by her first experience and is also afraid of getting involved with Carl. Why was Carl so afraid of being seduced by Barbara? He told her because he was afraid of embarrassing himself by not knowing how, but could it be Carl also worried about being homosexual? I don’t think Dick could have put that in a novel in the late 1940s.

The setting and setup for Gather Yourselves Together is both neat and naive. Three people in 1949 are left as caretakers of an American mining operation in China, tasked with handing over the plant to communists after the revolution. Two of those people are Carl and Barbara, the third is Verne Tildon, a guy on the downside of thirty, who had seduced Barbara as a virgin five years earlier by getting her drunk.

It’s obvious that Dick knew little about China, and nothing in the novel suggests a setting of China. A more mature writer would have at least spiced up the story with details specific to China, its culture and geography. It’s a shame that Dick didn’t use his own locale of 1940s Berkley and San Francisco and had the three characters work at a music store like Art Music. Dick knew about the gay, art, music, and bohemian scenes during that time. If he had used his real life for the novel, I bet he would have sold Gather Yourselves Together.

I believe Dick chose the China location for two reasons. Dick’s reading experience was mostly from science fiction, and China was as exotic as outer space. And Dick’s description of China was no more realistic than any of his outer space settings in his science fiction novels. Plus, Rickman mentions that back in the late 1940s, Dick toyed with the idea of moving to Australia. He wanted to get far away from his life after a suicide attempt.

During the novel Barbara wants to convince Verne how much he damaged her, but Verne only wants to seduce her again. Carl, who is a happy puppy dog of a big blond guy, only wants to read his philosophical writings to Barbara.

Gather Yourselves Together reminds me of Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger because of its late forties’ vibes, where everyone is psychologically disturbed, and sex is a major theme without being explicit because of censorship. It also reminds me of early Kerouac, mainly because of its 1940s intellectual topics. Dick was Carl’s age when he wrote this book, just before his first marriage, and maybe just after his co-worker got him laid. I must assume, much of the fiction in Gather Yourselves Together was inspired by Dick’s personal life. It even touches on the Dark-Haired Girls theme that haunted Dick his whole life, and his obsession with classical music, opera, and philosophy. Carl’s Thesis reminds me of Dick’s Exegesis. Carl also talks about his teenage interests and hobbies, as well as his hatred for his mother. Since Dick hated his mother, I assume the hobbies discussed might have been Dick’s too.

Here is the publication history for Gather Yourselves Together at philipdick.com, and its entry at Wikipedia. There’s not much written about this novel. I thought the audiobook was well narrated.

I’m looking forward to rereading Voices from the Street soon. The first time I read it, I knew less of Dick’s biography. But rereading it after reading Rickman’s biography should make it much more interesting.

James Wallace Harris, 2/14/24

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Has Science Fiction Changed?

I often encounter the opinion that science fiction has changed. Is it true? Over my lifetime novels have gotten longer, trilogies and series have become more common, there are more female authors, and the genre has been heavily influenced by fantasy. Before Star Trek in 1966, the world of science fiction seemed tiny, and that TV show brought in millions of new SF fans. Then Star Wars in 1977 brought in tens of millions of new SF fans. (But I’m not sure how much the population of science fiction readers grew.)

But these are all externals. I’m wondering if the essence of science fiction itself has changed. Yes, the writing has gotten better, and the literary world has become more accepting, but do modern readers get something different out of reading science fiction than what I found in the 1960s? Why do I prefer older science fiction? Is it more than just because I imprinted on it when I was young? I’m not the only one who feels this way. Many aging Baby Boomers say they prefer older science fiction too, but so do some young book reviewers.

Over the last forty days I’ve read five novels by Philip K. Dick written between 1959-1963, plus Ammonite by Nicola Griffith and The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks. These aren’t new novels, but newer than what I’m talking about, and they feel different. Over the last year I’ve read such new SFF books as Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill, Babel by R. F. Kuang, and The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. I know this is a small sample, but I’ve also read hundreds of science fiction short stories, both old and new, over the last couple of years.

All I can say is science fiction from the first half of my life (1951-1987) feels much different than the second half (1988-2024). The change started around the time of Star Wars in 1977. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg might be the main factors changing the genre. I confess that I’ve long thought that science fiction ran out of original ideas at some point, and the genre has been living on recycling ever since. But women writers, literary standards, and fantasy radically changed the flavor of science fiction since the 1970s too.

But what if the change in science fiction is due to other factors? Yesterday I watched a video by Bookborn, “Do SFF authors think we are stupid now” that offered two innovative ideas. Bookborn suggests that current science fiction lacks subtlety. She also suggests that newer science fiction requires less critical thinking because newer authors tell their readers what to think rather than letting the readers draw their own conclusions. Bookborn also felt authors wrote about topical problems too obviously. Even with books she likes, presenting viewpoints she agrees with, she felt they were too explicit, lacking subtly. She admits this problem is not measurable and highly subjective.

Bookborn then cites an essay, “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes. The essay in long, so I suggest reading Wikipedia’s summary instead, but to give you a quick idea, here’s a quote from the first paragraph at Wikipedia:

"The Death of the Author" (French: La mort de l'auteur) is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980). Barthes's essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of relying on the intentions and biography of an author to definitively explain the "ultimate meaning" of a text. Instead, the essay emphasizes the primacy of each individual reader's interpretation of the work over any "definitive" meaning intended by the author, a process in which subtle or unnoticed characteristics may be drawn out for new insight.

Bookborn is quite articulate at explaining her position, and her position is more complex than what I’m conveying here, so I recommend clicking on the link above to watch her video. Bookborn goes on to say that current authors hide from their readers because of social media. They fear attacks on what they say so they are overly careful about what they put forth. I had an additional insight. Because modern science fiction is often about elaborate world building, modern authors struggle to be precise so readers will see clearly what they have worked so hard to invent.

In Ammonite by Nicola Griffith and The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, I was disappointed by the blandness of the author’s voice. And I never felt the presence of Griffith or Banks in their stories. Yes, in both cases their world building is beautifully detailed, but both authors left no mysteries about their stories or their personal views for me to ponder. I have theories to explain this too.

Modern writers prefer a close personal third point of view, or first person, to the older omniscient point of view which is better suited for conveying the author’s voice. I also find that the novels I admire most are ones written by authors I love reading about. Maybe what I love about older science fiction is my connection to the author.

Any science fictional world that’s set far from Earth becomes a fantasy world, and thus far less complex than our reality. Such fictional worlds are far from the infinite complexity of contemporary controversies. Writers can avoid personal philosophy by using allegory. Reading such fantasies means passively consuming what the book describes. Such stories don’t lend themselves to ambiguity and complexity, which makes the reader think. Our reality is infinitely full of shades of gray. Made up fictional worlds tend to be consistently designed because authors want them to be understandable to readers unless you’re Gene Wolfe writing The Book of the New Sun.

The five Philip K. Dick novels were far more compelling and thought provoking than the books by Griffith and Banks. I often try newer science fiction, but they usually come across as merely fun stories. Overall, newer science fiction stories are like going to Disneyland. They dazzle but when the ride is over, are quickly forgotten. I’m still thinking about those Philip K. Dick novels. When nothing else thrills, switching to a Philip K. Dick story will get my mind excited. Why is that? I believe it’s because his Dick’s books are closer to real life, and that makes them ambiguous and mysterious. They offer endless room for speculation. I’m reading another biography of Philip K. Dick, my sixth, I think, because Dick’s novels make me crave understanding.

Dick’s novels were compelling, Ammonite and The Player of Games were not. They aren’t bad, in fact, they’re exceptionally good stories, just not compelling. Dick was obsessed with deciphering reality. He doubted that what we perceive is real. He was horrified by other people, often thinking they were machines, disguised supernatural beings, or illusions of the mind. Paranoia fueled his narratives. Our reality was too complex for Philip K. Dick, and it drove him into insane states of mind trying to figure it out. Every Philip K. Dick novel is another exciting speculative assumption about reality.

Interestingly, Dick doesn’t fit the theory about the author being dead. Yes, his stories are wonderful without knowing anything about Philip K. Dick, but their complexity increases the more you do know about him. I want stories where the authors aren’t dead by Barthes criteria.

By coincidence, both The Player of Games and Time Out of Joint are about game playing. However, the first novel feels contrived. It’s hard to believe. But the second, which is far more fantastic, yet feels very real and believable. Why is that?

I believe the reason I love older science fiction is because it speculates about reality. Whereas newer science fiction is focused on telling a delightful story. Lucas and Spielberg overly inspired newer writers to focus on entertaining the masses.

I loved the Heinlein novels of the 1950s because they speculated about future space travel. That was before NASA showed us what real space travel would be like in the 1960s. Heinlein’s stories honestly tried to speculate about traveling to the Moon or Mars. Space travel in Star Trek, Star Wars, or the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks are really fantasies. Space travel in Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson is somewhat speculative.
Most science fiction isn’t very speculative, even the old stuff. However, novels like Flowers for Algernon or Earth Abides feel far closer to reality. And I’m sure many people will point out that stories by Philip K. Dick are extremely fantastic, yet their characters feel like ordinary real people, and that grounds them.

For all his insanity, Philip K. Dick struggled to understand reality. And I think the reason I admire many older science fiction writers is because they were commenting on reality. I do love entertaining stories, but pure storytelling seldom offers much to think about.

I’m not sure I understand “The Death of the Author” in the same way as Bookborn. It seems to me that classics were written by authors whose personality dominated their fiction. Think about Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eudora Welty, Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O’Conner, Jack Kerouac, or the science Fiction writers like H. G. Wells, Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Harlan Ellison, Zenna Henderson, Samuel R. Delany, John Brunner, etc. If you want to write a great science fiction novel, I think it must connect with reality. Just think how silly and fantastic Slaughterhouse-Five is, yet Vonnegut points to reality, and that makes it a great novel.

James Wallace Harris, 2/4/24

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Heinlein’s Juveniles I Read in the 1960s vs. Philip K. Dick’s 1960s Novels I’m Reading in My 70s

I’ve been gorging on Philip K. Dick books this month. It occurred to me, that I’m consuming vast quantities of PKD in my old age like I did Heinlein books in my youth. Why was Heinlein my #1 science fiction writer in the 1960s when I was a teen? Is it for the same reasons that Philip K. Dick is my #1 sci-fi writer in my seventies in the 2020s?

The short answer is Heinlein’s juveniles were great reads and perfect escapism for a young person growing up in a problem family hoping to find a bright future. While PKD’s books are great escapes for an old guy living through troubled times when the future looks quite bleak. Both offer escapism from troubled times, but their imagined futures were distinctly different. Heinlein’s was best for the young, while Dick might be better for old age.

For some reason I resonate with Heinlein and PKD. I’ve written about that before, read “The Ghosts That Haunt Me.” There are certain writers I can’t stop reading their books, and biographies about them. I’m now curious why Philip K. Dick appeals so much to me late in life.

I discovered Heinlein in the Fall of 1964, just months before the first manned Project Gemini missions in March 1965. This was after Project Mercury was over. I had followed every manned space mission in the 1960s starting with Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight in May of 1961. I grew up as a final frontier true believer, and Heinlein’s twelve juvenile novels shaped my hopes for the future. This was before the psychedelic 1960s hit.

I don’t remember when I changed, but like many teenagers growing up in the 1960s, I radicalized. I tuned in, turned on, and dropped out. I was still living at home, and I was still going to high school, but I wasn’t in either place.

I can’t say I contracted the weirdness of Philip K. Dick back then, but science fiction was getting weird. My favorite writers shifted from Heinlein/Clarke/Asimov to Samuel R. Delany, Jack Kerouac, and Mark Twain as the 1960s ended. My ideas about the final frontier and the future were changing, especially after reading Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner in 1969.

I didn’t discover Philip K. Dick until 1968 when I checked out Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? from the 7-day bookshelf at the Coconut Grove Library in Miami. What a strange ride that was. Before the decade was over, I also read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and a couple of others, but I can only dredge up specific memories of those two titles right now. I didn’t seriously get into PKD until after the Paul Williams article ran about Dick in The Rolling Stone magazine in November of 1975, then I started reading PKD for real. Back in the 1980s I told my friend Mike about Philip K. Dick, and we started collecting his books and both of us became big fans. We’ve been discussing PKD ever since. In 1991 I even went to Ft. Morgan to visit Dick’s grave.

This past month, I’ve been binge reading PKD again. I do that from time to time. And something struck me. I discovered Heinlein when I was twelve, just before I turned thirteen at the end of 1964. I read nearly all of Heinlein’s back catalog in the following two years, ending my Heinlein binge by reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and The Past Through Tomorrow in 1967 as they came out.

But it was the twelve Heinlein juveniles published from 1947-1958 that made me a science fiction fan. At the end of 1967, with my first paycheck from working at the Kwik Check in Coconut Grove, I ordered all twelve of those books in hardback from Scribners because I loved them so much. I still have them. Those books define my love of science fiction. So, it’s weird that I’m ending up in PKD’s landscape. Heinlein and Dick saw the future vastly different. But then, the future I envisioned for myself in the 1960s is nothing like the future I’m living in the 2020s.

What’s interesting, that I realized this week, is Philip K. Dick’s 1960s science fiction are shaping how I think about science fiction in my old age. And there’s quite a contrast between how Heinlein and Dick wrote science fiction. I just finished five books Dick hammered out in 1963:

Heinlein’s fiction from the 1950s had a consistency to them, with each juvenile novel going step-by-step further from Earth. Heinlein was always adamant that his philosophy was represented in the three novels Starship Troopers (1959), Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966). But those books represent his third philosophical stage. Heinlein’s first stage was his Future History stories of the 1940s, but what I cared about most was his Space Exploration stage of the 1950s. Both Heinlein and Dick wrote many books that shared a common vision of the future. Heinlein’s vision of tomorrow in his 1950s books are quite consistent. But then, so is Dick’s science fiction from the 1960s.

I’m sensing that Philip K. Dick went through different philosophical stages too. In the 1950s he was cranking out science fiction to make a living, but Dick really wanted to become a respected mainstream writer. Then from The Man in the High Castle (1961) through Our Friends from Frolix 8 (1969) he wrote twenty-one very strange science fiction novels that all have consistent themes and elements. In the 1970s, he shifted to more serious writing, some of which was based on firsthand experiences.

Many readers accused Dick of being a 1960s sci-fi writer on drugs, suffering from mental illness, and producing psychedelic science fiction. I don’t think that’s accurate. I think his 1959 novel, Confessions of a Crap Artist (published 1975) is a key to PKD’s 1960s fiction. Dick learned a lot about writing from producing all those unsold mainstream novels in the 1950s. Yes, he grew up reading science fiction and falling in love with the genre, but he was well acquainted with the real world and real literature. He had to accept that he could only make money selling science fiction, but he compromised by putting reasonable realistic characters into bizarre science fictional fantasies.

When I was growing up and embracing the Heinlein juveniles, I didn’t understand how unrealistic they were. I wanted space travel as Heinlein described it to be possible, but it would be decades before I realized how unrealistic those expectations were. Philip K. Dick was 23 years older than I was, and he obviously knew how crazy science fiction was back in the 1950s. I imagine he told himself, if science fiction sells, I’ll write science fiction but with the weirdness knob turned to eleven.

Dick’s science fiction in the 1960s got very psychedelic before the 1960s got psychedelic. He lived in California, and that helped put him at the forefront of the counterculture. As I grew up with the counterculture, but slightly delayed in Miami, I was still rereading the Heinlein juveniles. They were fantasies that kept me sane, but they were delusional. It’s a shame I didn’t discover PKD sooner, or even first. Dick knew science fiction was delusional. At least, I think he did. I believe with his VALIS experience, he started wondering if the universe wasn’t far stranger than what even science fiction writers imagined. I want to believe that Dick knew he was a crap artist for most of his career before he started believing in the crap. Evidently, you can’t toy with crap ideas all your life and not get infected.

What’s weird on another level was Heinlein turned strange in the 1960s too. It’s my theory that he too realized that 1950s science fiction wasn’t going anywhere, and thus he needed to go in another direction to stay at the top. My guess is he read Atlas Shrugged and decided he wanted to be a writer like Ayn Rand. One whose political ideas were taken seriously. In some ways, Stranger in a Strange Land is just as weird as PKD’s work in the 1960s.

Heinlein’s lost his mojo in the 1970s, and I quit reading him. Over the years, I’ve become disenchanted with Heinlein’s work after 1960 too. Philip K. Dick took a new direction in the 1970s and found a higher calling. Science fiction, as a genre, also cchanged in many ways in the 1970s. Since then, science fiction books have gotten better written, and more creative, but have mostly retreated into itself, into fantastic feats of world building. I still love 1950s science fiction. I think that’s when the genre peaked in terms of exploring science fictional ideas. Movies and novels are better constructed now, but most of the ideas are retreads.

I guess I haven’t progressed much in life. I started in the 1960s with 1950s science fiction, and now in the 2020s I’m focused on 1960s science fiction. Maybe before I die, I’ll get around to digesting 1970s science fiction. But before I do that, I need to use up PKD’s books from the 1960s. I need to figure them out.

I only reread Heinlein juveniles now for nostalgic reasons. I think I’m reading Dick’s 1960s novels for a reason, but I’m not sure what it is. PKD seemed to be writing about something, and I’m trying to figure out what that was. But I could be wrong. He could have just been cranking out a bunch of crazy sci-fi books to pay the bills. However, I’m not the only one trying to figure out PKD. Lots of people are writing monographs and dissertations on him.

In the 1950s and 1960s Heinlein was king of the genre hill. At the time, I thought he would be seen by people in the 21st century as the Charles Dickens of science fiction. That hasn’t happened. Philip K. Dick is the top dog when remembering 20th century science fiction. I would not have predicted that back in the 1960s. Nor would I have imagined that as an old man I would be so hung up on Philip K. Dick.

James Wallace Harris, 1/21/23

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Getting to Know Philip K. Dick, Biographies, Memoirs, Interviews, & Letters

Reprinted and updated from “The Biographies of Philip K. Dick” at SF Signal (April 2016)

Back in 2016 I went on a Philip K. Dick binge, reading several of his novels and a stack of biographies. I wrote an article about the biographies before I burned out of that binge. I’m back to binge-reading on PKD again and I went looking for my article, “The Biographies of Philip K. Dick” at SF Signal, but it’s been taking down. The link above is to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. I decided to reprint it here and update it with any book that would help me get to know Philip K. Dick, including interviews and letters. I also put links to Amazon (I earn a small fee) to those that are in print. The books that are out of print are getting extremely expensive to buy used.

Philip K. Dick inspired more biographers than any other science fiction writer. Were those biographers drawn to Dick’s strange life, or did they hope to learn more about his books? For anyone wanting to know Philip K. Dick, picking a biography can be hard. A definitive biography has not yet emerged, and each of the existing biographies have their own unique appeal. I’ve been reading books about PKD for almost forty years and find they’re revealing in two ways. First, PKD was an exceedingly complex person. Even if you’ve never read one of his novels, his personal story is as far out as his fiction. Second, if you do have a passion for PKD’s work, you’ll want to read the biographies, because Phil often weaved his own experiences into his plots and characters, making those stories deeper if you learn how and why.

But which biography to pick? The latest? The longest? PKD had five wives, two of which wrote memoirs, as well as one lady friend. I loved In Search of Philip K. Dick by Anne R. Dick (married to PKD 1959-1965) because she influenced The Man in the High Castle. And Tessa B. Dick, (married to PKD 1973-1977) offers insight into Phil’s later mystical writings. I wished Kleo Apostolides (married 1950-1959) and Nancy Hackett (married 1966-1972) had also written biographies, so we’d have complete spousal coverage of Dick’s writing years.

Paul Williams and Greg Rickman’s books are out of print, yet very worthy of tracking down. Divine Invasions is excellent, but older, still a top contender. If you’re attracted to Dick’s weirdness, consider Anthony Peake’s book. However, if you only read one, a good place to start will be I Am Alive and You Are Dead by Emmanuel Carrère, a French writer. Be warned though, reading one biography of PKD can draw you into the black hole of PKDickian addiction.

If you know about others, let me know.

James Wallace Harris, 1/11/23

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The Simulacra by Philip K. Dick

How do literary scholars of Philip K. Dick’s fiction determine which of his novels are masterpieces and which are his hackwork? They all seem equally bizarre, and even confusing. Library of America selected four novels for their first volume in 2007 devoted to PKD. The years given are when they were (written, published).

  • The Man in the High Castle (1961,1962)
  • The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1964,1965)
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1966, 1968)
  • Ubik (1966, 1969)

The second volume came out in 2008 recognized:

  • The Martian Time-Slip (1962, 1964)
  • Dr. Bloodmoney (1963, 1965)
  • Now Wait for Last Year (1963, 1966)
  • Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1970, 1974)
  • A Scanner Darkly (1973, 1977)

The third volume in 2009 highlighted:

  • A Maze of Death (1968, 1970)
  • VALIS (1978, 1981)
  • The Divine Invasion (1980, 1981)
  • The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1981, 1982)

Are we to assume these are Dick’s best novels? My personal favorite, Confessions of a Crap Artist wasn’t included. Neither was The Simulacra which I just read and found fascinating and fun. I think some of the Library of America selections are better than The Simulacra, such as The Man in the High Castle, The Martian Time-Slip, and VALIS, but I’d also claim The Simulacra is not a lesser novel to the others. However, using our citation database system, it gets only one citation. Twelve of the twenty-seven PKD novels in our database only got one citation. The novels in the first LOA volume received 9 to 32 citations, which supports the LOA editors.

The only reason The Simulacra received one citation is because it was part of the SF Masterworks series. All the science fiction magazine reviewers ignored it when it came out. As far as I can tell, none of the reprint editions got reviewed either. The Simulacra just isn’t well-known. It’s often disliked when I see it mentioned.

I liked it. And I want to make a case that it’s worth reading. However, it will be hard to even describe. I’m afraid most readers will be turned off by The Simulacra because it has multiple plot lines with over a dozen main characters. And I can imagine many readers calling it stupid too — but that could be true for a lot of readers coming to PKD work. However, if two of the five novels Dick wrote in 1963 made it into the Library of America, why shouldn’t the other three? What divides them? What makes one novel “good” and another “bad?”

The Simulacra‘s complexity might keep readers from liking it, but that complexity might hide many novelistic virtues. Just because I admired this novel, doesn’t mean others will. I’m writing this essay hoping people will read The Simulacra and give me their opinion. I’m curious if I’m a total outlier. I got a big kick out of the story.

According to Samuel Johnson, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” Dick complained in several 1963 letters found in The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick: Volume One: 1938-1971, that his wife Anne constantly hounded him to make more money. On the other hand, Dick wrote eleven literary (non-genre) novels from 1952-1960 hoping to become a recognized mainstream writer. All were rejected. He then wrote The Man in the High Castle in 1961 which bridges the literary and science fiction world and won a Hugo award for best novel. Dick then wrote twenty-one science fiction novels from 1962 to 1969, five of them in 1963 alone. He obviously needed money and had to crank out the manuscripts.

After 1970, Dick only published six more novels before he died in 1982. Five of which are included in the Library of America editions. That suggests that the novels he took more time writing fared better with the critics. So, the five novels written in 1963 were among the fastest he wrote, suggesting they shouldn’t be as good. Yet, two were selected for the Library of America.

As much as I like The Simulacra, I do see that it’s flawed. It doesn’t have a main character which most readers prefer. Nor does it jump back and forth between two main characters, which can be quite successful with some readers. And it’s not even one of those experimental stories where we follow several unrelated characters that all come together in the end. Readers find that structure confusing but forgive it if the ending brings everyone together in a satisfying way. I’m not sure The Simulacra wraps up nicely.

We might call the plotting of The Simulacra an example of characters doing parallel play. Dick might have aimed for creating a collage of future American scenes. My guess is Dick banged away on his typewriter, vomiting up The Simulacra onto typing paper. The results are fascinating because the novel is one big pile of imagery from PKD unconscious mind — and what a mind! It begs to be psychoanalyzed. And I’m sure, it parallels his personal life, especially regarding insanity, psychoanalysis, and troubling wives and women.

The Simulacra is not satire even though it often feels like the film Dr. Strangelove, nor is it a fantasy even though everything is unbelievable. And I wouldn’t call it surreal or dreamlike, or avant-garde even though it was written in 1963 when trendy artists were creating pop art and post-modern fiction. It’s straight science fiction, meant to be taken as realistic, even though it’s bonkers. The Simulacra has the existential absurd horror of The Tin Drum or The Painted Bird. I don’t even think Dick was making fun of science fiction with its comic book level wild ideas. Dick had crazy ideas, and he saw the world being just as crazy.

The Simulacra pictures future America where psychic abilities are accepted as real, that time travel has been perfected, where people and animals can be artificially created and the results indistinguishable from real people and animals, that colonies exist on Mars and the Moon, and alien lifeforms can be commercialized. In other words, all the crap ideas that science fiction fans and fans of the occult believed in the 1950s. Everything they thought possible, became possible.

The hardest part of this essay is describing what happens in The Simulacra. I wrote about that trouble already for my Auxiliary Memory blog, where I explained I had to read the book and listen to the audiobook to get the most out of The Simulacra. In fact, I’m still picking up the book, or putting on the audiobook, and enjoying random parts of the novel. I can’t seem to leave this story. I’m still finding new insights into whatever scene I stumble upon. I’ve decided the best way to describe the story is by mind mapping the characters. The number given is the number of times the character is mentioned in the story.

I’m trying not to give away too much of the plot. Each of the first level characters involves a subplot. For example, Dr. Egon Superb is the last legally practicing psychiatrist after the pharmaceutical industry pushed through the McPhearson Act that made drug therapy the only legal form of treatment for mental illness. One of his patients is Richard Kongrosian, a psychic pianist who uses telekinesis to play the piano instead of using his hands. Nat Flieger is a sound engineer who wants to record Kongrosian, but he and his crew of Molly Dondoldo and Jim Planck can never track down the man. Ian Duncan and his old friend Al Miller want to perform classical music as a jug band at the White House for Nicole Thibodeaux. Nicole Thibodeaux, the First Lady, but maybe the true ruler of The United States of Europe and America (USEA) wants to negotiate with Hermann Goering via a time machine to get the Nazis to not kill the Jews. Vince and Chic get involve with making the next president, an android, which will replace Nicole’s current husband. Wilder Pembroke, Anton Karp, and Bertold Goltz all vie for power behind the scenes.

If the novel has a main character, it could be Nicole Thibodeaux. Dick’s original draft was called The First Lady of Earth. Since this book was written in the summer of 1963, I assume Dick was inspired by Jackie Kennedy because Nicole spends most of her time charming people, decorating the White House and gardens, and putting on nightly cultural events. Everyone loves Nicole. Yet, out of the public eye, Nicole is also ruthless enough to have people summarily executed. Evidently, she wields unlimited power because of her access to time travel.

The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic future, decades after China attacked the U.S. with missiles with atomic warheads. This gave rise to a population of mutants, similar in appearance to Neanderthals. People ride in self-driving cars. Ads are living creatures that can invade your home and car and must be killed. Richard Kongrosian believes he has a terrible body odor because a deodorant ad infected him with a jingle. The Sons of Job are a neo-fascist political party. People live in giant communal apartment complexes and are required to take civics tests to stay in them. Many people want to escape this totalitarian society by immigrating to Mars. People buy android nuclear families just to have normal friends.

I could go on. There are several layers of political and corporate intrigue in The Simulacra. Dick evidently thought there were conspiracies everywhere. Later in life, Dick would get into Gnostic religion, which is a very paranoid belief system. This novel has many traits of Gnosticism. The Simulacra was written after The Man in the High Castle, We Can Build You, Dr. Bloodmoney, and The Martian Time-Slip, and before The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? There are many similar themes and obsessive ideas that run through all of them. I wish I had the time and energy to study all those novels and plot all the connections. Why did PKD fixate on certain ideas repeatedly? Was it a lack of imagination to explore unfamiliar territory, or were they ideas PKD just could let go of?

James Wallace Harris, 1/5/24

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“Party Line” by Gérard Klein

“Party Line” by Gérard Klein is story #49 of 52 from The World Treasury of Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell (1989), an anthology my short story club is group reading. Stories are discussed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. “Party Line” was first published in French in Fiction (March 1969). It was translated into English in 1976 for The Best from the Rest of World: European Science Fiction edited by Donald A. Wollheim.

This is the second appearance of Gérard Klein in The World Treasury of Science Fiction. See my earlier review of “The Valley of Echoes.” After I read that story, I bought two of Klein’s novels, but I haven’t read them yet. I’m not sure I would have done that after only reading “Party Line.” However, one of those novels, The Day Before Tomorrow has a blurb that could fit with “Party Line” — “To Dominate the Future — Change the Past.”

“Party Line” uses one of my favorite science fictional concepts — having a future older-self influence a younger-self. Jerome Bosch is working in his office when he receives two phone calls on two separate phones. The phone in the left hand tells him he’s going to receive a terrific opportunity, and the one is the right warns against taking it.

Jerome Bosch is also a writer. He fantasizes at work about having all his time free to write. And I must wonder if Klein was working in his office one day, daydreaming this idea about himself and deciding to work it into a story. At first, it felt like “Party Line” was something Philip K. Dick would write. But then the dominant mood of the story shifted to indecision, paranoia, and fear, which is still PKD’s territory, but the story felt weirdly different, more like Kafka.

The first caller calls back and tells Jerome if he will only do what he says, his books will be made into movies, he will become rich and famous, and have lots of women. Then the other caller calls back and tells him something terrible will happen. For the rest of the story Jerome can’t decide.

I liked “Party Line” until I got to the end. Unfortunately, it’s one of those stories that promises a lot, but doesn’t know how to deliver on its promises. “Party Line” does have an ending, but one, I thought Klein had to scrounge up when he discovered he had painted himself into a corner.

I wrote an older self advises younger self story when I was at Clarion West. The problem is people seldom take advice. I wondered if someone would take advice from themselves. Klein complicates the idea by having two versions of his future self give him advice. That created a lot of tension for the story, but I wonder if “Party Line” would have been better if Jerome had only gotten one phone call from the future. How many people would jump at getting everything they wanted if they got a message from their future self?

The idea of an older version of a person trying to influence their younger self is a challenging problem for writers. David Gerrold did an excellent job with it in The Man Who Folded Himself. But to fully explore the idea, I think people should read Replay by Ken Grimwood. It’s not the same exact idea, but it works out the same philosophical problem. The idea needs novel length to work out.

I believe my disappointment with “Party Line” is because Gérard Klein should have made it into a novel and worked out a satisfying ending. However, I might reread “Party Line” in the future and see it differently. Maybe my future self will understand it better.

James Wallace Harris, 8/26/23

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Which Writers Would Be Included In A Group Biography/History of 1950s Science Fiction?

The World Beyond the Hill by Alexei and Cory Panshin and Astounding Alec Nevala-Lee were two huge histories of science fiction in the 1940s. Both books focused on the magazine Astounding Science-Fiction, where John W. Cambell was a genre-shaping editor. The Panshins concentrated on three writers: Heinlein, Asimov, and van Vogt, while Nevala-Lee dwelt on Heinlein, Asimov, and L. Ron Hubbard. The Panshins volumes were more about the stories, with some biographical details. Nevala-Lee spent more words on the biographies of the four men, with less prose about their stories. Combined, the two volumes make a great overview of Astounding Science-Fiction in the 1940s.

What if a similar group biography/history was written about science fiction in the 1950s? I already own a bookcase full of books about science fiction but they aren’t the kind I want. The book I ache to read is a biography/history on the impact of science fiction in the 1950s that’s as impressive as biographies/histories written by Walter Isaacson, Robert A. Caro, or Doris Kerns Goodwin. I want to read a biography/history that would make the subject interesting to the general reader. I just finished Tune In by Mark Lewisohn, a giant history of The Beatles that only covered their career until 1962. That’s the kind of high-quality biography/history of 1950s science fiction I want to read.

Alec Nevela-Lee’s biographies approach that league. He could write the book I want, but I don’t think he would because he probably knows the market for such a volume isn’t very big. And I wonder if science fiction fans would want a history of science fiction in the 1950s by him. His books Astounding and Inventor of the Future were hard on his subjects. I thought them honest appraisals, but he may have done in John W. Campbell’s reputation, and he didn’t help Heinlein’s or Asimov’s. I ended up feeling Buckminister Fuller was brilliant but not very successful, and a bit of a nut or crank after reading Inventor of the Future. However, any honest biography of the influential science fiction writers of the 1950s is going to unearth some worms.

The whole phenomenon of science fiction in the 1950s could be fascinating to the general reader if it was written in the right way. Look how pervasive science fiction has become. Science fiction as a subculture actually had a far more lasting cultural impact than The Beats in the 1950s and The Hippies in the 1960s, yet those movements are more studied and written about. Organized science fiction fandom has since inspired many other forms of organized fandoms. There are connections between science fiction and the space program and computers, both of which also started in the 1950s. And as a pop culture art, science fiction might be bigger than rock. Rock music is fading, while science fiction is still big business.

So, who were the movers, shakers, and creators of 1950s science fiction? I don’t think the major players are as obvious as they were in the 1940s.

As a science fiction fan back in the 1960s I was commonly told that Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke were the Big Three Authors of science fiction. Looking at our CSFquery database, which uses various forms of citations to remember short stories and novels, I’m not sure it backs up that common knowledge. Look at the results. I’ve set the citation level at 3 or more citations. (Short stories are within double quotes, and novels are italicized. Clicking on the number of citations will show you the individual citations.)

The three writers with the most citations were Heinlein with eleven, and Bradbury and Asimov with eight each. However, some of those cited stories first appeared in the 1940s. After that, three authors have six titles on the list: Alfred Bester, C. M. Kornbluth, and Fritz Leiber.

Before looking at this data, I would have said Philip K. Dick, Alfred Bester, John Wyndham, and Walter M. Miller, Jr. were the breakout science fiction authors of the 1950s. Another indication of their popularity is how many photographs I can find of these men, especially ones taken in the 1950s. I’m guessing since photographs are hard to find, then details about their lives will be just as hard to find. That suggests any history of science fiction that focuses on anyone other than Heinlein, Bradbury, and Asimov will be covering events in the shadows of history.

If we alter the search to allow any work with two or more citations we see other authors standing out, but I’m not sure if it would change the overall apparent rankings. Thirteen women writers are on this list, but none have very many stories listed. I’m afraid the 1950s was still a male-dominated decade for science fiction.

And what about editors? Many histories of science fiction claim that John W. Campbell wasn’t as influential in the 1950s. But who was then? H. L. Gold at Galaxy is often mentioned. Anthony Boucher, and maybe J. Francis McComas at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. There were dozens of science fiction magazines published during the 1950s, and I’m not sure if any other editor stood out. But then I haven’t researched it. However, I would say the 1950s were still a magazine-driven era for science fiction.

The Panshins and Nevala-Lee had Astounding Science-Fiction to anchor their history/biographies of the 1940s. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy, and Astounding Science Fiction dominated the 1950s, but there were many other magazines that published significant science fiction and influenced the genre. I don’t know if a history of science fiction of the 1950s could be as focused as The World Beyond the Hill and Astounding. The genre just exploded in too many different directions.

The small press or fan press science fiction publishers of the 1950s are legendary, especially to collectors, but I don’t know if any of their editors had that much influence. I would think the editors at Doubleday and the Science Fiction Book Club could be a consideration if I knew who they were. Another consideration is Donald A. Wollheim. His work at Ace Books was both influential and widespread.

If a single volume could be written about science fiction in the 1950s it might need to be divided into twelve chapters, one for each year, or into 120 chapters, based on the months. A linear progression through the decade might be the best way to capture the history of science fiction in the 1950s. And the book would have to be big, maybe a thousand pages.

There is one significant book about science fiction history in the 1950s that I know about, Transformations: The Story of the Science Fiction Magazines – From 1950 to 1970 by Mike Ashley. I have quite a few other books that cover that era in science fiction, but none are of the scope I’m talking about. I wish Ashley’s books were available in cheap Kindle editions so more people would read them.

And should we also add the impact of the movies and television? Should we consider George Pal and Rod Serling as movers and shakers of 1950s science fiction, for this book I want to read? An Astounding-like biography/history of science fiction in the 1960s would include Gene Roddenberry and one for the 1970s would have to include George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

I wish I had the skill and stamina to write a history of science fiction in the 1950s. I’m in awe of the work done by the Panshins and Nevala-Lee. I would love to read a book about 1950s science fiction like I’ve described, so if you’re a writer looking for a topic, here’s one. I don’t know how many copies it would sell. Sadly, the audience for such a history is getting old and dying. I wrote this essay to gauge interest in such a book, but I’m not finding much so far. However, a good biographer can make any person or topic into a page-turner.

James Wallace Harris, 7/11/23

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Szymon Szott Reads All the Stories on the Classics of Science Fiction Short Story List

I have a guest columnist for y’all, Szymon Szott. Szymon worked out a computer program to find the minimum number of anthologies to buy that had the most stories from the Classics of Science Fiction Short Story list. The results were presented in these three columns:

Szymon was the first reader to tell me they’ve read all the novels on the novel list, and now he’s read all the short stories on the short story list. I still haven’t finished either list. Here’s his report on the short story reading experience.

Introduction

Hi, Szymon here again. Last time I wrote that “you won’t love every work of classic science fiction” and that was after reading all the books from the list of classic SF books. Now I’m back with some thoughts after reading all the works from the classics of SF short stories. Currently, the list consists of 110 novellas, novelettes, and short stories. I read these works over a period of about four years although 80% in the last twelve months.

It was great fun to read these outstanding works, I enjoyed most of them, and those that weren’t as good at least ended quickly. The brevity of these works makes them more accessible: a short story doesn’t require the same commitment as a novel. Also, if you’re an obsessive checklist completist like I am, then you’ll be making faster progress through short stories than through the list of classic SF novels.

Favorite Stories

I rated each story on a 1-5 scale (5 being ‘excellent’) and the average of all my ratings was 3.5 which confirms my overall positive experience. I gave 19 stories a score of 5, but if I were to recommend my top 10 favorite stories (at this moment) they would be the following.

TitleAuthorYearReview
NightfallIsaac Asimov1941Grand tale, memorable idea (but I don’t want to spoil it).
ArenaFredric Brown1944Like a Star Trek episode, a timeless classic!
Second VarietyPhilip K. Dick1953A movie (Screamers) was based on this tale. Similar themes to Blade Runner, vintage PKD.
The Last QuestionIsaac Asimov1956At least my third read. A great look into the possible future of any sentient life in the universe.
Flowers for AlgernonDaniel Keyes1959I knew the novel, which I prefer, but the story is still outstanding!
Inconstant MoonLarry Niven1971Last day on Earth. Apocalypse/catastrophe story. Great fun, I love this kind of tale!
Vaster Than Empires and More SlowUrsula K. Le Guin1971Colonists on a forest world find that it is conscious (as a whole planet/biosphere). Perfectly done!
Jeffty Is FiveHarlan Ellison1977Very nostalgic and a bit on the horror side (well, it is Ellison). Memorable!
The Mountains of MourningLois McMaster Bujold1989I first thought it was great, but then the denouement hitched it up a notch. Worthy of the Hugo and Nebula that it won!
Story of Your LifeTed Chiang1998Hard SF. The perfect marriage of story, plot, and physics (Fermat’s principle).

Surprisingly, only one story from the 90s made it to the above list even though the 90s were on average my highest-rated decade (with a score of 4.0). I was in my teens then, which is in line with the theory that “the golden age of science fiction is thirteen.” Meanwhile, the true Golden Age of SF (the 40s and 50s) are my next favorite decades, both with an average rating of about 3.8.

Favorite Authors

These are the authors that had the highest average scores (among authors with more than one story on the list):

  • Isaac Asimov
  • Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Octavia E. Butler
  • Connie Willis
  • George R. R. Martin
  • Harlan Ellison
  • John Varley
  • Larry Niven
  • Arthur C. Clarke
  • Robert Silverberg
  • Ted Chiang
  • Robert A. Heinlein
  • Roger Zelazny
  • Philip K. Dick

The authors in bold are those I already knew I enjoyed. I’ll be reading more works by the other ones!

Sources Used

One of the coolest aspects of completing this list was finding sources (books, podcasts, etc.) from which to read the stories. For each story, I looked to see if it was available online for free, in any of the books I already own, in any of the book services I subscribe to, and, finally, in my local library. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database was an indispensable resource in this regard. Ultimately, I didn’t follow my own advice but rather worked with what I had available. I used a total of 48 unique sources to find the stories, but two of them stand out in terms of the number of stories: Sense of Wonder and The Science Fiction Hall of Fame. They’re both great anthologies and I’ll be reading the other stories they include as well.

Looking at the per-source average rating, these were my favorite, which I’ve arranged by type:

  • Anthologies: Future On Fire (80s stories, edited by Orson Scott Card)
  • Podcasts: Drabblecast, Escape Pod
  • Collections: Exhalation (by Ted Chiang), Dreamsongs (by George R.R. Martin), The Best of Connie Willis
  • Magazines: Clarkesworld

Missing Stories

Finally, I’d like to share two stories that aren’t on the list. The first one is a classic: “The Colony” by Philip K. Dick. It doesn’t have enough citations to make the list. The second one is too new to have been included: “The Ocean Between the Leaves” by Ray Nayler (which Jim has blogged about). Both have what I love most about SF stories: a sense of wonder and high “readability”.

Conclusion

Overall, I think the Classics of Science Fiction Short Stories v2 list is just as great a resource as the novel list. And it’s even better if you want to read all the stories from beginning to end: it’s not that long a project and you can find the best that SF has to offer in compact form. Highly recommended!

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More Books for PKDickheads

After reviewing We Can Build You and Dr. Bloodmoney on my personal blog, I thought I’d be through with PKD for a while. Nope, I’ve only fallen deeper into the PKDickian black hole. While shopping for deals on old PKD books on eBay I noticed The Other Side of Philip K. Dick (2016) by Maer Wilson, a biography I haven’t read. Turns out it was cheaper to buy new at Amazon. I got it and read it immediately. Wilson knew PKD from 1972 to 1982 – during the last decade of his life. Because I only vaguely remember reading Philip K. Dick: Remembering Firebright (2010) by Tessa B. Dick, his fifth and final wife, I decided to reread it. It’s still available at Amazon, so don’t pay inflated collector prices. Tessa Dick knew PKD over the same period of time, so we have two memoirs that remember PKD over the same time period.

Both books were published on CreateSpace, a self-publishing company owned by Amazon. Tessa Dick’s book is poorly edited and has a more basic layout, but it has more information about PKD. Wilson’s book looks better and is better written, but she spends more time talking about herself, so there’s less information about PKD. If you’re really into Philip K. Dick, you’ll want to read both. I’ve already written some about the major biographies on PKD, so I’m only going to focus on these two. I really need to do an in-depth comparison someday.

All the people writing about PKD tell a different story. Reading about PKD is like watching Rashômon. Besides the biographers that never knew PKD, there are several people that did who have written biographies, memoirs, and articles. My favorite of those is The Search for Philip K. Dick by Anne R. Dick, his third wife. She knew PKD while he was writing his mainstream novels and The Man in the High Castle. Tessa was married to PKD while he was writing A Scanner Darkly, VALIS, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer – all his last novels. Wilson knew him during the same time period but she writes little about him writing the novels. But Wilson went with him to see the early rushes of Blade Runner when Dick got to meet Ridley Scott. She also knew him before and after his marriage to Tessa. And she was supposed to go with him to Europe for five weeks and then see the premiere, but PKD died before all that. She was not his girlfriend, but just a friend. PKD was agoraphobic and depended on Wilson to keep him company and drive him places. PKD had several friends that helped him like this.

I should also mention there’s a documentary on Curiosity Stream, The World of Philip K. Dick that interviews Tessa Dick. Dick’s three children, Laura, Isa, and Christopher manage a joint trust of his works and legacy, but Tessa might be the person that publically remembers him most. From reading the two books, I don’t think Tessa and Wilson liked each other, and their two memoirs contradict each other in places. Wilson believed PKD was far saner than he is often portrayed, but from reading the two books I get the feeling Wilson saw Dick when he was being his public self, and Tessa saw PKD when he was letting all his inner self hang out.

Wilson’s book has a forward by Tim Powers, and a note by James B. Blaylock, also friends of PKD during his last decade. Their comments seem to gently endorse Wilson’s view, but Tessa Dick’s memoir is far more intimate. She got to live and work with PKD.

I don’t want to get into the details here, because they can be endless, but Philip K. Dick is known for writing very strange science fiction, but he’s also known for believing a lot of strange ideas. Some people considered him bonkers, while others believed he was putting us all on. Reading Tessa’s book leaves me believing PKD was insane. Wilson’s book left me thinking he was sane, but with some mental problems, but not major ones.

The reason I love reading about PKD is I’m looking for clues about why he wrote his stories. Tessa’s book is most revealing about that. Wilson’s book is more illuminating about being a writer and dealing with the outside world. She would go with him to interviews and try to keep him from saying things that would generate bad PR. Neither book is a quality biography. Both memoirs add information and confusion about the mystery of Philip K. Dick.

I also bought Precious Artifacts and Precious Artifacts 2 from Amazon even though the same content is online at the Philip K. Dick Bookshelf. The first is a bibliography of his books, and the second covers his short stories. I don’t actually collect to collect, but my buddy Mike and I have gathered quite a bit of PKD material over the last forty years. We’re not completists, but I’m always looking out for stuff I haven’t read. And sometimes I like buying books because of their covers. Most of the information in these two books is available at the writers’ site, but also on ISFDB. However, I like holding these books. They are well illustrated with color images of the book and magazine covers.

James Wallace Harris, 2/23/22