Author | Philip K. Dick |
---|---|
Cover artist | Ed Emshwiller |
Language | English |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Ace Books |
Publication date | 1956 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 160 pp |
The Man Who Japed is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in 1956. Although one of Dick's lesser-known novels, it features several of the ideas and themes that recur throughout his later works. The "jape[s]" or practical jokes of the novel begin with a statue's unconventional decapitation.
The Man Who Japed was first published by Ace Books as one half of Ace Double D-193, bound dos-à-dos with The Space Born by E. C. Tubb.
The Man Who Japed is set in the year 2114. After a devastating twentieth century limited nuclear war, a South African ("Afrikaans Empire") military survivor named General Streiter launched a global revolution in 1985 that ushered in a totalitarian government. In one example of the carnage Dick has his protagonist Allen Purcell visit Japan's northern island, Hokkaidō. The location is still a desolate wasteland that has not recovered from nuclear bombardment in 1972, the last year of the global war referred to within this book.
This regime - Moral Reclamation ("Morec") - rules a post-apocalyptic world under its strict ideology. One of Streiter's lineal descendants, Ida Pease Hoyt, is in charge. Morec has created an ultra-conservative and puritanical society that is oppressive and judgmental of its fellow citizens. Punishable offenses include mild public cursing, kissing a non-spouse, absenteeism from community meetings and the commercial display of neon signs. A thriving black market exists, however, where one can purchase the Decameron, James Joyce's Ulysses , chablis wine and pulp fiction detective novels from the twentieth century.
Earth people also occupy several other planetary systems. There are human colonies on Bellatrix (Gamma Orionis), Sirius 8 and 9, and "Orionus." On these worlds, intensive labour is required to provide agricultural and industrial products for survival. One of the planets is used as a "Refuge" for the rehabilitation of social misfits or "nooses".
The "japery" alluded to in the title is Allen Purcell's wanton destruction of a statue of General Streiter. But Purcell has only vague, distorted and disjointed memories of the act and doesn't understand his own motivation for doing it. He is up for an appointment to a high-level position as a guardian of public ethics.
Purcell later intentionally concocts a history of General Streiter for a live televised broadcast that falsely claims Streiter had a policy of having his enemies butchered and served as meals to his family and himself. Hoyt is accused of continuing the practice of cannibalism.
Purcell and his wife are about to escape Morec justice when he has a change of heart and decides to remain on Earth and face the consequences of his crime. He promises his wife a trip to friend Myron Mavis's planet when they both make it through to "the other side" of their punishment.
Anthony Boucher dismissed the novel as a "hasty and disappointing" effort. [1]
John Kilian Houston Brunner was a British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1969 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel and the BSFA award the same year. The Jagged Orbit won the BSFA award in 1970.
Philip Kindred Dick, often referred to by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer and novelist. He wrote 44 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. His fiction explored varied philosophical and social questions such as the nature of reality, perception, human nature, and identity, and commonly featured characters struggling against elements such as alternate realities, illusory environments, monopolistic corporations, drug abuse, authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness. He is considered one of the most important figures in 20th century science fiction.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a 1968 dystopian science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. It is set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco, where Earth's life has been greatly damaged by a nuclear global war, leaving most animal species endangered or extinct. The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who has to "retire" six escaped Nexus-6 model androids, while a secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-par IQ who aids the fugitive androids.
The Man in the High Castle (1962), by Philip K. Dick, is an alternative history novel wherein the Axis Powers won World War II. The story occurs in 1962, fifteen years after the end of the war in 1947, and depicts the life of several characters living under Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany as they rule a partitioned United States. The titular character is the mysterious author of a novel-within-the-novel entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a subversive alternative history of the war in which the Allied Powers are victorious.
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Valis is a 1981 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, intended to be the first book of a three-part series. The title is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, Dick's gnostic vision of God. Set in California during the 1970s, the book features heavy auto-biographical elements and draws inspiration from Dick's own investigations into his unexplained religious experiences over the previous decade.
Solar Lottery is a 1955 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was his first published novel and contains many of the themes present in his later work. It was also published in altered form in the UK as World of Chance. The main story is about a man named Ted Benteley who lives in a strange world, dominated by percentages and the lottery. Lotteries are used to choose the next leader as well as a new assassin, whose job is to try to kill the leader or "Quizmaster". Everybody in society has the opportunity to be selected as a leader or an assassin. Benteley unexpectedly gets chosen to be a member of the committee trying to assassinate the new Quizmaster and he must decide what he is going to do.
The Simulacra is a 1964 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The novel portrays a future totalitarian society apparently dominated by a matriarch, Nicole Thibodeaux. It revolves around the themes of reality and illusionary beliefs, as do many of Dick's works. Additionally, it touches on Nazi ideology.
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The World Jones Made is a 1956 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, examining notions of precognition, humanity, and politics. It was first published by Ace Books as one half of Ace Double D-150, bound dos-à-dos with Agent of the Unknown by Margaret St. Clair.
Our Friends from Frolix 8 is a 1970 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The novel is set in the 22nd century, where humanity is ruled by mutated humans, "New Men" and "Unusuals", while normal "Old Men" are discriminated against. The story follows Nick Appleton, a low-class worker who falls in love with a subversive agent, while Thors Provoni has gone deep into space to find an ally to the resistance.
The Game-Players of Titan is a 1963 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick.
The Unteleported Man is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published as a novella in 1964. It is about a future in which a one-way teleportation technology enables 40 million people to emigrate to a colony named Whale's Mouth on an Earth-like planet, which advertisements show as a lush green utopia. When the owner of a failing spaceship travel firm tries to take the 18-year flight to the colony to bring back any unhappy colonists, powerful forces try to stop him from finding out the truth.
Dr. Futurity is a 1960 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. It is an expansion of his earlier short story "Time Pawn", which first saw publication in the summer 1954 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. Dr. Futurity was first published as a novel by Ace Books as one half of Ace Double D-421, bound dos-à-dos with John Brunner's Slavers of Space.
Vulcan's Hammer is a 1960 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was released originally as an Ace Double. This has been considered to be the final outing of Dick's 1950s style pulp science fiction writing, before his better-received work such as the Hugo Award-winning Man in the High Castle, published a year later.
The Cosmic Puppets is a science fiction novel by American author Philip K. Dick, published in 1957. It is a revision of A Glass of Darkness, first published in the December 1956 issue of Satellite Science Fiction.
Nick and the Glimmung is a children's science fiction novel written by American author Philip K. Dick in 1966. It was first published by Gollancz in 1988. It is set on "Plowman's Planet", in the same continuity as his adult science fiction novel Galactic Pot-Healer.
"The Great C" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine in 1953. It has since been republished several times in collections such as Beyond Lies the Wub in 1988. Parts of the work, along with Planet for Transients, were later used in the full-length novel Deus Irae. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which a young man is sent from his tribe every year to visit a godlike computer capable of mass destruction and try to stump it with three questions. The story was adapted into an animated virtual reality film in 2018 by Secret Location.
This Immortal, serialized as ...And Call Me Conrad, is a science fiction novel by American author Roger Zelazny. In its original publication, it was abridged by the editor and published in two parts in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in October and November 1965. It tied with Frank Herbert's Dune for the 1966 Hugo Award for Best Novel.