Solar Lottery was Philip K. Dick's first published novel, and a “PKD” novel it certainly is. Someone whose output was as large and as varied as Dick's is bound to have a few clunkers, and his early work (early SF anyway, I haven't read any of his “straight” novels yet) is no exception, despite coming before the mixture of amphetamine-psychosis fuelled misfires and, “Oh God, the FBI really did burgle my house!” Godhead paranoid freakouts the kind of which he is (generally) most loved and remembered for. It is great fun when you've read enough of someone's work to be able to pinpoint, within a few pages, that it is definitely their work, without necessarily being able to say where that pinpoint landed. Here's a little laundry list of weirdness that evidences that early Dick was very much Dick, in this instance:- A world split into fiefdoms, run by mega-corporations. Government as we know it (yes, I am aware “Government as we know it” isn't a natural fact) does not exist.- Complete with serfs, oaths, pledges of allegiance and so forth.- An autocratic leader elected by random chance, a system of government based on a sub-theory of Cold War game theory, called Minimax, itself used to develop strategies pertaining to nuclear weapons.- As another check/balance, an assassin selected randomly from whoever puts their name forward, whose role is to attempt to assassinate this randomly selected leader.- A corps of telepaths whose job is to protect the supreme leader. This telepathy being caused by “Nuclear Fudge Magic” (that's my term and you can't have it).- The main “antagonist” is an android designed to be controlled remotely by the consciousness of someone selected randomly from a group of people hooked in to a bank of machines (almost the reverse of the empathy box from Do Androids Dream). These consciousnesses (say that three times fast) are selected randomly and switched “in” to the android at set intervals to prevent the android from being easily predictable/readable by the previously mentioned telepaths.The Voice of God (which turns out to be a pre-recorded message) does not figure in this list of Dickian oddness because it is something that takes part in the subplot, a subplot that never feels quite like it fits in to the story in a whole and, in the final analysis, marrs the ending to the point where it becomes an unsatisfying, inconclusive (not in a good, Dickian, “is Deckard an android?” way) mess. He may not have made his quota doing so, but it seems that without the “Flame Disc” subplot, and then concluding the main plot about half a chapter earlier, he could have written a much more cohesive work. One feels like Dick originally began by fleshing out a short story, then, upon realising he still hadn't made word count, wrote another of his short stories in. Still, saying this, the main plot is very much Dick, which throws up questions and problems that we'll get too soon, but with the clumsy subplot included, this is evidently a work in which Dick could be said to be feeling out his craft, or perhaps more accurately, how badly he could fail in some element whilst still creating a work of immense originality and interest.I like the weird. I love the weird. I read Naked Lunch when I was sixteen and it fucked me up forever. Hence my yardstick for Dick (heh) being the weird factor. This is something of a disservice to him, however. I am willing to forgive failings that would traditionally kill a novel (things like characterisation) if the ideas are good. Hence, I like Dick, the man lauded/criticised for finding SF to be the ideal platform for posing philosophical questions, which, along with his ferocious (See again: amphetamines, and needing to pay the bills) work ethic, led to novels that are very, very readable if one forgives lapses in craft and focuses on the explication/demonstration of ideas. This is not to say he wasn't capable of craft, however. He put by far the most effort, time and research of any novel he wrote in to The Man in the High Castle, which is a masterpiece; and A Scanner Darkly is filled with humanity and pathos, and includes probably his best written (of what I've read: not everything, yet) female character. He could damn well write.On that note, Solar Lottery includes one of the most egregious examples of Dick's writing of female characters; by far the most developed (and not very, at that) female character in the novel dies in an event in which she is literally tossed aside, an event which, even though it is horrific, has the emotional resonance of a tub filled with custard.But, to consider Dick's strong point, Solar Lottery does contain a very interesting idea, and in considering this idea raises problems that piqued my interest enough to keep reading, not just because I am a Dick-head, but because it was worthy in and of itself (NB: despite an interest in it, my area of expertise is not in the philosophy of politics, so forgive me if I should transgress). The de facto leader of the world, and its colonies in the solar system, is randomly selected, as mentioned above. The system which does the selecting is not explained in too much detail (if I remember correctly), but it appears to be some form of computer apparatus that parses atomic decay. The problem raised is slightly more specific than what he could have settled for, namely: what is truly random? Instead, Dick supposes a kind of Homo Ex Machina. A random system, or a system that parses randomness, must be designed by someone, and in this instance, maintained by someone. Were we to choose something like this as a system of governance, one would need a method that is tamper proof, as the system in question is not, rigged as it is by one of the engineers who maintains it, causing himself to be selected as leader. That a system of governance is kept working by arcane knowledge, that someone can manipulate a system by virtue of understanding it better (at all), is shown to be problematic. Yes, the assassin is intended as a check against this kind of event, against manipulation by someone who wishes to gain absolute power for himself, and the narrative must have the assassin come so close, only to be foiled, to be exciting. In this sense, one could suppose that Dick poses a question and then tries to answer it, and then tries to discredit the answer, to play out the idea. Dick doing what Dick does, and doing very well at it.Solar Lottery, then, despite being one of Dick's earliest efforts, evinces fully the later Dick, in both what it succeeds at and what it fails to achieve. The wacky and the weird, with the underlying serious philosophical conundrums, are present already, and are not far off the kind of ideas that Dick would later present. The characterisation is very thin, and yes, this is a Dick novel, but then, it is a novel, so it bears mentioning. This would improve, spottily, as he refined his craft, but here he is still figuring things out. And yes, he really, really seemed to have trouble writing women, like, at all, which again he would improve on, but not quite as much. Solar Lottery might be early Dick, but it is, very much, Dick. For better and for worse.
As this was Dick's first published novel (1955), I think it's a pretty good effort. It's certainly more straightforward than many of his later mindf***s. In this world of 2203, the world is ruled by the Quizmaster, who oversees a lottery which is supposed to give everyone an equal chance at the position. The thing is, you really don't want to win this lottery because with it comes the sanctioning of assassins who are chosen by a televised convention to kill the Quizmaster. The average Quizmaster lasts about a week.However, Reece Verrick has been in the position for 10 years and wants to hold onto his power. The irony, then, lies in the spin of an actual bottle, which chooses a new Quizmaster, Leon Cartwright, a member of the Preston Society, an odd type of cult which is seeking the Flame Disc, the mythical 10th planet at the edge of the solar system which Preston had written about a long time ago.The protagonist is Ted Benteley, a man released from his job with one of the powerful global entities which one has to swear fiefdom to. He attempts to get a job with the Quizmaster, not realizing Verrick has been deposed. He's cajoled into swearing allegiance to Verrick, and is then whisked off to their new headquarters where they're preparing the ultimate assassin.At the same time, members of the Preston Society have boarded a rocket and are headed into outer space in search of the Flame Disc, a plot line which plays a far greater role toward the end of the book.In this book, Dick's target for criticism isn't the usual black man, but females. They're all negative stereotypes of 1950s-era femininity, but maybe since he was writing in that decade, he can be forgiven. I don't know. The women are dependent and manipulative, and it gets annoying.One of the cool things about the book, though, is the Corps, the teeps who are telepathic and whose duty it is to protect the Quizmaster. It's interesting to see them wrestle with the assassin, and the creation of this virtually unbeatable assassin is simply brilliant.Dick deals with themes of power, corruption, telepathy, space travel, and more in this novel. As previously noted, it's more linear than his later novels, which was something I kind of appreciated. I wouldn't recommend it as his first book to read, but if you like sci fi or if you're a PKD fan, I heartily recommend it.
What do You think about Solar Lottery (2003)?
This is my first encounter with PKD and I was pleasantly surprised by his work, which kept me turning the pages. Solar Lottery is his first published novel and is quite good for a debut. He creates a fairly complete and believable world with consistent rules and norms and he does so skillfully and convincingly. His descriptions create good visual images, and of course, I couldn't help seeing some of the film images from Blade Runner. PKD creates an interesting frisson of sexual tension in his descriptions of the women although he does mention Eleanor's shiny hair and sparkly bare breasts a few times more than is necessary, but I guess back in the 1950's, that would have helped book sales.Overall, a good read and a good introduction to his work. Based on this novel, I'm motivated to read more of his oeuvre.
—Jim
I have always steered clear of this author. Somehow I had gotten the impression that he was insane in some way or at least egregiously weird. But I read a review or two of the recently released The Exegesis of Philip K Dick, noting that Jonathan Lethem was one of the editors, and decided to give him a try. He wrote 44 novels! Solar Lottery is his first.I did not get any impression of insanity or weirdness at all. He seemed to be fitting right in with the way science fiction was in the 1950s. In fact, I thought I got a glimpse of a theme that I found while reading The Hunger Games.The ruler of the Universe in 2203 is chosen by random. Everything runs on games of chance which are wildly popular among the general populace. Workers have to sign up via fealty oaths to the various companies available. A huge proportion of people are just, as Margaret Atwood called them in Oryx and Crake, plebes: semi-homeless, unemployed folks who are cared for by social welfare programs. Honestly, I felt right at home.The big surprise for me in the novel was the overall theme; that self determined individuals who can think for themselves have the power to bring things back to rights. Now that is a rather 1950s concept but it is also one of the major themes of literature all through the ages.Hm. Maybe he got weird later? Who said he was weird anyway? I like this author. I added all 44 novels to My Big Fat Reading Project list. That will slow me down some but I look forward to a nice counterbalance to the increasing deterioration in the quality of the bestsellers in the coming decades of the project.
—Judy
I cast about quite a while for a book to fill the "first book by a favourite author" square. I kept thinking of authors whose first works I'd already read, before finally settling on Philip K. Dick. Then it was a matter of finding a copy. I visited several bookstores (in multiple states) before finally giving up and checking this out at the library,This is very recognizably a Dick novel, most notably for the giant, all-encompassing system of governance designed to outsmart human failings (most specifically, our grasping for power), but which, in reality, mostly inspires cheating and superstition and does absolutely nothing for the vast majority of humanity. Also, something which may or may not be the presence of a non-human intelligence at the fringes of the solar system, but could also just be the ravings of one deluded crackpot. Perhaps a little bit less "What is reality? What is human?" than the normal Dickian novel.The female characters are pretty standard 1950s sci-fi fare, but what can you do?Some praise this book for being less prone to the deluded paranoia of Dick's later years, but personally, I have always liked that about him. This book feels more consistent with sci-fi of the time and less uniquely PKD. As I was thinking about what I wanted to write about this book, I realized this would be a great choice for a movie adaptation. We all know how much Hollywood loves Dick, and this one comes pre-loaded with action: a robot assassin, flights to the moon, high speed chases, people getting shot in the face, etc., etc. Of course, not I'm going to spend the rest of the day obsessing over who should play Leon Cartwright.
—Jennifer
