In 2010 I interviewed for (and got) a job at the Centre for Alternative Technology near Machynlleth. In the interview for this job, I was asked what I thought was the most pressing emergency regarding climate change and how it should be tackled. I answered "education", but this was not correct. What I thought then, and still believe, is that the biggest threat to the climate is over-population - the stress placed on the planet by the number of human beings who exist, continue to come into existence, and taking longer not to exist any more, continues to grow to quite terrifying, unsustainable levels. The problem with over-population is that it's a problem no-one will tackle, because how can you tackle it? I like to read a Philip K. Dick book at year, and this year's choice turns out to be his attempt to confront this problem.To begin with, it's worth noting that this is a fairly typical PKD book. The women, where they exist, are little more than wives-who-nag and semen receptacles. One way in which over-population is addressed is through the existence of a heavily populated space-brothel, which men are encouraged to visit in order to get out their urges without making a baby. What women are supposed to do is unclear, because this is a PKD book and women don't really have sexuality in those, despite being semen receptacles. On the other hand, the society in this book is very comfortable with abortion, to the degree that when someone is known to be pregnant they are sent to an "abort-consultant" to get rid of it. I suppose, in PKD's inimitable way, there is something to this approach in that greater contraceptive availability and education alongside sexuality divorced from procreation is one way to stem the growth of the population, but it's a bit horrific to read the way its presented in this book. Furthermore, there's an attitude to abortion maintained that it is done because it is necessary - no other forms of contraception are mentioned, nor the contraceptive method of the women on the Golden Door Moments of Bliss Satellite - and even the abortionist suggests that it's immoral. It completely lacks nuance.The main method by which population growth has been arrested is through the creation of "bibs", the slang term used to refer to those who voluntarily undergo cryogenic freezing, to be re-awoken when there is a solution to the population crisis. These "bibs" are disproportionately people of lower-classes, particularly people of colour. Now, this is the most interesting aspect of the novel. The population crisis will, by and large, disproportionately affect regions of the world of lower socio-economic development and those in the working classes, and it is great that PKD recognized this. The perspective the book takes, of course, is that of various middle-class predominantly white and predominantly able-bodied males, but it's clear who this crisis is affecting and that many of those white middle-class men are concerned primarily with the population crisis only as a political issue, not as something which really affects them personally or puts them at risk.It's important to note that these are predominantly white men, because the book is based around a very important, historic moment: in 2080, the United States of America might just, almost, be ready to elect their first black president! Who would have thought it? But, as those of us who live in the post-PKD early twenty first century know, it’s possible for a country to have a black presidential nominee and still be incredibly racist. It’s a pretty off-putting feature of the book, to begin with, that it is presented from the perspective of several racist characters, and while it does calm down a bit (and it's abundantly clear that these aren't PKD's views) the language throughout is not what the modern world would use to describe these race relations.Race is a predominant theme in the book, which has a vague sense of the questions PKD would come to ask two years later in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: what does it mean to be human? In this case, it's examining the divisions between homo sapiens and why we perceive them that way. It takes the not-uncommon SF route of suggesting that if, maybe, there was something even more different out there, we would come to realise that we are actually all very alike.Which leads on to the final attempt to solve the population crisis: colonization. Cantata-140 (or The Crack in Space) is not a great work of post-colonialist fiction; there is little deliberation over the rights and wrongs of colonization. There is some, but it is, as ever, more concerned with the rights and wrongs of those middle-class white men rather than the region which is to be colonized, or even particularly with the colonists themselves. This gets heavily into spoiler territory, so all I will say is this: a technological solution presents itself to the population problem which is seized upon whole-heartly and then goes horribly wrong.This isn't the best of PKD's books but it is also far from the worst, and it begins to grapple with some of the ideas which he will come to in other books and deal with much more efficiently. If you enjoy reading PKD novels, then this one is certainly one to read; if you haven't read any of his novels, try A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch first. If you want to read a good book about the population crisis, go for The First Born of the Dead by W. J. Dickson, as it is a far more comprehensive (and recent) examination of what exactly is the problem with over-population, and what the consequences of addressing the problem might actually be.
In an overpopulated world, millions of people have elected to become bibs (cryogenically frozen until the job market opens up), abortion centers are prospering, and prostitution has been made legal on orbiting satellites (to ease "frustrations", while preventing pregnancy). It's a huge problem faced by the presidential candidates, who must present solutions to this problem if they are to be elected. Jim Briskin announces in a public speech a possible solution. A company has stumbled upon a portal to a parallel world, apparently uninhabited, to which people can emigrate. This announcement opens a whole can of worms and new problems, especially when they find out the alternate world was not as unpopulated as they all thought. Mixed in with all the population stuff are constant commentaries about race relations, most notably because Briskin, a Col, could be the first black president of the United States. I couldn't help but read this and think about the fact that President Obama is currently in the white house. The race question gets confounded even further once the people on alt-earth are discovered. It's a fairly short read, and it goes very quick. But a lot gets packed into it, and there's a lot of jumping from character to character. Dick doesn't seem to be as interested in achieving an emotional connection with the reader as an intellectual one. You're not meant to feel for the characters or get to know them, you're meant to get a taste for their point of view. Every one's got an opinion, and the author presents many of them, so many that it's not entirely clear where he stands on anything. This is a thinking book, certainly fun, but one that I would like to sit with a book group and chat about. A reader could come at it from many angles -- each would be correct.
What do You think about The Crack In Space (2005)?
So much going on in this book: social and political consequences of overpopulation; the 'browning' and 'graying' of America; celebrity divorce; an unhinged and ultimately murderous do-gooder; the relationship between politicians and their key advisors; parallel worlds; time travel paradox; contingency in evolution; and the experience of the phantom twin (PKD had one, himself).On one level, it is certainly pulp, at least in its plotting. But the quality and clarity of the writing, and the deft way Dick handles his numerous themes, lifts the book above that. And the central character - a Black man who is running to serve as the first US President of color - is a fantastic character, flawed in a couple believable ways, but genuinely noble. This book is a delight.
—Grady McCallie
Philip Dick was a brilliant idea guy, but in my opinion, usually failed to develop his ideas to their full potential. It seems like the movies made from his books are generally better than the books themselves. That’s my opinion, anyway. The Crack in Space revolves around another of these interesting ideas that just never quite takes off. It is a sort of screwball-comedy-meets-Planet of the Apes hybrid. Despite some insightful, caustic observations about human nature and some flashes of brilliance (I’m thinking of the George Walt character), this was only a mildly satisfactory story bogged down by a lot of extraneous detail and uninteresting characters.
—Kathleen
A guy discovers a hole in the jiffi-scuttler(which are never properly explained or described) that goes to another dimension. Then a lot of characters are introduced and political stuff happens for most of the book. For some reason people are racist even though it's supposed to be almost 100 years in the future. By then minorities will vastly outnumber Caucasians so the racism makes no sense and is never explained.I understand that Philip K. Dick is supposed to be a visionary author, but this is the first book I have read and I do not get it. There was little character development and I did not care about the characters at all. The world was hardly explained and I felt like I was stepping into a novel half-way without anyone ever telling me what was going on.I did enjoy the story-line and the idea of parallel universes but except for my desire to finish the book I did not care about how it ended. The ending was very anti-climactic and made me not recommend this book at all unless you really like the author and politics.
—Amanda
