There is no such thing as a BAD Philip K. Dick novel. No, no, hear me out ...
Of course, PKD was no stylist. One of my favourite examples is from the very first page of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, when Rick Deckard pats his wife's shoulder "friendlily, because he felt well-disposed toward the world ..." Friendlily. [sic] Ouch. Clans is full of that sort of thing --words and phrasings that seem like the work of someone who heard normal people talking, once, somewhere, and thought they would have a go.
And PKD's control of plot development could ever be, er, a bit sketchy. Many scenes in Clans seem to mope by, filling in the word count with repetition of points that weren't that interesting the first time around. (Dick was, famously, of the era when SF writers were paid by the word, so you got that sort a thing a lot ...) Actual plot developments, ie things we have not heard about three times before, come out of nowhere: Whoa, now Chuck has a faster than light runabout, and he's gone to chase his loathed ex-wife down, on the Alphane moon!! Never saw THAT coming. No one ever does ...
BUT, I would argue -- and have argued, at the price of family relationships and dinner party invitations -- that, at his very best, PKD takes that morass of weird diction and slightly dodgy plotting, and channels it all, unexpectedly, into a transcendent moment when the flawed Little Man (and sometimes woman) at the heart of the mess sees the Truth, or something like it.
It happens in Do Androids Dream ... when Rick Deckard (the book Deckard, of course, not sexy, conflicted Harrison Ford Deckard. Different guy altogether. Again, very Dickian ...) thinks he has discovered a real, live toad in the desert, only for his wife Iran to see that, no, it's another android animal, but realises that it doesn't really matter, that "the electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are.â It happens in The Man in The High Castle, when Japanese diplomat and unlikely hero Mr. Tagomi is granted a glimpse of an alternative reality, in which Japan and Nazi Germany lost the war, and together with Mr Tagomi, we the readers wonder, are we in an alternative history novel, or is he?
Great stuff. Clans of the Alphane Moon, I am sad to say, has no genuinely transcendent moments like that. It's great fun at times, and it has some wonderful Dickian moments, and offbeat Dickian takes on reality as most of us live it, but it seems to be based on two lame jokes -- one is the "madmen taking over the asylum" joke, which is borderline offensive because it's based on some very outdated and neanderthal attitudes to mental health. The second is even worse, and even less funny, the clash between sad sack, hen-pecked husband Chuck and his ghastly ex-wife Mary, and Chuck's decision that the only way out from under Mary's continued control of his life, and demands for alimony, is to use an android avatar to murder her.
Can't help but wonder if the Chuck/Mary thread is a private joke, a thinly disguised bit of fantasy revenge by the thrice-married Dick on one or other of the ex-Mrs Dicks. And as such, it's just as unfunny as private jokes tend to be. (NOT suggesting for one minute that PKD contemplated murdering any of the ex-Mrs Dicks. Just that he might, possibility, have been tempted to fantasise about it, in an idle moment ...)
I also found it mildly interesting as a kind of trial run, or a different take on the elements and themes of Do Androids Dream ... -- the sad sack, depressed man who is forced into ethically dodgy choices to try to placate a demanding spouse. The exploitation of artificial humans who are just on the borderline of true sentience, and having feelings of their own. The popular celebrity who turns out to have dark secrets ...
He would do it better, and bring those themes and characters together in something worth remembering a few years later. This can be read as more of a historical oddity and possible glimpse into PKD's own difficult life.
Of course, PKD was no stylist. One of my favourite examples is from the very first page of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, when Rick Deckard pats his wife's shoulder "friendlily, because he felt well-disposed toward the world ..." Friendlily. [sic] Ouch. Clans is full of that sort of thing --words and phrasings that seem like the work of someone who heard normal people talking, once, somewhere, and thought they would have a go.
And PKD's control of plot development could ever be, er, a bit sketchy. Many scenes in Clans seem to mope by, filling in the word count with repetition of points that weren't that interesting the first time around. (Dick was, famously, of the era when SF writers were paid by the word, so you got that sort a thing a lot ...) Actual plot developments, ie things we have not heard about three times before, come out of nowhere: Whoa, now Chuck has a faster than light runabout, and he's gone to chase his loathed ex-wife down, on the Alphane moon!! Never saw THAT coming. No one ever does ...
BUT, I would argue -- and have argued, at the price of family relationships and dinner party invitations -- that, at his very best, PKD takes that morass of weird diction and slightly dodgy plotting, and channels it all, unexpectedly, into a transcendent moment when the flawed Little Man (and sometimes woman) at the heart of the mess sees the Truth, or something like it.
It happens in Do Androids Dream ... when Rick Deckard (the book Deckard, of course, not sexy, conflicted Harrison Ford Deckard. Different guy altogether. Again, very Dickian ...) thinks he has discovered a real, live toad in the desert, only for his wife Iran to see that, no, it's another android animal, but realises that it doesn't really matter, that "the electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are.â It happens in The Man in The High Castle, when Japanese diplomat and unlikely hero Mr. Tagomi is granted a glimpse of an alternative reality, in which Japan and Nazi Germany lost the war, and together with Mr Tagomi, we the readers wonder, are we in an alternative history novel, or is he?
Great stuff. Clans of the Alphane Moon, I am sad to say, has no genuinely transcendent moments like that. It's great fun at times, and it has some wonderful Dickian moments, and offbeat Dickian takes on reality as most of us live it, but it seems to be based on two lame jokes -- one is the "madmen taking over the asylum" joke, which is borderline offensive because it's based on some very outdated and neanderthal attitudes to mental health. The second is even worse, and even less funny, the clash between sad sack, hen-pecked husband Chuck and his ghastly ex-wife Mary, and Chuck's decision that the only way out from under Mary's continued control of his life, and demands for alimony, is to use an android avatar to murder her.
Can't help but wonder if the Chuck/Mary thread is a private joke, a thinly disguised bit of fantasy revenge by the thrice-married Dick on one or other of the ex-Mrs Dicks. And as such, it's just as unfunny as private jokes tend to be. (NOT suggesting for one minute that PKD contemplated murdering any of the ex-Mrs Dicks. Just that he might, possibility, have been tempted to fantasise about it, in an idle moment ...)
I also found it mildly interesting as a kind of trial run, or a different take on the elements and themes of Do Androids Dream ... -- the sad sack, depressed man who is forced into ethically dodgy choices to try to placate a demanding spouse. The exploitation of artificial humans who are just on the borderline of true sentience, and having feelings of their own. The popular celebrity who turns out to have dark secrets ...
He would do it better, and bring those themes and characters together in something worth remembering a few years later. This can be read as more of a historical oddity and possible glimpse into PKD's own difficult life.
Good book and I particularly liked the classic gumshoe approach in the sci fi backdrop. I love Philip Dick, he is a genius.
a light, amusing philip k dick novel.
