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The Simulacra by Philip K. Dick (SF Masterworks # 57)
01/10/2004 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Gollancz. 220 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-575-07460-4. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website:
www.orionbooks.co.uk
I'm not entirely sure why this particular book is amongst Gollancz Masterpiece collection other than it's by Philip Dick. Checking up on when this book was written in the mid-60s when Dick was especially prolific, I couldn't help but remember he was also supposed to be using, for the want of a better term, recreational drugs to keep him going.
I can't help but feel that this one might have been the result of such times as it tends to be very disjointed and rarely pulls together. It's even more worrying that parts of the backcover précis don't quite match the inside or did I confuse the US President not being an android but Nat Flieger's ex-lover?
There are several threads running through this story, each with their own quirky sense of humour. There's Dr Egon Superb, a psychiatrist who is allowed to practice until he has seen one particular patient but he isn't told which one.
The political state is practically Nazi, although there isn't much to tell the difference other then time-travel equipment used to bring Hermann Goering to their present. There's Richard Kongrosian, a telekinetic musician who has body odour problems and the aforementioned Nat Flieger trying to make sense of everything in this police state and who actually runs the place.
It's a miracle that this book even reaches an ending and I'm still not much wiser after reading this. No doubt the heavier Philip Dick fans will make some sense of this book but I doubt if I'd recommend it to anyone as a sampler to get your teeth into of his work.
In many respects, this reviewer tends to think Dick went in for this story with good intentions but then only played lip service to some of the activities without developing it enough to utilise these problems to the full. Some of Dick's quirkiness is still there to behold as the previous paragraph should indicate and maybe I read it far too dryly. Acquired taste only this time methinks.
GF Willmetts
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