Dr. Bloodmoney:
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"We're very close, all the time, to death. But then was it so much better before? Cancer-producing insecticides, smog that poisoned whole cities, freeways and airline crashes...it hadn't been so safe then; it hadn't been an easy life. One had to hop aside both then and now."
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" 'There's no value in such stuff,' Stroud said, with irritation. 'We need useful science, not academic hot air.' He felt personally let down; Mr. Barnes had not told him about that, about his interest in mere theory. 'Psychology doesn't dig any septic tanks.' "
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"One can never be really sure, and that's what makes life a problem, don't you agree?"
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Assume the crazy people--the outcast freaks and the ranting weirdos--are on to something. It's a strategy that will get you pretty far if you're reading a Philip K. Dick novel, and it sure works for Dr. Bloodmoney.
Dr. Bloodmoney tells the story of a large cast of characters (quite large, even, for a PKD novel) who go about their daily lives in a post-apocalyptic Northern California, circa 1988. Published in 1964, the novel taps into fears at the time that a nuclear holocaust could be just a minute away. These fears, we know from biographical information, were very much on Dick's mind.
In the novel we get a short build up, and then the bombs drop. It's perhaps one of PKD's more focused narratives, despite the sizable cast of characters. We get to the point quicker than in some of his novels. And as usual, it seems that this novel was written in a bit of a rush. However, this doesn't detract from the overall intensity of the novel, and indeed may even add to it. For reference: it's more polished than say, The Penultimate Truth or The Game-Players of Titan, but less so than Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said.
As is typical for a post-apocalyptic novel, we get a sense of the early days after the bombs drop: the depths that people plumb to survive, the horrible mutations, the stark destruction. After seven years or so, society is slowly rebuilding itself, and human creativity and ingenuity are showcased.
Now, for the unique PKD touches: there is a wonderfully creepy character named Hoppy Harrington, a man with no arms or legs who drives around in a mechanical cart he controls with his brain. He's been an outcast for all his life, but E-Day (Emergency Day, when the bombs dropped) represented a turning point in his life. With his burgeoning psychic powers, he now holds more power than ever before, and he's hungry to get ahead in this brave new world. Then there's Doctor Bluthgeld (German for Bloodmoney), a nuclear physicist responsible for an earlier disaster in 1972 who believes that he controlled the Doomsday bombs with his mind. In a normal SF novel, we'd dismiss Bluthgeld as a dazed eccentric, a nut. In a PKD novel, things are a bit different. Then there's Edie Keller, a seven year old girl who speaks of an invisible brother she has, whom everyone dismisses as a fanciful child. There's her mother, Bonny, who may or may not have minor mind-reading abilities (this is how I read the situation with Mr. Austurias, at least). And there's Walt Dangerfield, a disc jockey stuck in a satellite, orbiting Earth forever, beaming down radio transmissions of music and commentary, for his own amusement and the amusement of the survivors down on Earth.The more mundane characters are quite interesting as well, from Andrew Gill the cigarette and alcohol salesman, to Stuart McConchie, the electronic vermin trap salesman.
Most of the novel focuses on the community of West Marin, California, where Hoppy has set down roots as a handy man. But as we soon learn, the power begins to go to his head. There's a great build-up, filled with mystery and horror, in the novel's second half. Hoppy is one of PKD's more frightening villains, a truly unlikeable, creepy presence. Yet, at the novel's inception, he is a pathetic figure, timid and pitiable, bullied for no good reason. The way PKD navigates this evolution is quite well-done, and Hoppy is easily the most interesting character in the novel, despite his repulsiveness for much of the latter half.
As the plot streamlines towards the end, and we home in on the real climax of the piece, we get one of PKD's more satisfying conclusions, one that echoes Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon to a great degree.
As always, I'd like to conclude a review of a PKD novel by briefly describing a few of my favorite scenes. Vivid, charged individual scenes are often my takeaways from a novelist whose plotting is often all over the place (although, I stress, not here). The initial, visceral panic once the bombing begins is very well-done, especially Bluthgeld's unfazed, psychotic reaction to it. Getting inside the mind of a psychotic person is unsurprisingly, one of PKD's specialties. Also of note are the eerie death of Jack Tree and the scene in which Bill Keller and Hoppy "meet" for the first time--a tremendously dark and disturbing moment that shows PKD can do horror exceptionally well.
Indeed, the unsettling characters (particularly the trio of Bill, Hoppy, and Bluthgeld), along with the impressive world-building are what make this novel so good. I devoured it in the span of a few days, and found myself immediately ready, upon finishing, to declare it one of the finest examples of post-apocalyptic fiction I have encountered, and one of the finer novels in PKD's stunning oeuvre.
Gateway:
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"I hate the idea of being killed. I hate the idea of dying at all, ever; not being alive anymore, having everything stop, knowing that all those other people would go on living and having sex and joy without me being there to share it. But I didn't hate it as much as I hated the idea of going back to the food mines."
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"I don't know if I can make you feel it, how the universe looked to me from Gateway: like being young with Full Medical. Like a menu in the best restaurant in the world, when somebody else is going to pick up the check. Like a girl you've just met who likes you. Like an unopened gift."
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"Anyway, that's what life is, just one learning experience after another, and when you're through with all the learning experiences you graduate and what you get for a diploma is, you die."
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"Guilt? It is a painful thing; but because it is painful it is a behavior modifier. It can influence you to avoid guilt-inducing actions, and this is a valuable thing for you and for society. But you cannot use it if you do not feel it."
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Why is Robinette Broadhead such a mess, psychologically speaking? It's the central question of Gateway, and part of what makes this novel so intriguing and compulsively readable.
Robinette, who, as he tells us on page one, is male despite his name, is rich to the point where he never has to work a day in his life again. He can afford full medical benefits, ensuring bodily strength and vigor until the day he dies. He is the conquering hero, returned to Earth, of a Gateway mission. In the near future world of Gateway, humanity has discovered a shortcut to the stars.
About a half million years ago, a mysterious race of alien visitors called the Heechee left a large number of ships with faster-than-light-speed capabilities on an asteroid (the Gateway of the title) in our very own Solar System. Humans have no idea, beyond the bare bones, how to pilot these ships. They can make them go, and that's about it. They have no idea where any given ship may travel, once take-off has been initiated, and they have no idea why these ships were left here.
Daring Earth adventurers see Gateway as their chance to strike it rich: if your ship flies to a planet loaded with Heechee artifacts or other scientific discoveries, you'll be compensated warmly by the Gateway Corporation. If your ship takes too long to travel to its destination and you starve to death or go insane? Too bad. If your ship returns a burnt-out husk with pieces of you spread all over and baked to the insides of the wall? Too bad. It's a risk very few can afford to take (travel to Gateway is about a quarter million dollars per ticket, from Earth) and very few want to take.
For Bob Broadhead, the risk seems worth it. He has spent most of his life poor, toiling in food mines on an Earth depleted of its natural resources, and a minor lottery win (about the quarter million needed for a ticket to Gateway) seems to be his path out of squalor.
Throughout the narrative, we shift between Bob, rich and somewhat bored with his post-Gateway state of existence, as he converses with his computerized psychiatrist, "Sigfrid von Shrink", and Bob as a green adventurer looking to make it big on Gateway. The shifts back and forth, chapter by chapter, work very well--as do the interspersed bits of Gateway lore (which runs the gamut from classified ads in Gateway bulletins to brief lessons on astrophysics) that pop up throughout the novel.
Broadhead is an immediately relatable, and down-to-earth voice that guides us through worlds of excitement, romance, and much more besides. Although the conclusion of the novel may cause one to rethink their opinion of Broadhead, he remains for me a sympathetic figure.
Gateway starts off at a brisk pace, and indeed is addictive reading for much of its length. The novel only slows down a bit at the midpoint, as Broadhead reaches a doldrums in his relationship with Klara--his chief romantic interest--and as fear and indecision bar him from actually hopping on one of the interstellar trips that Gateway offers. (Instead he hangs around, and we get a nice taste of Gateway culture which shows off Pohl's acuity in the field of Soft SF--the more human side of SF, as opposed to the hard physics and technical explanations of Hard SF).
While Bob's first two missions end in disappointment, the third one goes quite differently, and it is through this lens that finally, we must view the novel. The psychological flavor of the novel is ensconced in the forefront, and indeed it is the psychological dimension that makes this Pohl's greatest novel and a true masterwork of SF.
While it does not probe as deep as Stanislaw Lem's phenomenal Solaris in this regard, there is still plenty of meat here as compared to your average SF novel. What exactly is Broadhead responsible for? What are we to make of his relationships with women, including his mother and his many lovers? What are we to make of the slow-motion betrayal that Broadhead believes he has committed, a truly crunchy piece of SF problematical ethics? There's a lot to chew over. I would recommend Gateway to lovers of Solaris for this reason, and certainly found much in common between the two. A point in Gateway's favor, depending on your perspective, is that it features a bit more action than the highly introspective Solaris.
I was told that this was Pohl's best novel, and it did not disappoint. I've already recommended this masterpiece of SF, with its modernist sensibilities, to my non-SF fan friends (and, as any SF fan knows, the field is polarizing, so this is saying something!) In a field packed with spaceships and mysterious alien races to the point of tedium, this is a truly original gem.
