Cantata-140

Vote for Jim Briskin! Or should that be Barack Obama?
Well, at 1am this morning I finished reading Cantata-140. Another interesting read full of typical PKD quirks. Mutants, Strange races, space (and time) travel were just a few of the themes of the book, but surprisingly the main theme of the novel was in fact politics. Focusing around Jim Briskin, a presidential candidate, if elected he would be the first black Americana president.
The novel focuses around the mass overpopulation of earth and the 100 million people frozen in warehouses and how this issue can be dealt with. Moral issues surrounding overpopulation are also large features such as legal prostitution (to discourage pregnancy), colonization and war. And interesting and thought provoking read, but not my favourite so far I have to admit. It is rather unusual for a PKD novel and focuses on multiple alternate reality's as opposed to the questioning or reality itself (which he does so well.). Still worth a read and enjoyable, a few little surprises to make you smile, but not recommended as a first PKD read.

As an after note, not intentional by Philip K Dick, there were some amusing similarities between Jim Briskin's election campaign and Barack Obama's. As a current topic it did bring something more to the read, and some comical parallels can be drawn.

What next? Ive opted for a decade earlier with 'The World Jones Made'.

Gold mine!

Eureka! After around a month of searching the shelves of charity shops and book shops I found a Philip K Dick Gold mine! In an unlikely town in Shropshire I was taken to a large book stall (by my boyfriend whom rightly knew ‘just the place’ to take me) and to my amazement there they stood! Row after row of PKD books. Early prints, reissues, even several copies of the same book! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I began picking up books in some sort of frenzy, forming a pile of books. Carrying what I could I bought ‘Valis’ ‘Solar Lottery’ and ‘A Scanner Darkly’ and took them back to Derby, squeezed into my bag. In retrospective I wish Id bought more, but my bag was already bursting at the seams.

Sadly though, I was still avidly searching for ‘We can remember it for you Wholesale’.

Gold Dust …

After eagerly reading ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ I felt an enjoyment and satisfaction that I had not felt since discovering Stephen King. I felt a great interest in Philip K Dick that I had not experienced in a long time, it appeared I had got the reading bug once again.

Eager to read more of Dick’s novels I began to look around for some more reading material. I was given ‘Now wait for last year’ and ‘Clans of the Alphane Moon’ by my uncle and started to explore second hand book stalls.

I quickly discovered as I searched through market stall after market stall of books that Philip K Dick was not making a willing appearance. I enquired eventually at every one after my own efforts had failed ‘Oh no! I’m afraid not, he’s very difficult to hang onto when we get them in.’ and ‘No, hes like gold dust! You’ll have a job on getting them. Why have you got any you want to get rid of? Ill take them off you!’ were just two of the replies I received. My attempts to purchase PKD novels at less than RRP appeared to be going stale. Whenever possible I like to try and support small businesses and buy second hand books, give them a new home where they will be treasured, but my efforts seemed in vain in this case.