The World Jones Made*

Philip K Dick

And the project to read all Philip K Dick’s books in chronological order nearly ended with The World Jones Made. I owned a copy in the Seventies and never made it past the first page. I wish I hadn’t bothered. Ignore anyone trying to find hidden depths. TWJM is clearly two different short stories shoved together to meet the word count for an Ace Double. The main story about a man who can see the future and becomes a Trumpian dictator is buried amongst dreary shenanigans of rebels then bookended by a completely different and irrelevant story about mutants going to Mars. Yes, the familiar PKD tropes are here, but a coherent story and anything much of interest are missing. In many ways typical of the low grade 50s pulp fiction that gave SF a bad name.

Verdict: Avoid unless the alternative is death.