Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Arrow (1980), Paperback, 192 pages
Description
Earth has been invaded - but one human terrorist has discovered a weapon which might change the course of the war! Earth has been taken over by the Ganymedians, a race of telepathic worm-like aliens whose instinct for survival has overridden any human attempt to resist their rule. But there is one man who may have discovered a way to defeat them. Dr Balkani has created a machine which distorts reality, and therefore will allow a determined human to avoid the Ganymedians' telepathic oversight. But there is one problem - Balkani is a worm-kisser, a servant of the invaders, and may not allow his invention to be used against them ...
User reviews
LibraryThing member helver
Earth has been taken over by the highly intelligent serpent-like beings from Ganymede. All of civilized society is under their dominion - the only place left on earth that does not cowtow to the Ganys is rural Tennessee. The military administrator assigned to pacify Tennessee can't get the job
This was a very, very quick read - maybe four hours to go cover to cover. While there were some interesting ideas, I dislike Balkani being the sole source of everything associated with Earth's only hope: Percy's telepathy, the robots used to facilitate Percy and Jane's escape, the writings used to confound and corrupt Mekkis, and the ultimate weapon that ensures Earth's freedom. That seems to be an awful lot to come from a single man, no matter how brilliant or ground-breaking he may be.
The only thing that was slightly surprising at the end was the disposition of Gus. I had assumed he'd be dead - but he ends up getting what he wants but, of course, it's not going to be the way he wants it
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done, so a civilian is brought in to quell the unreset. Unfortunately for Ganymede, this administrator becomes obsessed with the writings of a brilliant but deranged psychiatrist named Balkani. And the fate of two worlds rests in the disinterested hands of a former Gany sympathizer.This was a very, very quick read - maybe four hours to go cover to cover. While there were some interesting ideas, I dislike Balkani being the sole source of everything associated with Earth's only hope: Percy's telepathy, the robots used to facilitate Percy and Jane's escape, the writings used to confound and corrupt Mekkis, and the ultimate weapon that ensures Earth's freedom. That seems to be an awful lot to come from a single man, no matter how brilliant or ground-breaking he may be.
The only thing that was slightly surprising at the end was the disposition of Gus. I had assumed he'd be dead - but he ends up getting what he wants but, of course, it's not going to be the way he wants it
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LibraryThing member ChrisRiesbeck
What a mixed bag Philip K. Dick was. it's very hard to take any of this pot-boiler with giant worms running the Earth seriously. It reads like his early "anything for a dollar" pulp, but appeared after some of his best work in the 1960s, including Man in the High Castle and Martian Time-Slip.
For Dick completists.
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According to the Intertubes, it began as a sequel the High Castle. The Nelson/Dick collaboration is seamless to my eye, and there are the usual Dick tropes -- philosophical taxicabs, psycho-babble, and illusion generating machines. But none of them catch hold, not even the loss of reality, in the way that those tropes do in the best of Dick. For Dick completists.
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LibraryThing member Lukerik
Two authors. Both of them on drugs and a least one of them insane. This is an incompetently written novel.
The premise is that alien space worms have taken over the earth. The last hold-out against the invaders is a band of Nation of Islam guerrilla fighters who are holed up in the hills of
The novel is chock full of ideas, any one of which could be expanded in to novel of it’s own, but none of which appear to have any real connection to the plot in a way which brings meaning to the book. The most developed theme (if theme is a word that can be applied to this novel) is that of American racial politics. Do the authors have anything to say on the matter? I have no idea, and I’ve literally just finished reading it. You can look for meaning, but just when you think you’ve found it the authors will contradict themselves. They appear to be in as great a state of confusion as I am. Looking for meaning here is like looking for canals on Mars.
Early on in the novel we’re told that a precog has predicted that the occupation of earth will fail. So we’re in a deterministic universe. This immediately sucks all tension out of something about a struggle for survival. And we’re told this very early on so it must be important, yet it never has any impact on anything ever again.
The premise is that alien space worms have taken over the earth. The last hold-out against the invaders is a band of Nation of Islam guerrilla fighters who are holed up in the hills of
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Tennessee.The novel is chock full of ideas, any one of which could be expanded in to novel of it’s own, but none of which appear to have any real connection to the plot in a way which brings meaning to the book. The most developed theme (if theme is a word that can be applied to this novel) is that of American racial politics. Do the authors have anything to say on the matter? I have no idea, and I’ve literally just finished reading it. You can look for meaning, but just when you think you’ve found it the authors will contradict themselves. They appear to be in as great a state of confusion as I am. Looking for meaning here is like looking for canals on Mars.
Early on in the novel we’re told that a precog has predicted that the occupation of earth will fail. So we’re in a deterministic universe. This immediately sucks all tension out of something about a struggle for survival. And we’re told this very early on so it must be important, yet it never has any impact on anything ever again.
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Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1966-08-16
Physical description
192 p.; 17.5 cm
ISBN
0099214903 / 9780099214908
Local notes
Omslag: Peter Elson
Omslaget ikke krediteret i kolofonen, men der er et ganske synligt PE som signatur
Omslaget viser et eksploderende rumskib på jorden eller tæt på jorden
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
The number at the back of my copy of the book is not a
correct ISBN number.
The ISBN number on page 4 is correct.
Omslaget ikke krediteret i kolofonen, men der er et ganske synligt PE som signatur
Omslaget viser et eksploderende rumskib på jorden eller tæt på jorden
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
The number at the back of my copy of the book is not a
correct ISBN number.
The ISBN number on page 4 is correct.
Similar in this library
Pages
192
DDC/MDS
| 813.54 |