Now Wait for Last Year

Although Now Wait for Last Year is usually grouped with the novels of Dick's late 1960s period, it was completed by late 1963. It as the first of several novels in which drugs are a major element, the others being The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Lies Inc., and A Scanner Darkly. In Now Wait for Last Year the drug in question, JJ-180, supposedly hallucinogenic, does more than alter consciousness: it takes the user backwards or forwards in time. It alters not just subjective reality, but also objective reality, and allows concourse between the parallel universes of different time tracks. Of the novel's main characters, Gino Molinari, the world leader, attempts to use the drug to break out of the fatality of history and linear time and borrow from other possible universes for the benefit of his own. His physician, Eric Sweetscent, for his part, tries to create a desirable future by communicating with future versions of himself. His love/hate relationship with his wife becomes a major element of his desire to escape the present. In a well-known scene, he gets psychological counseling from a talking taxicab. This is a brilliant and fascinating novel that tends to get overlooked among Dick's better known works.

There's real sense of the arbitrary in the rating of Dick's books. Serious misfires like "Time Out of Joint" and "Ubik" receive high praise, while fine minor works like "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" fall through the cracks. It'll take some effort to fix this. It hasn't happened yet. "Now Wait for Last Year" is yet another example. As with most of Dick's later novels, it's difficult to state simply what it's "about". NWFLY is "about" a future Earth that, like Italy and Hungary in WW II, has made a hideously bad choice and is lined up on the wrong side against a very alien but far from ignoble species. It's also "about" a drug that allows people to slip from one alternate timeline to another. And about a man debating his responsibility to a wife suffering from progressive brain damage from abusing that very drug. And about another man (one of Dick's beloved simpletons) whose hobby is making little carts for rejected missile guidance systems out of no more than a sense of fairness. The other reviewers are far from wrong in their view that very little happens. This is Dick writing SF in mainstream mode, where what occurs is less important than how people handle it, from Earth's military dictator (who is a lot better than he has to be--more of a MacArthur than a Mussolini) to the guy with the carts. There's no grand climax or slick SF "solution", just a minor epiphany as things finally fall into place for one character. The last scene, which in other hands would have been simply absurd (it does, after all, portray a character named "Sweetscent" having an emotional conversation with an automated cab) comprise some of the most hopeful pages in any recent novel in SF or out. NWFLY is the book that most clearly reveals Dick's fundamental decency, his sweetness of spirit. John Gardner, the litcrit who was not a poststructuralist and suffered for it, once wrote that the novelist must never forget that some of his readers will be sick, some dying, and some in trouble. Dick never forgot. "Now Wait for Last Year" is a book for people in trouble. Which means, of course, just about everybody.

This novel has been published in 1966 and belongs to the best books of Philip K. Dick. The themes treated in NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR are not a surprise for those of us who have read the precedent books of the american writer. But, in this book, Philip K. Dick succeeds perfectly in the alchemy of the plot.An alien invasion that is never happening, a commander in chief of the Earth population who could be a simulacra, a dangerous drug that is altering time and reality, an average character who has to act as an hero in order to save the humanity : all these themes have already been treated by Philip K. Dick. But not with so much empathy - a fundamental word in PKD vocabulary - in the description of the feelings of his characters.In my opinion, the relation between Eric and Katharine Sweetscent, the doctor and his drug-addicted wife, marks a turning point in the evolution of Dick's literary skills. Hate, Love, Regrets and Empathy hadn't been until then so masterfully painted under Dick's pen.NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR is one of PKD's books that could let you enter the unique imaginary world of this american writer. Don't hesitate to open the door.A book for your library.

Seeing the rave reviews concerning Philip K. Dick's multidinous collection of books, I was immediately intrigued by an author who dared to challenge the mind. In reading most books, one is interested but not ferverent, engaged but never truly touched. Now Wait for Last Year will breach the walls of that special compartment of your mind that strives to remain isolated. The challenge of comprehending Dick's reckless plot is substantial indeed but the rewards are great. Energizing the reader's curiosity, Dick makes impossible promises but always fufills. In the end, the reader is not distressed or confused, he/she is unburdened. The ending is particularly ingenious. In a unique twist, Dick leaves the reader with a feeling of crushing inevitability that differs from other books in that it also hides a certain optimism, an enlivening hope for the future. The main character is oppressed by the yoke of an alien invasion and an unhappy marriage, but there is redemption for him, an end in sight, but distant enough to drive and enthuse us to our destiny. Dick is truly among the greatest authors of all time, and if anyone out there was still pondering as to the literary merit of science fiction, here it is. With Dick's gem as sf's spokesman, one can't help but be utterly convinced.

While Dick is no stranger to deconstructing conventional notions of time he does it threefold (at least) in this novel. It is one of his more action-packed endeavors (like his short story "The Variable Man") while dealing with temporal perception in an extremely thoughtful and playful way. He also manages to place the earth in an incredible bind that begs the reader's compassion and stimulates the intellect: Which alien race can we trust when two appear, bringing their ancient fight to our planet? The humanoid aliens are manipulative and very powerful but their opponents are human-sized ants that speak in clicks, making it a comment on racism as well. Our only hope lies with an ailing UN super-general who isn't showing his cards, and his mild-mannered doctor who's ex-employer shows up again and again to re-hire and re-fire him. An extremely entertaining and rewarding read that is an essential part of anyone's P K Dick library. One of his big, bright, shining stars; right next to _Flow_My_Tears,_The_Policeman_Said_!