The Penultimate Truth

I've just attended a seminar on "Philosophy & Sci-Fi" and was delighted when PKD was chosen the first author to discuss. I plunge into reading and re-reading his works. Obviously the second step of my PKD-mania is to produce new reviews! "The Penultimate Truth" (1964) is a typically PKD novel of this feverish writing period, he publish four novels that year. That implies some minor inconsistencies within the plot that do not diminish the whole story. The backdrop of the story is one dear to PKD and many sci-fi writers of that time: earth after WWIII. PKD has used this scenery in other novels and short stories, with common elements as androids, wasted land after atomic bombing and authoritarian government; nevertheless he never repeats himself. Each story is unique, captivating and full of action, moral and ethical issues. Characters are not heroes, just human beings doing their best to survive in a hostile environment. They may be selfish and despicable but within them there is always a spark of altruism trying to emerge. The story is about a world that has suffered a short and violent atomic war; vast majority of population is kept in underground refuges and deceived by elite that pretend the war is still raging. While this privileged live in enormous countryside villas with armies of serving androids, the overcrowded "ant-tanks" concentrate in producing more and more androids. The leaders are subject themselves to a dictatorship and struggle in political factions. They are subject to intolerable pressure to maintain the masquerade and live isolated, almost boring, lives. The tale follows two main lines: one centered in a member of the "ant-tank" that goes to the surface trying to obtain an artificial pancreas for hibernated colleague and the other focused on a speech-writer drafted compulsively into a "special project" by the tyrannical leader. As usual with PKD writings an unfathomable melancholic undercurrent traverse the whole story. This book is real good. Not only sci-fi fans may appreciate it, general public too! Enjoy! Reviewed by Max Yofre.

What afterword are you talking about? (EMAN NEP), I had the English SF masterwork version and there's no afterword. Anyway overall this is another book which I recognize even without a cover that it's his work. To make it brief, the first part of the book is really confusin to me but since then I finished them within a few hours so I guess it must be good to a certain point. I will not say anything about the plot as others had already. Only want to add that the ending is very ambiguous (again) like many of his books leaving me wonder all kind of possibilities (and probably screaming for a sequel). Well for K.dick's fans this is another must read but if you're not familiar with his work then you should considering other works that seem to be better and easier to get used to.

This mid-1960s novel focuses on the theme of fakery and its uses in structuring political realities. Dick delights in devising paradoxes to illustrate the idea that getting to the ultimate truth is impossible: there is always another layer to be penetrated. A major hoax is perpetrated against most of Earth's population, which retreats underground in huge "ant tanks" to avoid being killed in a nuclear war. The war ends, but the leaders choose not to tell these "tankers," who are kept busy manufacturing robots called "leadies" while being fed television images of the war that is supposedly raging above, fought by the leadies. Needless to say, to see war as turning into a media event was prophetic. The plot of the novel was cobbled together from several of Dick's short stories. Still, in its somewhat ill-structured way, The Penultimate Truth, with all its improbabilities and looseness, is honest in its headlong plunge through its willful convolutions of plot. Since it is not offering any ultimate truth, after all, it hardly need disguise itself in perfect form.

I am frankly surprised that this book is so little understood. I will grant at the outset that the writing itself is not very distinguished for sophisticated literary palettes--but its greatness lies in the ideas that it casts into the tireless tropes of speculative fiction.To begin with, he spins a cognitive framework of a world in perpetual war, waged by robots above the surface of the earth which has become too ravaged by radioactivity to support human life. Humans are reduced to living underground in "tanks", subterranean factories whose economy depends upon the constant repair of damaged robot warriors from the surface. The only source of information about this grim cognitive framework pipes in through the Television tube, where a Dear Great Leader sits behind the imposing desk of authority, surrounded by the symbols of state. He prattles about the sacrificies made by the millions surviving in the tanks, he talks about the struggles to build a free society on the surface, the despicable nature of the enemy, the threat to liberty, and so on and so forth. You get the picture. You have heard it yourself on the nightly news for years and years.So the crisis comes when the chief mechanic for the tank grows desperately ill. Death is certain unless they can obtain an artificial organ transplant. How can they do that? They have no power, no initiatives available in this regard. If he dies, they will fall behind in their quota, their food rations will be cut, the lives of the entire tank are at stake. So in a desperate state they decide to send one of their own to the surface on a quest for an artificial organ. When he makes his way to the surface, he fears instant incineration from the death dealing warrior robots--instead, imagine his surprise as he discovers that the entire planet is a beautiful sunlit garden, inhabited not by fierce warrior robots and smoking ruins, but instead a privileged leisure class served by the robots in luxury, devoting their time to spinning little fearful fictions for the slaves laboring down below...Recognise this world? You're living in it. For you are either a Yance man--one who writes speeches for the Dear Great Leader--that is to say a wise guy--an Illuminatus--or you are a subterranean slave--a know nothing. Which one are you? Actually, Dick shows a third way in the form of a mysterious native American, a member of the new Aristocracy, who plays the role of Scarlet Pimpernel with a time machine, systematically and methodically working against the Status Quo--and working for the liberation of the armies of slaves living and working in the underground. For, after all, none of us are supposed to awake, but then again, sometimes some of us do. And What Then? Do we join these forces of authority, intent on the domination of the great unwashed masses--Or ,do we work for the improvement of their lot, freeing them with useful knowledge and the simple facts of existence? How do you successfully inform someone that they are

I do not understand why this novel fell from grace. In the body of Dick's novels it is more intense and varied than most. I remember immediately liking it when I first read it in the 1970s - in fact it probably went a long way to starting my life-long love of PKD's works. The idea of someone burying artefacts to make it look like Earth once had alien invaders - well, visitors anyway - is so intriguing. And with PKD's novels you never quite know if there won't actually be a twist in which alien invaders - visitors, I mean - turn up. But PKD has a different surprising twist in store for us! Perhsps this is what disappointed some reviewers - they felt a bit let down by there not actually being any invaders. But for me it is the levels of reality that are of interest - the reality of life in the tanks, the reality of life above - and how these realities are perceived by both populations. Joseph Adams is the archetypal PKD underman, but there is more variety in the other characters than often appears in PKD novels - especially David Lantano, but also Verne Lindblom.For this novel I recommend ignoring the critics and their nitpicking about grammar which never offended me in the slightest. Go ahead and read - I think you will enjoy it.