the world Dick made

The underground-dwelling flukers* are all that remains of humanity after a hydrogen war leaves the land permanently uninhabitable due to radiation and feral mutated animals.

Members of the Pinole fluke pit in Northern California live off of care packages dropped by Martians and pass the time by playing a board game with a Barbie-like Perky Pat doll. When they hear about an Oakland fluke pit that plays a similar game with a doll named Connie Companion Norm and Fran Schein meet the Oakland flukers halfway in Berkeley to face them in a game where the winner receives the other flukers’ doll. The Scheins return to Pinole victorious, but when the rest of the Pinole flukers find out that Connie Companion is grown up, married, pregnant and has a job unlike the perpetual teen Perky Pat they get gravely offended (which I couldn’t quite grasp this overreaction), banish the Scheins, and Sam Regan decides to leave with them.

It’s an oddball story interesting mostly if seen as a sketch for one of Dick’s best novels The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

*because it was a fluke they survived

Cast of characters

• Tod and Helen Morrison, Norm and Fran Schein, Sam and Jean Regan – members of the Pinole fluke pit. Same or similar names as the Mars colonists in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
• Timothy Schein – the Schein’s ten-year-old boy
• Fred Chamberlain – a child from the Pinole fluke pit
• Hooker Glebe – mayor of the Pinole fluke pit
• Ben Fennimore – member of the Berkeley fluke pit
• Walter Wynn, Charley Dowd, Peter Foster – members of the Oakland fluke pit

With the help of three precog mutants, a precrime police agency eliminates major crimes in society by arresting people before they actually break any laws.

When precrime commissioner John Anderton is tagged by the precogs for killing a man he doesn’t know, he assumes he is being framed by the newcomer Ed Witwer who wants his job. What he doesn’t know is that the Army, rendered toothless by the precrime division, wants to return to power.

The precogs saw a future where Anderton kills the Army General Kaplan after their power grab. We find out that the precrime system relies on a majority report from two precogs who agree on an outcome in the future, which means the remaining precog generates a minority report where no crime is committed. When Anderton doesn’t kill Kaplan, Kaplan uses this to try to shut precrime down under the assumption that Anderton was about to be arrested based on a minority report that won’t come true. Anderton then chooses to kill Kaplan after all to renew public trust in precrime by proving that it does work after all.

It’s a great twisting story, and Spielberg’s 2002 movie is probably Dick’s most well-known adaptation. It alters the plot somewhat with a result that is a bit too convoluted and contrived, although it is second only to Blade Runner in its groundbreaking vision of a future based on Dick’s work.

A sequel to the movie aired as a TV adaptation on Fox for one season in 2015. I can’t say much about it other than it had poor reviews and I barely even remembered it existed.

Cast of characters

• John Anderton – precrime commissioner
• Ed Witwer – Anderton’s new associate
• Lisa Anderton – Andertons wife and an official executive of precrime
• Leopold Kaplan – an Army general and the man Anderton is supposed to kill
• Fleming – an Army major working for Kaplan
• Jerry, Donna, Mike – the three precogs
• Wally Page – Anderton’s assistant

After a war leaves humans scattered in settlements around the U.S., unmanned automatic factories continue to churn out consumer goods while expanding and using up more and more natural resources.

Humans, lacking any other way to stop these autofacs, pit the factories in adjacent cities against each other as the autofacs scavenge for the same raw materials. The Kansas City factory ends up destroyed by a factory from another city, or at least it appears that way until the humans discover that deep underground the factory has started to manufacture miniature replicas of the factory itself that will presumably take over the entire earth.

This story was adapted for season one of Electric Dreams which takes the premise in a different direction with a not-too-satisfying twist ending.

Cast of characters

Earl Perine, Morrison, O’Neill, Judith O’Neill – members of a settlement in Kansas City

‘Upon the Dull Earth’ is a great horror / fantasy story about a young girl named Sylvia who has a unique ability to attract angels. She is thrilled by this, until the angels, drawn by blood from a cut on her finger, kill her and take her away. Her boyfriend Rick tries to bring her back from the spirit realm, but things don’t go as planned as everyone on Earth is slowly replaced by Sylvia, a scenario that reminded me of one that plays out in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

Cast of characters

Sylvia – our protagonist who has the ability to communicate with angels
Rick – Sylvia’s boyfriend
Walter Everett – Sylvia’s father
Betty Lou and Jean – Sylvia’s sisters

Schoolboy Mike Foster desperately wants a bomb shelter, partly to fit in (his is the only family not to own one) and partly for a sense of security (this is 1971 and the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union). Mike eventually convinces his father to buy the newest model shelter on an installment plan. His family though can’t afford it after the Russians develop a new weapon rendering all shelters obsolete unless owners pay for a costly upgrade. The shelter then gets repossessed sending Mike into a fit of despair.

‘Foster, You’re Dead’ was adapted as ‘Safe and Sound’ for the first season of Amazon Prime’s Electric Dreams. It’s not a terrible episode of television, but it shares very little in common with the short story.

Cast of characters

• Mike Foster
• Bob Foster – Mike’s dad and the last of the town’s anti-preppers
• Ruth Foster – Mike’s mom
• Bill O’Neill – shelter salesman for General Electronics

On the edges of reality an adjustment team constantly tweaks the known world in order to nudge things in a certain direction. Ed Fletcher accidentally sees behind the curtain when an adjustment team clerk misses his cue and allows Ed to arrive at work late. After Ed witnesses the terrifying spectacle of the adjustment team in full-on adjustment mode he is taken before The Old Man, a godlike figure in charge who eventually lets Ed return to his life as long as he promises not to tell anyone what he has seen.

I really like the 2011 movie, refashioned as The Adjustment Bureau, starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. It takes just the basic idea and turns it into a love story (which admittedly doesn’t feel all that phildickian) that deals with predestination and free will.

Cast of characters

• Ed Fletcher – our everyman protagonist
• Ruth Fletcher – Ed’s wife
• Nathan Douglas – Ed’s boss
• The Old Man – in charge of the whole shebang