A human named Trent sets off across the radioactive surface of Earth from an underground settlement in Pennsylvania, where food and oxygen supplies are dwindling, in search of another human settlement that can help them survive. On his trek he encounters three different groups of mutants who have adapted to thrive in that environment in the three hundred and fifty years since the nuclear war. 

He eventually finds another settlement, and they let Trent know the hard truth that humans have made Earth inhospitable for themselves and forfeited their right to live there anymore. The Earth belongs to all the mutants, and the humans deserve this for nuking the surface. They are leaving for good in search of other planets in a rocket they have constructed, and they agree to take Trent’s group with them. 

Cast of characters

• Trent
• Jackson and Earl Potter – friendly mutants Trent runs into on the surface. They also show up in the wasteland of Deus Irae.
• Norris – a human in the settlement leaving Earth

John Eggerton is a titan of industry. He also happens to be targeted as a possible parakineticist by the Agency which identifies latent P-Ks before they can roam unchecked and destroy society. 

Doris Sorrel tries to serve Eggerton his notice to submit to the Agency, but he escapes with a bounty on his head. Eggerton thinks the industrial bloc leaders are undermined by the Agency, even though the other id bloc leaders remind him some kind of check needs to exist against the P-K mutants. 

Eggerton agrees to give himself over to the mercy of the Agency before a showdown with a P-K who was unaware of his own abilities gives Eggerton the idea that everyone can monitor for P-Ks on their own without the need of the Agency. The only thing left is to get the id bloc leaders to agree with this plan. 

The last we see of Eggerton he is flapping his arms and flying through the sky, a mutant P-K after all who has yet to recognize it. 

Cast of characters

• John Eggerton – an industrial bloc leader who is identified by the Agency as a P-K
• Doris Sorrel – an Immune who works for the Agency
• Harvey Sorrel – Doris’s husband
• Townsand – an id bloc leader
• Laura Townsand – Townsand’s wife
• Jay Richards – doesn’t realize he is a P-K. Grows a plant that sprouts a transport vehicle

The DCA is in charge of rounding up and euthanizing all mutants, afraid that if any of them were allowed to thrive they could eventually take over the human race. Most mutants are destroyed when they are young, except for Cris Johnson, who has made it to the age of eighteen before he is caught. Johnson has the ability to see the immediate future before it happens. Beyond that he is not really a human at all, but survives only on instinct like an animal. He uses his other mutant trait, golden skin and hair, to seduce Anita Ferris after he is captured so he can escape. The DCA men realize Cris is the true homo superior, since he is the one they will never be able to kill.

In 2007 “The Golden Man” was adapted as the movie Next starring Nicholas Cage. Instead of hunting mutants, the FBI chases after the human Cris Johnson, who can see two minutes into the future, because they need him to help stop some terrorists from detonating a nuclear bomb that will wipe out Los Angeles. It’s illogical and forgettable. Jessica Biel plays a mystery dream girl and five years later would play another mystery dream girl in the equally bad Total Recall remake.

Cast of characters

• Cris Johnson – a golden-skinned precog mutant
• Nat Johnson – Cris Johnson’s father
• Jean and Dave Johnson – Cris’s sister and brother
• George Baines – a DCA man hunting Cris Johnson
• Ed Wisdom – Director of DCA’s North American branch
• Anita Ferris – George’s fiancée and Director of the Semantics Agency 

A radiation lab in a small Tennessee town causes humans to give birth to mutant slug-like creatures. Investigator Ernest Gretry wants to transport all these so-called crawlers to an island unoccupied because of an H-bomb test, but the crawlers have different plans as they have already started reproducing and building intricate tunnels underground. The crawlers were creepy and gross. I’m glad this wasn’t a long story.

Cast of characters

• Ernest Gretry – investigating the crawlers
• Mrs. Higgins – lives in a farmhouse near the radiation lab

I was surprised I enjoyed rereading The World Jones Made, since I don’t remember thinking too much of it the first time around. Maybe I’ve built up a tolerance for Dick’s writing which has never been particularly great.*

Jones, a precog who can see one year into the future, is an interesting character in a world ruled by relativism where all absolute thought, in an effort to stamp out extremism and war, is forbidden. With his apparent proof of certainty, Jones becomes a demagogue, whipping his followers into a frenzy against the threat of amoeba-like aliens that have started to land on Earth. When it turns out these alien drifters are mostly harmless, something Jones didn’t initially know with his limited view into the future, he martyrs himself so as to blame his death on the relativists before he would have been exposed as a fraud.

The book’s two storylines don’t come together very well. The mutants being engineered to survive on Venus don’t have much to do with what is going on with Jones, but even Dick admitted the book would have been stronger if he had found a way to tie those two threads together.

*for example: moist skin, moist ground, moist legs, moist sack (don’t ask), moist car (how?), moist skin (again), moist breath, moist fog, moist atmosphere, moist hay, moist lips, moist lips (again) and moist air.

Cast of characters

• Floyd Jones – a precog who can see exactly one year into the future although he lacks the ability to change the future when it happens
• Louis, Frank, Vivian, Garry, Dieter, Irma, Syd – mutants engineered to survive on Venus who live in a moist refuge in San Francisco
• Doctor Rafferty – oversees the refuge
• Doug Cussick – member of the secret service
• Nina – Cussick’s wife
• Pearson – security director of the Baltimore secret service
• Max Kaminski – Cussick’s senior political instructor
• Hyndshaw – a traveling salesman who picks up Jones when he is hitchhiking
• Tyler Fleming – a young member of the secret service

In the far-off future mankind has evolved. The New Men are those with bigger brains and a greater intellect, while the Unusuals are mutants with psionic abilities. These two groups form a loosely-aligned ruling class who oppress the unevolved Old Men just struggling to get by. But don’t forget about the Under Men! They follow the writings of Eric Cordon and rebel against the whole class imbalance while waiting for Thors Provoni to return from outer space with some kind of help to free them from the tyrannical rule.

Our Friends from Frolix 8 is about as middle of the road as you can get with Dick’s minor works. I remembered almost nothing about it before I reread it. It’s redeemed by the oddball telepath and supreme leader of Earth Willis Gram, but only somewhat, and if you replaced sad-sack Nick Appleton with the protagonist from a dozen of Dick’s other stories you probably wouldn’t notice a difference.

Cast of characters

• Nick Appleton – our protag. He’s employed as a tire regroover, an odd profession since the squibs in the book are flying vehicles
• Bobby Appleton – Nick’s son
• Kleo Appleton – Nick’s wife
• Thors Provoni – left Earth to look for help in the far reaches of outer space
• Willis Gram – Council Chairman of the Extraordinary Committee for Public Safety (Unusual)
• Lloyd Barnes – the police director (New Man)
• Eric Cordon – Under Man organizer and propaganda writer
• Earl Zeta – Nick’s boss (Under Man)
• Charlotte Boyer – a sixteen-year-old Under Man girl who gets involved with Nick
• Denny – Charlotte’s boyfriend (Under Man)
• Morgo Rahn Wilc – the Frolixan friend who accompanies Thors Provoni back to Earth
• Amos Ild – one of the world’s smartest New Men