The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Stephen Frug:

I always thought it was obvious, but since no one's said it yet (unless that's why no one said it):

I think the alternate history in which Bush stole the election in 2000 and became President is *clearly* a work by Philip K Dick.

I mean, the verging-on-but-not-quite totalitarian America, with the imperial executive? Sound familiar? Now, granted, PKD usually used Nixon as his President, but after all, the portrayal of Cheney is so Nixonian (not to mention that Cheney worked under Ford), that I think I see the continuity.

Then there's all the black, absurdist humor. There's a terrorist attack on the US (and the means: it would take an SF writer to come up with that, surely), and the response is to go invade a country that had nothing to do with it? Or the portrayal of the sycophantic media going from hounding Clinton over nothing to rolling over for admitted impeachable offenses? And a draft dodger running and winning against a decorated veteran on the basis of the latter's war record? All screams PKD to me.

And the vaguely post-apocalyptic setting works too: he has New Orleans simply having been left to drown. A sort of savage but effective touch. And the slow apocalypse of global warming going on in the background all the time.

Still, I admit that the story overall is not quite up to Dick's best. Cheney, while an effective villain, is a bit over-the-top -- like the complaint sometimes made of some of PKD's Nixons too. Surely some shred of humanity would make the character more realistic. (Not to mention that VP candidate that comes up late in the story -- surely that's going to far, no one would buy that.) And, on the other hand, the Democratic candidate is too good -- smart, a brilliant rhetorician, politically savvy, black -- and poised to win big? Nah. Sort of a deus ex machina. And of course the election-theft scenario from 2000 is too blatant -- unrealistic.

But, sadly, Dick clearly got lazy at the end -- that economic crisis was simply ripped off from the Great Depression, with some handwaving about new economic instruments which were just like banks but not regulated as banks. Unconvincing. If you're going to put an economic crisis in the story, really, be original about it. History doesn't really repeat itself that way.

But it certainly has this in common with all the worlds Dick made up: I wouldn't want to live in it. That's for damn sure.

"Really," said Alice. "There was a note on the plumbs that said 'Eat me'. That's why I did it! It wasn't just because they were sweet and cold."

"Oh really?" said the Queen. "Off with her head!"

The galactic icebox was failing. Raspberries, apples, cantaloupes, peaches were in a state of irredeemable decay.

Hari Seldon Hari set about to remedy the situation, to bring about a state of affairs that would restore ripeness and fresh fructicity to the icebox. Carefully, he set up two plumbs at "opposite ends of the refrigerator". One, the First Plumb, was set up in the daylight of publicity. The existence of the other, the Second Plumb, was drowned in silence.

Then occurred something which Hari Seldon Hari could not foresee, the overwhelming power of a single appetite. The creature known as the Mule took the First Plumb from the galactic icebox and devoured it, on account of its coolness and deliciousness, leaving only its pits amongst the ruins.

There was left the mysterious Second Plumb, the goal of all searches. The Mule must find it to complete his meal; the faithful of what was left of the First Plumb must find it for quite another reason. But where was it? Buried beneath the rotting leftovers? Hidden in the bread-drawer? No one knew.

This, then, is the story of the search for the Second Plumb!

#15: Patrick, surely you meant: "What Co-Blogger Avram doesn't understand is..."

I feel slighted. We're Americans, dammit. We're supposed to be worth the trouble it takes to generate a few first-rate new deceptions.

Reminds me of one of my favorite lines from a TV show, ever, from the very first episode of the superb, like-Buffy-level-good Homicide: Life on the Street:

"You're saving your really good lies for some smarter cop, is that it? I'm just a doughnut in the on-deck circle. Wait until the real guy gets here. Wait until that big guy comes back. I'm probably just his secretary. I'm just Montel Williams. You want to talk to Larry King... I've been a murder police for ten years. If you're going to lie to me, you lie to me with respect."

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