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20 All Time Classic Sci Fi Novels - Now Wait For Last Year (S.F. Masterworks)
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- Author: Philip K. Dick
- Type: Paperback
- ISBN: 1857987012
- Publisher: Gollancz
Reviews
This book belongs very much in the mainstream of Dick's work. It has his typical emphasis on drugs, power structures, artificial people, alternate realities, and time discontinuities. What distinguishes it from many of his other works is the portrayed relationship between Dr. Sweetscent and his wife Kathy, one of conflicted love/hate and dominance games, a portrayal that is much more realistic than many such within the SF field, and which provides an underlying tension to the book well beyond its ostensible main plot of trying to save the Earth from the war between the Starlings and the reeqs.
The drug in question is JJ-80, which not only is highly addictive after just one use, but makes the user actually travel in time. Regardless of the scientific implausibility of this, Dick handles the problem of time travel well, postulating that most such travelers end up causing parallel time tracks/universes, and neatly tying this concept in with using people from one universe as replacements for some in the viewpoint universe. Then Dick adds `robants', artificial people, to the mix, which leads to his typical confusion of just who is who (or what), along with questions about the ultimate nature of reality.
Dick's prose is quite utilitarian here, but it does get the job done. There are some odd lapses in both portrayals of some characters (mainly the Mole, ruler of the Earth) and in the underlying motives for some of the Starlings actions. And it suffers from a typical failing of SF books of this period, that of the single average man as world saver, which makes the already difficult suspension of disbelief even harder. Still, it's more coherent than many of his books, though it's certainly not up to the level of excellence of his Man In The High Castle.
A must for Dick fans, worth reading by the casual SF fan.
-- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
Patrick Shepherd
Intelligent, better sci-fi. Original concepts; time-travelling drug. Realism; situations & possibilities born out of apparently simple situations.
Depth; complex motivations and psychological aspects. Creates clever exchanges between characters, & conflictions; possibilities available to a character.
Political thinking. Unpredictable, but v. readable, lots of twists.
Ultimately: we do what we have to despite many consequences of actions. Alternative worlds.
Adrian McO-Campbell
I bought this along with some other Phillip Dick books and am very impressed by the originality and freshness even after all this time. I read each book in turn and am looking for more now, I would definitely recommend his books to any somewhat jaded SF fans who thought they had read it all.
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.
wdanthemanw
This is a fabulous novel, easily on a par with Martian Time Slip. Dick seems to have a thing for creating dichotomous realities in all of his novels I have read so far, both time travelling induced as in this book, and drug induced as in 'A Scanner Darkly'. The real genius of his work is that he manages to make it all totally understandable - I had no problem keeping up with the time travelling adventures of the main character, and was literally on the edge of my seat on many occasions because I couldn't wait to see how the various story strands would thread together by the end of the book. It will give anyone who likes the common SF idea of altering the present by changing the past plenty to think about, with a few new twists thrown in for good measure. This is an absolutely brilliant novel, and I would recommend it to anybody as the perfect introduction to Philip K. Dick.
