I do not know particularly why I liked this, other than it reminded me a bit of John Wyndham in its use of language and its perspective of the common man through Doug, and that the ending, besides its relative predictability, is still capable of being a little surprising w/r/t Jones and what happens with the government. That's at least a minor feat, since having Jones as a precog could've meant the whole thing was telegraphed from the beginning.

It is not spectacular; I liked it.

Later PKD is better, and weirder, but there's nothing really wrong with this.

There's a certain subgenre, based on the near future of the now past, where all governments are based on thought exercises from a philosophy class, and, despite everything reverting to some form of dystopian totalitarianism long before the book got started, everyone has masked their cognitive dissonance so thoroughly that they still believe they're applying the principles of their belief system correctly. In this type of story, things are grungy and depressing, no one seems to remember how a 101 level college course got put in charge of everything, and despite barely mentioning communism, no one is over it.

"We can't destroy Jones. We can only hope there's something beyond him, something on the other side."
― Philip K. Dick, The World Jones Made



"He was a man with his eyes in the present and his body in the past."
― Philip K. Dick, The World Jones Made

An early (1956) PKD novel that brings together four semi-united threads: mutants, aliens, precognition, and a philosophic tyranny (a form of relativism to the absurd). The spore-like aliens that suddenly appear are the catalyst between Jones and the philosociety he lives in. His ability to see 1 year into the future gives him an ability to subvert the status quo and eventually move from political to religious leader. The book starts in a womb and ends in a womb and somewhere in the middle a giant egg gets pierced by a giant, interstellar gamete/spermatia/spore.

For as much as PKD packed into this novel it still remained a fairly tight novel. It wasn't as funky or messy as some and not nearly as brilliant as others, but the seeds and spores of future great novels were beginning to disperse and look for another PKD book another mind to infect and control. Some of his early ideas of government, technology, religion, freedom, individuality, etc., were starting to seed in this little hothouse of a book.

Because PKD has become such a presence in our modern SF universe (Screamers, Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, Man in the High Castle) it sometimes is worth recognizing that he was publishing this stuff the year Elvis was on Ed Sullivan and Arthur Miller was marrying Marilyn Monroe AND appearing before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. This guy was bringing a laser gun to a knife fight and we are JUST now catching up with his game.

Not PKD's best book, in my opinion, though I can see why Hollywood jumped on this for movie rights. I just found the story line less compelling than many of his other novels. The concept is interesting, but I feel like he's explored precognition with more depth and success in other novels.