Dr. Bloodmoney
by Philip K. Dick
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A Nebula Award nominee, Dr. Bloodmoney is Hugo Award-winner Philip K. Dick's darkly comic riff on Stanley Kubrick's Cold War black comedy, Dr. Strangelove, a look at how humanity gets along after the end of the world. What happens after the bombs drop? This is the troubling question Philip K. Dick addresses with Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb. It is the story of a world reeling from the effects of nuclear annihilation and fallout, a world where mutated humans and animals show more are the norm, and the scattered survivors take comfort from a disc jockey endlessly circling the globe in a broken-down satellite. And hidden among the survivors is Dr. Bloodmoney himself, the man responsible for it all. This bizarre cast of characters cajole, seduce, and backstab in their attempts to get ahead in what is left of the world, consequences and casualties be damned. A sort of companion to Dr. Strangelove an unofficial and unhinged sequel Dick's novel is just as full of dark comedy and just as chilling. show lessTags
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sturlington Amnesia Moon is an homage to PKD and references this novel.
30
Member Reviews
I’m not a big fan of Philip K Dick’s fiction - in fact, I think I’ve only liked two or three of the books by him I’ve read. This isn’t one of them. It is, however, one of the books in the original numbered SF Masterwork series, and since I own them all I plan to read them all. (Who buys only *some* of the books in a numbered series?) Of the 73 books in the original SF Masterwork series, fourteen are by Philip K Dick. Because a very senior editor at Gollancz was a big fan. I personally don’t think most of them deserve to be considered masterworks, and while Dr Bloodmoney is better than many of the Dick titles, I still don’t think it makes the grade. It’s set in California after World War III. This happened in the show more mid-1970s, after a disastrous nuclear test by the US, thanks to Dr Bluthgeld (Dr Bloodmoney of the title), who got his calculations wrong. Most of the population has died, but life seems to have settled down, albeit at a considerably more primitive level. The story mostly takes place in a small community and, well, the book doesn’t have much of a plot, just a cast of grotesques, including the aforementioned Bluthgeld. There’s a character who’s a victim of thalidomide - Dick calls him a phocomelus - who moves around in a motorised cart and later develops powerful psychokinetic powers. There’s a black TV salesman who visits the community, and proves to be the first black person to be accepted by them. There’s a young girl whose unborn twin lives inside her, talks to her, and proves to have psychic abilities of his own. And there’s an astronaut, in orbit about the Earth after his mission to Mars failed, who broadcasts to everyone around the world… The narrative does some interesting things with time-jumps, although only in the first third or so. But as any sign of a plot gradually fades away, so the characters with special powers become ever more ludicrous. The novel is notable for having a black protagonist, which was definitely unusual from a white US sf writer in the 1960s, as well as someone handicapped by thalidomide. But pretty much everyone in the novel is racist, and there’s a disturbing admiration for Nazi Germany (which seems to crop up in many of Dick’s novels). I’ve read this, so I can cross it off the list. I won’t be reading it ever again. show less
One of several things I enjoyed about Phililp K. Dick's novel Dr. Bloodmoney is that the bulk of the story takes place in Point Reyes Station, California. Point Reyes Station, in the western side of Marin County, is a terrific place to set a story that takes place after the fall of civilization. It's a small town in the country side with an active farming/ranching economy, far enough away from nearby San Francisco to imagine it has already survived the apocalypse. In fact, I suspect the people of Point Reyes Station already believe they have done just that-- that they are the last outpost of civilization in a fallen land. (I mean that in the nicest possible way. I love Point Reyes, myself.) I think many people in Marin County, heck in show more California, look at the rest of America and get the sense that the end has already come.
But this is a case of Philip K. Dick reading me when I should be reading Philip K. Dick.
One thing that makes Philip K. Dick stand out among all the many, many people who have written about the end of the world is his focus on how the common man survives. Dr. Bloodmoney is a good example of this. The main characters at the opening of the book are a group of men who work in television sales and repair. The author is very interested in depicting their work-a-day lives, so much so that we almost begin to worry that the novel will be about television sales and repair instead of the end of the world the cover art has promised us.
When the end does come, through a series of bomb blasts that destroy property more than they do human life, the salesmen and repairmen find their way from the Berkeley shop where they work to Point Reyes and its rival township, Bolinas, in Marin County on the other side of the San Francisco Bay. The survivors there have set up a barter economy which allows them to carry on their lives much as they did before the end came. Now, instead of selling televisions, they sell small robots built to exterminate mutant life forms and other post-apocalyptic threats.
The fly in their ointment is that the scientist who designed the bomb which brought about the end of the world has also taken up residence in Point Reyes. However, this does not seem to bother anyone. He raises sheep now, and causes no problems, so why worry about him. Things in Point Reyes go along without too much trouble, people make or grow the things they need and trade them among the townspeople in peaceful, ordinary coexistence until towards the end of the novel when the scientist starts to work on another bomb and threatens to detonate it. But by this point in the novel things have descended into a through-the-looking-glass type of chaos that reminded me of the closing sections of Samuel R. Delany's novel Dahlgren. Society just becomes more and more chaotic as all of its structures break down, one by one, leaving nothing to guide anyone's actions.
But even in this chaos, our salesmen heroes are looking to make a deal somehow, to find a way to keep themselves well stocked with goods they can trade, to keep themselves alive from one day to the next just like they did before Dr. Bloodmoney's bombs went off and wrecked it all. That salesmen will survive the apocalypse comes as no surprise, they have as much chance as anyone else does. That they continue to seek out a living in sales says something about them, too.
Or is Mr. Dick simply having me on?
Philip K. Dick often writes about alternate realities, so much so that you can never be sure when his characters will wake up from the dream they've been having that we all thought was the novel. I kept expecting this or something like it to happen in Dr. Bloodmoney. The crazier things got, the more I questioned the reality of it all. Was Mr. Dick leading me down the garden path? Just how seriously am I supposed to take these post-apocalyptic salesmen? In the end, I'm not sure. No one work from a dream, I simply finished reading the novel and had to return to my own rather ordinary life. show less
But this is a case of Philip K. Dick reading me when I should be reading Philip K. Dick.
One thing that makes Philip K. Dick stand out among all the many, many people who have written about the end of the world is his focus on how the common man survives. Dr. Bloodmoney is a good example of this. The main characters at the opening of the book are a group of men who work in television sales and repair. The author is very interested in depicting their work-a-day lives, so much so that we almost begin to worry that the novel will be about television sales and repair instead of the end of the world the cover art has promised us.
When the end does come, through a series of bomb blasts that destroy property more than they do human life, the salesmen and repairmen find their way from the Berkeley shop where they work to Point Reyes and its rival township, Bolinas, in Marin County on the other side of the San Francisco Bay. The survivors there have set up a barter economy which allows them to carry on their lives much as they did before the end came. Now, instead of selling televisions, they sell small robots built to exterminate mutant life forms and other post-apocalyptic threats.
The fly in their ointment is that the scientist who designed the bomb which brought about the end of the world has also taken up residence in Point Reyes. However, this does not seem to bother anyone. He raises sheep now, and causes no problems, so why worry about him. Things in Point Reyes go along without too much trouble, people make or grow the things they need and trade them among the townspeople in peaceful, ordinary coexistence until towards the end of the novel when the scientist starts to work on another bomb and threatens to detonate it. But by this point in the novel things have descended into a through-the-looking-glass type of chaos that reminded me of the closing sections of Samuel R. Delany's novel Dahlgren. Society just becomes more and more chaotic as all of its structures break down, one by one, leaving nothing to guide anyone's actions.
But even in this chaos, our salesmen heroes are looking to make a deal somehow, to find a way to keep themselves well stocked with goods they can trade, to keep themselves alive from one day to the next just like they did before Dr. Bloodmoney's bombs went off and wrecked it all. That salesmen will survive the apocalypse comes as no surprise, they have as much chance as anyone else does. That they continue to seek out a living in sales says something about them, too.
Or is Mr. Dick simply having me on?
Philip K. Dick often writes about alternate realities, so much so that you can never be sure when his characters will wake up from the dream they've been having that we all thought was the novel. I kept expecting this or something like it to happen in Dr. Bloodmoney. The crazier things got, the more I questioned the reality of it all. Was Mr. Dick leading me down the garden path? Just how seriously am I supposed to take these post-apocalyptic salesmen? In the end, I'm not sure. No one work from a dream, I simply finished reading the novel and had to return to my own rather ordinary life. show less
nu chiar best of PK Dick, nici tocmai tipică lui (deși pe alocuri zgâlțâie nițel ”ce-i real?”), dar stranie într-un sens bun și cu niște personaje foarte bine conturate ca individualități. Fiind cam schematică și pe alocuri haotică, tindeam să-i dau 4/5. Dar apoi, out of the blue, când credeam că povestea s-a așezat pe-un făgaș, au venit fazele cu Bill și m-au dat pe spate: surprinzătoare, mind-fucking și grotești. Hell, yeah!
Bună treabă, mr PKD, tare bună!
Bună treabă, mr PKD, tare bună!
A very enjoyable post-apocalyptic novel. Dick is especially interested here in the ole mind/body conundrum. There’s no central character, the POV conveniently flitting from one to another, but the best-developed is the limbless Hoppy Harrington, “the first phocomelus”, whose “phocomobile” and mechanical manipulators allow him more agency than the whole-bodied characters — and on top of this, Hoppy has precognition as well as telekinetic and other psychic powers. Then there’s seven year old Edie Keller, whose twin brother Bill is a homunculus inhabiting her inguinal cavity. Bill too is capable of projecting himself beyond his physical confinement, briefly co-opting the body of a worm (to his great disappointment) and ending show more up in a wild power struggle with the increasingly megalomaniacal Hoppy. Finally we have Walt Dangerfield, whose mission to Mars is curtailed in low earth orbit by the nuclear dingdong, and finds himself circling the irradiated earth as humanity’s only common referent, playing songs over the radio by request and reading Of Human Bondage to keep peoples’ spirits up (ha ha). Another mind confined, straining to connect, to loose the bonds of flesh.
There’s a certain amount of horror in this brutalized California — raw rat, yum yum — but also aspects of anarcho-utopia, especially out in West Marin where society is gradually reorganizing along cooperative agrarian lines. The title character, the Dr Strangelove figure responsible for the whole damn mess, ranches sheep in pseudonymous retirement until his sins catch up with him. Featuring an adorable talking dog who talks exactly like you imagine a dog would talk, homeostatic vermin traps, and a whole lot more delightful Dickian idiosyncrasies, this is almost up there with his best work imo. show less
There’s a certain amount of horror in this brutalized California — raw rat, yum yum — but also aspects of anarcho-utopia, especially out in West Marin where society is gradually reorganizing along cooperative agrarian lines. The title character, the Dr Strangelove figure responsible for the whole damn mess, ranches sheep in pseudonymous retirement until his sins catch up with him. Featuring an adorable talking dog who talks exactly like you imagine a dog would talk, homeostatic vermin traps, and a whole lot more delightful Dickian idiosyncrasies, this is almost up there with his best work imo. show less
If you’ve seen the recently released Ex Machina, you know this is a super-slick film of two young men interacting with a beautiful version of AI, a great work of science fiction with such a streamlined, clear-cut, linear, easy-to-follow storyline, at the opposite end of the spectrum from, well, Philip K. Dick. Case in point: PKD’s Dr. Bloodmoney, the CRAZIEST novel I’ve ever read. Here are ten reasons why:
One -- Atom Bomb
The setting is San Francisco Bay Area. Soon after we are introduced to our main characters in Chapter One and Two, a series of Hiroshima-size atomic bombs hit. What remains of the population has to respond and deal with, PKD-style, the devastation.
Two – Guy in Space
The US space program shots Walt Dangerfield and show more his wife up in a rocket to colonize Mars. Bad timing. Immediately after blast-off the bombs hit. But Walt, who has lost his wife and is stuck orbiting Earth, maintains contact; matter of fact, everyone tunes into his hayseed broadcasts to receive updates on global news.
Three – A tiny adult person lives inside Edie Keller
If being a seven-year-old post-nuclear war little girl isn’t tough enough, Edie has tiny brother Bill lodged right inside her, next to her kidney, an adult who can carry on an adult conversation with Edie.
Four -- Dr. Bloodmoney
Bruno Bluthgeld aka Jack Tree aka Dr. Bloodmoney is an atomic physicist, a paranoid, shape-shifter who might very well be responsible for the world-wide nuclear war.
Five -- Dogs that talk
Turns out, Dr. Bloodmoney owns a frisky, playful dog who occasionally talks in a dog-like growl, a phenomenon accepted by all the survivors as routine after the radioactive fallout.
Six --- The mutants are coming
San Francisco can be a hazardous place to live. One reason is weezle-like creatures have grown wings and splatter themselves on skyscraper windows.
Seven – Less than appealing diet
Stuart McConchie is an African-American TV salesman who is forced to eat a live rat to stay alive in the cellar after the bombs hit. Seven years later, Stuart is making his living selling robot-like rat traps. In many ways, if the novel has any foundation in sanity, Stuart is our main man.
Eight – The importance of being a horse
With all the modernist, sophisticated technology, one aspect of post-bomb life is less than modern: the main mode of transportation is riding a horse. At one point, Stuart McConchie feels great sadness since he had to leave his horse hitched to a pillar under a San Francisco dock. Big mistake: the San Francisco homeless killed and ate his horse.
Nine – The danger of taking a job as a teacher
During his job interview, Hal Barnes asks the town’s clearing committee what happened to the last teacher. One of the committee members, an older lady by the name of June Robe, tells Hal matter-of-factly that they had to kill him.
Ten --- Thalidomide Boy
Hoppy Harrington is a young man who is a phocomelus, that is, without any hands or legs. Hoppy has all types of psychic powers and mechanical abilities that more than compensate for his physical disabilities. Hoppy appears front-and-center in much of the novel’s action.
PKD is actually able to have all this craziness intertwine to construct a riveting, cohesive story. How in the world does he do it? Obviously, he had one of the most powerful, most creative imaginations in history. Also, from what I understand, he was known to use tabs of speed to fuel his psychic rocket ship. Again, the craziest novel I’ve ever encountered. I’ve only read one other PKD novel: VALIS. I'll take suggestions from readers of this review, but during this summer I plan to read: The Man in the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Now Wait for Last Year, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Could be one or more of these titles will top Dr. Bloodmoney in craziness. I wouldn’t be surprised. show less
Dreaming of Nuclear Destruction
When Philip K. Dick wrote Dr. Bloodmoney, nuclear holocaust was a real possibility, a real fear, as evidenced by the effectiveness of "Daisy," the Johnson TV ad, run once, playing on the fear of Goldwater’s extremism writ large in a giant fireball seen in the eye of a little girl. Those were the days of mutually assured destruction, the idea of the two world powers equally armed to the point that neither could win an all out nuclear war. However, some may not be aware that military planners had conceived of another type of nuclear use: battlefield tactical. Here they would employ lower variable yield bombs and artillery shells that would cripple enemy troops but spare general populations from total show more annihilation. These tactical weapons comprised a good portion of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. And as some may also know this idea of limited nuclear engagement has reached the public forum again. Which in an oddly prophetic way makes Dick’s novel as relevant now as it was in 1965.
In Dr. Bloodmoney, we get a glimpse of a post nuclear war world that hasn’t been entirely destroyed, just blown back into the early 19th century. Harnessed electricity is scarce. Cities lie in ruins. Barter economies prevail. Horses make a comeback as the sole means of land locomotion, apart from walking. And there’s an added feature: mutated humans and animals, like talking dogs, intelligent rats, and the like, as well as psychic humans. It might be a Dick amphetamine fired nightmare, but it has the ring of veracity to it.
In the future, 1972, a Livermore scientist, Bruno Bluthgeld (blood-money in German), initiates a high altitude nuclear test that goes horribly wrong. It blankets much of the world in radiation. Suffering from self-hatred and hated by everyone, Bluthgeld carries on under the name Jack Tree, settling in West Marin, where he, with the help of Bonny Keller, seeks psychiatric help from Dr. Stockstill. In town resides a collection of characters who surface from time to time as the novel progresses. Most important of them are the phocomelus (congenital deformity of the limbs) Hoppy Harrington, child Edie Keller, Bonny’s daughter, and Walt Dangerfield. Hoppy uses artificial limb extenders to accomplish tasks, both ordinary and extraordinary. Edie converses with her unborn twin resident in the area of her appendix. Walt Dangerfield and his wife circle Earth in a capsule on their way to start a settlement on Mars. Aside from the effects of radiation poisoning, life is fairly normal in 1981, when the novel opens. Then bombs begin falling and the world is reduced to ruble. The novel fast forwards to the end of the decade, where we see how people live in the post-holocaust world that appears to have been created by limited nuclear warfare.
This is an odd world, where people gather round a radio to hear stranded Walt read to them, almost as if hearing the word of God, or the word of the way it was. It’s also a world where the once weak, Hoppy in particular, acquire frightening power, and where a girl and never born child must bring him down. It’s also a world where normal life and commerce emerge from the destruction, where there is yet hope for a better future. (Of course, it would be much better for all if we could control ourselves and not blow up the world we have, imperfect as it may be. Something to thing about when pundits spout off about tactical nuclear strikes, as they have been lately on news shows.)
Dick fans, if they haven’t already read it, will like it. Others who wish to discover why people like Dick so much might be better served by starting with The Man in the High Castle, A Scanner Darkly, or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, three of his best known works, each filmed, as well. show less
When Philip K. Dick wrote Dr. Bloodmoney, nuclear holocaust was a real possibility, a real fear, as evidenced by the effectiveness of "Daisy," the Johnson TV ad, run once, playing on the fear of Goldwater’s extremism writ large in a giant fireball seen in the eye of a little girl. Those were the days of mutually assured destruction, the idea of the two world powers equally armed to the point that neither could win an all out nuclear war. However, some may not be aware that military planners had conceived of another type of nuclear use: battlefield tactical. Here they would employ lower variable yield bombs and artillery shells that would cripple enemy troops but spare general populations from total show more annihilation. These tactical weapons comprised a good portion of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. And as some may also know this idea of limited nuclear engagement has reached the public forum again. Which in an oddly prophetic way makes Dick’s novel as relevant now as it was in 1965.
In Dr. Bloodmoney, we get a glimpse of a post nuclear war world that hasn’t been entirely destroyed, just blown back into the early 19th century. Harnessed electricity is scarce. Cities lie in ruins. Barter economies prevail. Horses make a comeback as the sole means of land locomotion, apart from walking. And there’s an added feature: mutated humans and animals, like talking dogs, intelligent rats, and the like, as well as psychic humans. It might be a Dick amphetamine fired nightmare, but it has the ring of veracity to it.
In the future, 1972, a Livermore scientist, Bruno Bluthgeld (blood-money in German), initiates a high altitude nuclear test that goes horribly wrong. It blankets much of the world in radiation. Suffering from self-hatred and hated by everyone, Bluthgeld carries on under the name Jack Tree, settling in West Marin, where he, with the help of Bonny Keller, seeks psychiatric help from Dr. Stockstill. In town resides a collection of characters who surface from time to time as the novel progresses. Most important of them are the phocomelus (congenital deformity of the limbs) Hoppy Harrington, child Edie Keller, Bonny’s daughter, and Walt Dangerfield. Hoppy uses artificial limb extenders to accomplish tasks, both ordinary and extraordinary. Edie converses with her unborn twin resident in the area of her appendix. Walt Dangerfield and his wife circle Earth in a capsule on their way to start a settlement on Mars. Aside from the effects of radiation poisoning, life is fairly normal in 1981, when the novel opens. Then bombs begin falling and the world is reduced to ruble. The novel fast forwards to the end of the decade, where we see how people live in the post-holocaust world that appears to have been created by limited nuclear warfare.
This is an odd world, where people gather round a radio to hear stranded Walt read to them, almost as if hearing the word of God, or the word of the way it was. It’s also a world where the once weak, Hoppy in particular, acquire frightening power, and where a girl and never born child must bring him down. It’s also a world where normal life and commerce emerge from the destruction, where there is yet hope for a better future. (Of course, it would be much better for all if we could control ourselves and not blow up the world we have, imperfect as it may be. Something to thing about when pundits spout off about tactical nuclear strikes, as they have been lately on news shows.)
Dick fans, if they haven’t already read it, will like it. Others who wish to discover why people like Dick so much might be better served by starting with The Man in the High Castle, A Scanner Darkly, or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, three of his best known works, each filmed, as well. show less
Dreaming of Nuclear Destruction
When Philip K. Dick wrote Dr. Bloodmoney, nuclear holocaust was a real possibility, a real fear, as evidenced by the effectiveness of "Daisy," the Johnson TV ad, run once, playing on the fear of Goldwater’s extremism writ large in a giant fireball seen in the eye of a little girl. Those were the days of mutually assured destruction, the idea of the two world powers equally armed to the point that neither could win an all out nuclear war. However, some may not be aware that military planners had conceived of another type of nuclear use: battlefield tactical. Here they would employ lower variable yield bombs and artillery shells that would cripple enemy troops but spare general populations from total show more annihilation. These tactical weapons comprised a good portion of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. And as some may also know this idea of limited nuclear engagement has reached the public forum again. Which in an oddly prophetic way makes Dick’s novel as relevant now as it was in 1965.
In Dr. Bloodmoney, we get a glimpse of a post nuclear war world that hasn’t been entirely destroyed, just blown back into the early 19th century. Harnessed electricity is scarce. Cities lie in ruins. Barter economies prevail. Horses make a comeback as the sole means of land locomotion, apart from walking. And there’s an added feature: mutated humans and animals, like talking dogs, intelligent rats, and the like, as well as psychic humans. It might be a Dick amphetamine fired nightmare, but it has the ring of veracity to it.
In the future, 1972, a Livermore scientist, Bruno Bluthgeld (blood-money in German), initiates a high altitude nuclear test that goes horribly wrong. It blankets much of the world in radiation. Suffering from self-hatred and hated by everyone, Bluthgeld carries on under the name Jack Tree, settling in West Marin, where he, with the help of Bonny Keller, seeks psychiatric help from Dr. Stockstill. In town resides a collection of characters who surface from time to time as the novel progresses. Most important of them are the phocomelus (congenital deformity of the limbs) Hoppy Harrington, child Edie Keller, Bonny’s daughter, and Walt Dangerfield. Hoppy uses artificial limb extenders to accomplish tasks, both ordinary and extraordinary. Edie converses with her unborn twin resident in the area of her appendix. Walt Dangerfield and his wife circle Earth in a capsule on their way to start a settlement on Mars. Aside from the effects of radiation poisoning, life is fairly normal in 1981, when the novel opens. Then bombs begin falling and the world is reduced to ruble. The novel fast forwards to the end of the decade, where we see how people live in the post-holocaust world that appears to have been created by limited nuclear warfare.
This is an odd world, where people gather round a radio to hear stranded Walt read to them, almost as if hearing the word of God, or the word of the way it was. It’s also a world where the once weak, Hoppy in particular, acquire frightening power, and where a girl and never born child must bring him down. It’s also a world where normal life and commerce emerge from the destruction, where there is yet hope for a better future. (Of course, it would be much better for all if we could control ourselves and not blow up the world we have, imperfect as it may be. Something to thing about when pundits spout off about tactical nuclear strikes, as they have been lately on news shows.)
Dick fans, if they haven’t already read it, will like it. Others who wish to discover why people like Dick so much might be better served by starting with The Man in the High Castle, A Scanner Darkly, or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, three of his best known works, each filmed, as well. show less
When Philip K. Dick wrote Dr. Bloodmoney, nuclear holocaust was a real possibility, a real fear, as evidenced by the effectiveness of "Daisy," the Johnson TV ad, run once, playing on the fear of Goldwater’s extremism writ large in a giant fireball seen in the eye of a little girl. Those were the days of mutually assured destruction, the idea of the two world powers equally armed to the point that neither could win an all out nuclear war. However, some may not be aware that military planners had conceived of another type of nuclear use: battlefield tactical. Here they would employ lower variable yield bombs and artillery shells that would cripple enemy troops but spare general populations from total show more annihilation. These tactical weapons comprised a good portion of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. And as some may also know this idea of limited nuclear engagement has reached the public forum again. Which in an oddly prophetic way makes Dick’s novel as relevant now as it was in 1965.
In Dr. Bloodmoney, we get a glimpse of a post nuclear war world that hasn’t been entirely destroyed, just blown back into the early 19th century. Harnessed electricity is scarce. Cities lie in ruins. Barter economies prevail. Horses make a comeback as the sole means of land locomotion, apart from walking. And there’s an added feature: mutated humans and animals, like talking dogs, intelligent rats, and the like, as well as psychic humans. It might be a Dick amphetamine fired nightmare, but it has the ring of veracity to it.
In the future, 1972, a Livermore scientist, Bruno Bluthgeld (blood-money in German), initiates a high altitude nuclear test that goes horribly wrong. It blankets much of the world in radiation. Suffering from self-hatred and hated by everyone, Bluthgeld carries on under the name Jack Tree, settling in West Marin, where he, with the help of Bonny Keller, seeks psychiatric help from Dr. Stockstill. In town resides a collection of characters who surface from time to time as the novel progresses. Most important of them are the phocomelus (congenital deformity of the limbs) Hoppy Harrington, child Edie Keller, Bonny’s daughter, and Walt Dangerfield. Hoppy uses artificial limb extenders to accomplish tasks, both ordinary and extraordinary. Edie converses with her unborn twin resident in the area of her appendix. Walt Dangerfield and his wife circle Earth in a capsule on their way to start a settlement on Mars. Aside from the effects of radiation poisoning, life is fairly normal in 1981, when the novel opens. Then bombs begin falling and the world is reduced to ruble. The novel fast forwards to the end of the decade, where we see how people live in the post-holocaust world that appears to have been created by limited nuclear warfare.
This is an odd world, where people gather round a radio to hear stranded Walt read to them, almost as if hearing the word of God, or the word of the way it was. It’s also a world where the once weak, Hoppy in particular, acquire frightening power, and where a girl and never born child must bring him down. It’s also a world where normal life and commerce emerge from the destruction, where there is yet hope for a better future. (Of course, it would be much better for all if we could control ourselves and not blow up the world we have, imperfect as it may be. Something to thing about when pundits spout off about tactical nuclear strikes, as they have been lately on news shows.)
Dick fans, if they haven’t already read it, will like it. Others who wish to discover why people like Dick so much might be better served by starting with The Man in the High Castle, A Scanner Darkly, or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, three of his best known works, each filmed, as well. show less
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Phillip Kindred Dick was an American science fiction writer best known for his psychological portrayals of characters trapped in illusory environments. Born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 16, 1928, Dick worked in radio and studied briefly at the University of California at Berkeley before embarking on his writing career. His first novel, Solar show more Lottery, was published in 1955. In 1963, Dick won the Hugo Award for his novel, The Man in the High Castle. He also wrote a series of futuristic tales about artificial creatures on the loose; notable of these was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was later adapted into film as Blade Runner. Dick also published several collections of short stories. He died of a stroke in Santa Ana, California, in 1982. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Kinder des Holocaust
- Original title
- Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along after the Bomb
- Alternate titles*
- Nach der Bombe; Nach dem Weltuntergang
- Original publication date
- 1965; 1963-02-11 (manuscript) (manuscript)
- People/Characters
- Hoppy Harrington; Walt Dangerfield; Dr. Bluthgeld; Stuart McConchie; Bonny Keller
- Important places
- Point Reyes, California, USA
- Important events
- Nuclear War
- First words
- Early in the bright sun-yellowed morning, Stuart McConchie swept the sidewalk before Modern TV Sales & Service, hearing the cars along Shattuck Avenue and the secretaries hurrying on high heels to their offices, all the stirr... (show all)ings and fine smells of a new week, a new time in which a good salesman could accomplish things.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)All around her the city was awakening, back once more into its regular life.
- Publisher's editor*
- Alpers, Hans Joachim
- Original language
- English
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 813.0876220
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Science Fiction, Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 813.0876220 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English By type Genre fiction Adventure fiction Speculative fiction Science fiction Post-apocalypse Nuclear apocalypse
- LCC
- PS3554 .I3 .D6 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Individual authors 1961-
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 2,290
- Popularity
- 8,654
- Reviews
- 38
- Rating
- (3.61)
- Languages
- 14 — Czech, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 51
- ASINs
- 30