Lies, Inc.

When overpopulation threatens the Earth, one company offers a solution: transportation to the colony Whale's Mouth. The only problem? The teleportation machine only works one way. the whole thing sounds too good to be true to Rachel ben Applebaum, who sets himself to reveal the scam only to get ensnared in surveillance by the transport company, who will do anything to thwart him.

There is a MASSIVE tone and plot shift in the middle of the book that was incredibly bewildering, but slowly makes sense of itself. This book had a particularly tortured publication history, which was interesting to read about in the Afterword. It really explained some things!

Far from my favorite Dick, but I did really enjoy it.

When Philip K. Dick wrote this novel, he set it in 2014, fifty years into the future. He over-optimistically anticipated interstellar colonization via faster-than-light "Telpor," but he complicated the scenario with an opacity regarding the allegedly idyllic destination from which no one could return. There are flying cars ("flapples") naturally.

The narrative is rather convoluted, and not quite polished in the ways that it doubles back on itself. The afterword by Dick's literary executor Paul Williams supplies a full edition history, from the original novella published as "The Unteleported Man," through an expanded 1983 novel reliant on a defective manuscript, a British 1984 edit that patched the resulting gaps with writing by John show more Sladek, and this 2004 version that restores the complete text, although without the finishing edits that Dick himself would likely have applied.

The expansion of the original novella is nested within it, from Chapter Eight into Chapter Fifteen, out of seventeen total. That story sequence commences with the protagonist being attacked with a gun that fires an LSD-tipped dart into him, and ultimately unfolds a set of "paraworlds"--different versions of the exoplanet Whale's Mouth as experienced by those allegedly afflicted with "Telpor Syndrome." The pathologization of acid visions is apparently just a means of social control to manage those who have perceived the actual state of affairs in Newcolonizedland.

As a novel, Lies, Inc. is quite rough around the edges. Its central ideas are consistent with a lot of Dick's later "gnostic" fiction, such as Ubik and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. If it hadn't been for the few lost pages of manuscript, he might have managed to finalize the full text before his death, and then it would not have been at all out of place in his later bibliography. show less

The premise is baller: Earth is overcrowded, an evil genius invents and then capitalizes on a one-way teleportation system to a habitable planet (Whale's Mouth) outside the solar system. Rachmael ben Applebaum surmises that the grass might not be so green on the other side of the Telpor gates and decides to take his ship out there the long way (18 year one-way trip) to see if anyone wants to join the Earthling ranks again. The teleportation syndicate's attempts to thwart his journey leave him without a deep-sleep component. Hooray! Love reading about descents into madness. Except... this was too bizarre and disjointed. Disappointing! Shockingly, the inhabitants of Whale's Mouth have been conscripted into an army with the purpose of show more conquering Earth (turns out the teleportation system CAN function both ways... everyone's pretty upset with themselves that they fell for the evil genius's ruse). Hopefully this is one of his worst - I like the drug-trip feel of his writing, but this was WAY garbled. show less

Another word soup of a novel by PKD.
Reading the shambolic development of 'Lies, Inc.' from the original novella 'The Unteleported Man', it is little wonder that it is a fairly weak effort.

The plot, such as it is, is weak and poorly developed and the two dimensional characters are incredibly unengaging. As far as I can make out, the additional material is slotted into the middle of the original text and is the dreadful LSD trippy nonsense that I can live without.

Frankly, I have had enough of wasting time on this poor quality, dated material and I am close to giving up with PKD. I've resolved to give three more books a chance to be actually enjoyable... hopefully I strike lucky.

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

In the early 21st century, Earth has become overcrowded and has begun to look toward space as a potential new home. Only one habitable planet has been found — Whale’s Mouth — and it’s said to be a paradise. Rachmael ben Applebaum’s company has developed a spaceship that will take settlers there, but the trip takes 18 years. Just as business is about to begin, it’s undercut by Trails of Hoffman, Inc., a company who has developed a new teleporting technology that will get settlers to Whale’s Mouth in only 15 minutes. The only catch is that it’s a one-way trip — once you leave, you can’t come back. Ben Applebaum, whose company has been financially devastated by this new show more technology, discovers that the videos of happy settlers have been faked and thinks there’s something nefarious going on at Whale’s Mouth. After all, Trails of Hoffman is run by Germans, and their eugenic ideas have not been forgotten. Ben Applebaum also believes that the United Nations, also led by Germans, might be in league with Trails of Hoffman. With the help of a company called Lies, Inc., ben Applebaum sets out on the 36-year round-trip to investigate and inform the world about what’s happening in Whale’s Mouth.

Lies, Inc. is the most inaccessible PKD work I’ve ever read. It actually starts off well — I loved the premise and couldn’t wait to find out what was going on at Whale’s Mouth. (Except that I still have no idea what was up with the rat in ben Applebaum’s head.) But just as ben Applebaum sets out, things get really weird. Too weird. In the middle of the novel, ben Applebaum gets hit by an LSD-coated dart and most of the rest of the story is one big time-warped acid trip for him and for the reader. There’s talk about paraworlds, hypnagogic experiences, paranoia, bad psychotherapy, and the illusion of reality. None of this is new for a PKD story, but this time the reader has no idea where or when the characters are. The plot jumps around in time and space and is so disorienting that the reader doesn’t know what’s going on. I think perhaps that if I read it a few more times, I could make more sense of it, but I really don’t want to.

Suddenly at nearly the end of Lies, Inc., things get back on track. At that point, I said to myself, “This feels like someone dropped a huge acid sequence into the middle of a novella.” After a few minutes of investigation on the internet, I found an afterword by PKD’s literary executor, Paul Williams, explaining that that’s exactly what happened. Lies, Inc. is an expansion of Philip K. Dick’s novella The Unteleported Man. The huge awful chunk in the middle (you can tell exactly where it begins and ends) is an addition to the novel that was originally rejected (with very good reason) by Don Wollheim at Ace. It gets complicated after that, but basically it was added back in after Dick’s death and patched up a bit by SF author John Sladek. The result is that a really cool novella was turned into something quite unreadable. I can recommend it only to PKD completists who want to know how weird it can get. To others, I suggest reading The Unteleported Man instead.

I listened to Lies, Inc. on audio. Brilliance Audio has just produced several old PKD works, and I’m excited about that! This one was read by Luke Daniels, who is fast becoming one of my favorite readers. His narration actually made the acid trip bearable — it’s probably the only reason I didn’t quit Lies, Inc. show less

Even as a fairly strong PKDick enthusiast, it was hard to enjoy this one. Like other works typical of his final writings, this book also meanders through a bevy of half-formed ideas. A madness infects these works that repeatedly hints at the writer's brilliance, but unfortunately he can't reign in his enthusiasm for big ideas like reality, meaning, sanity, identity, government, corporatism, etc. into a cohesive plot. With some bits of comedy, suspense and occasional insight into the universe and human condition, this book should still be skipped when greater realizations of the author's vision can be enjoyed elsewhere in his earlier oeuvre.

Whoo, boy. Unless you like your Philip K. Dick mixed with a heavy dose of Hunter S. Thompson, avoid this book like the plague. If you don't believe me, read the afterword first, which explains how the book went through several iterations - it's a Frankenstein's monster of parts and revisions.