Time Out of Joint in War Nerd Reading List

Feb 16, 2017 Nick Imrie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction

My edition of 'Time Out of Joint' has a great essay at the back by Lou Stathis. He describes Dick's difficult existence as an author: poverty-stricken, writing weird idiosyncratic books that were of interest to no publishers, and intermittently cranking out stock SF to pay the bills, dosed up to the eyeballs on amphetamines in order to produce works that he despised.
When you've read that then the structure of 'Time Out of Joint' makes a lot more sense. One of Dick's earlier works, it's essential My edition of 'Time Out of Joint' has a great essay at the back by Lou Stathis. He describes Dick's difficult existence as an author: poverty-stricken, writing weird idiosyncratic books that were of interest to no publishers, and intermittently cranking out stock SF to pay the bills, dosed up to the eyeballs on amphetamines in order to produce works that he despised.
When you've read that then the structure of 'Time Out of Joint' makes a lot more sense. One of Dick's earlier works, it's essentially three very different kinds of books stitched together. The first third is the sort of book that will later come to epitomise Dick's work: mysterious and paranoid. About a third of the way through it suddenly transforms into a very serviceable suspense-thriller as our hero races to outwit his more powerful, shadowy enemies. You may think to yourself, 'Hey, this is The Truman Show!' (One of the great pleasures of reading Dick is that he is so inventive but weird that his ideas often get picked up and distorted into films, so as you read you find yourself suddenly recognising it: 'Hey, this is Blade Runner! Wow, this is Total Recall!') Then the third part of the book is a standard Campbellian SF: all tidied up and rationally explained in long infodumps, or at least, those parts that can be rationalised away are explained, those that cannot are never mentioned again.
Fundamentally, this makes for an unsatisfying book. If you like Good Hard SF then the first third is confusing and ill-explained. What's up with things dissolving into bits of paper? It makes no sense. Every character takes turns holding the idiot-ball, most especially the government employees who are supposed to be managing the fake world that Gumm is trapped in, but somehow forgot the Gumm's not allowed to have a radio because he will hear them talking about him!
If you like the strange and mysterious musings on ontology then the neat little wrap-up at the end is an infuriating bait and switch, as everything that was intriguing is boxed-up and thrown away. You can see PKD racing to get the whole thing over and done with as he totally abandons any attempt at finesse. Characters from earlier re-emerge through enormously implausible co-incidence so that they can deliver their monologues and disappear again.
But if you like PKD, then the whole thing is very interesting. This books shows its working more than most, so you can almost see the cogs in PKD's mind turning as he puts it all together. Like the scarecrow people on the bus seen by Vic, the structure of the book is poking through the story.
The other PKD standard is, of course, his fairly ropey sexual politics. Relationships between men and women are rather antagonistic, with the annoying females nagging and missing the point and generally getting in the way. Poor old Junie (beautiful but stupid) reaches the point of parody: everybody else in the story has realised that something is very wrong with the world, that Gumm is somehow at the centre, that reality is crumbling, that people are not what they seem, but Junie, bless her heart, is still running around wailing: 'What about MEEEEEEEEE? Ragle, love me!' Eh, I mean, it's not the point of the book and it's by no means a big enough problem to ruin the work, it's just kind of a bummer. I get this a lot with golden era SF: 'Great story, interesting ideas, shame about the poor representation of women.'
The relationships between men, on the other hand, are great. There's a very touching brotherly affection between Vic and Ragle, especially the understated nobility of Vic's decision to go with Ragle and discover the truth, no matter the cost to himself. It's a beautiful and bitter-sweet scene where Vic and Ragle discover the truth and what that means about their relationship to each other. ...more

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Oct 11, 2020 Rashid Yasin rated it really liked it

Shelves: sci-fi, fiction

More good sci-fi from PKD. Although I don't know that I'd call Time Out of Joint a masterpiece, it's another example of extremely solid sci-fi from a prolific and intelligent author. The overall plot is easy enough: imagine The Truman Show, but written a couple of decades earlier and instead of a TV show, it's a ploy to keep the protagonist in a saccharine, low-stress, environment while he solves logic puzzles that predict where the lunar colonists are sending missiles onto the earth during an o ...more

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