Galactic Pot-Healer (Gollancz S.F.)
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Product Description
Product Description
Joe Fernwright works as a pot-healer, a repairer of ceramics, in a dull future where there isn't much call for his skills. He's broke and bored when the offer from the Glimmung comes along. It might just be the answer to both his financial and spiritual problems, even if it does mean working on a strange project on Plowman's Planet with other assorted odd creatures. The only thing is that the Glimmung may just be divine and ask for more than Joe's commitment to the job . . .
About the Author
Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) was born in Chicago but lived in California for most of his life. He went to college at Berkeley for a year, ran a record store and had his own classical-music show on a local radio station. He published his first short story, 'Beyond Lies the Wub' in 1952. Among his many fine novels are The Man in the High Castle, Time Out of Joint, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Philip K Dick craved status as one of literature's great novelists, he wrote numerous 'mainstream' novels which, in his early years, publishers wouldn't even touch. It was when he was writing SF that his extaordinary mind was set free.
He was fascinated by psychology and theology and has many strange beliefs and theories, and coupled with many inexplicable visions that plagued him throughout his life, his work was unlike anything else at the time.
Ostensibly, Dick's works are obviously SF, dealing with androids, aliens, robots, natural disasters, moons, planets etc. but they go so much deeper. The SF element takes a back seat to the story and serves merely as a backdrop for Dick's imagination to run free and a tool for him to manipulate his characters and beliefs (and some cases for his characters to manipulate himself!).
The Galactic Pot Healer is no different. (I got there eventually!)
On the surface it's the story of Joe Fernwright in a drab dystopian Earth scraping an existence from the fast-declining business brought in by his talent for fixing ceramics. He receives stange messages from a creature calling itelf 'Glimmung' summoning him to help raise the underwater ruins of a cathedral on an alien world. However, if you read between the lines and look a little deeper.....well, that would be telling wouldn't it!
It's slow, yet oddly captivating story and one of my favourites of Dick's works. It's not a very good place to start if you're new to him; you'd best go for 'Ubik' or 'Do Androids Dream....'. If you're familiar with his works then go for it; this as a fantastic story, it's short but sweet too at 180 ish pages. I loved it, it's up there with his big five in my opinion; 'Main in the High Castle', 'Ubik', 'A Scanner Darkly', 'Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch' & 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'.
The last three words are absolutely punishing.
He was fascinated by psychology and theology and has many strange beliefs and theories, and coupled with many inexplicable visions that plagued him throughout his life, his work was unlike anything else at the time.
Ostensibly, Dick's works are obviously SF, dealing with androids, aliens, robots, natural disasters, moons, planets etc. but they go so much deeper. The SF element takes a back seat to the story and serves merely as a backdrop for Dick's imagination to run free and a tool for him to manipulate his characters and beliefs (and some cases for his characters to manipulate himself!).
The Galactic Pot Healer is no different. (I got there eventually!)
On the surface it's the story of Joe Fernwright in a drab dystopian Earth scraping an existence from the fast-declining business brought in by his talent for fixing ceramics. He receives stange messages from a creature calling itelf 'Glimmung' summoning him to help raise the underwater ruins of a cathedral on an alien world. However, if you read between the lines and look a little deeper.....well, that would be telling wouldn't it!
It's slow, yet oddly captivating story and one of my favourites of Dick's works. It's not a very good place to start if you're new to him; you'd best go for 'Ubik' or 'Do Androids Dream....'. If you're familiar with his works then go for it; this as a fantastic story, it's short but sweet too at 180 ish pages. I loved it, it's up there with his big five in my opinion; 'Main in the High Castle', 'Ubik', 'A Scanner Darkly', 'Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch' & 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'.
The last three words are absolutely punishing.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'am an avid reader of PKD and can honestly say that i have enjoyed all those that have grabbed my attention; Galactic Pot-Healer is no exception. It is as strange and awe inspiring as anything else that can be found in Dick's literary universe, yet, it retains some kind of quaint homeliness, partly as a result of the protagonist's profession as a healer of pots.
The themes focus on the perception/notion of reality, religious experience, psychological dislocation, and psychosis, as well as analogies of 'craft' in general and perhaps writing in particular. The narrative shifts and twists, that so characterises much of Dick's style, are found here seamlessly moving the reader from one sense of reality to another, which is actually quite affecting.
This novel is definitely up there for me with Ubik, Flow My Tears, The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream.. , yet it is perhaps not as accessible for a first time Dick reader. Having said that, it is a fairly quick read, and thoroughly recommended if you like the stranger side of sci-fi.
I think ill go make a pot now.
The themes focus on the perception/notion of reality, religious experience, psychological dislocation, and psychosis, as well as analogies of 'craft' in general and perhaps writing in particular. The narrative shifts and twists, that so characterises much of Dick's style, are found here seamlessly moving the reader from one sense of reality to another, which is actually quite affecting.
This novel is definitely up there for me with Ubik, Flow My Tears, The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream.. , yet it is perhaps not as accessible for a first time Dick reader. Having said that, it is a fairly quick read, and thoroughly recommended if you like the stranger side of sci-fi.
I think ill go make a pot now.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This isn't PKD's best known or best book, but it's a gorgeous little piece of Science Fiction, and is one of his less rambly books with a religious theme. And, not to detract from the story, the artwork on the Pan Science Fiction edition is just amazing. It is a really ridiculously beautiful book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
just plain wierd
it's probably an atheistical kind of thing, by which PKD was attempting to make belief appear foolish and grotesque, however this novel has extraordinary symbolism that makes it a... Read more
Published on 24 July 2007 by A. CRAIG
The next Dick book that should be a film
I lent this book out years ago, along with too many other Dick books, it's time to have it back again. Read more
Published on 27 Sep 2002 by Old Badger
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