The World Jones Made, Philip K Dick, Ace Books, 1956, 199 pp
Jones, first name Floyd, is able to see the future. He is a tormented misfit in a strictly controlled postnuclear world. The military controls society and it is forbidden to even dream of a better world. The ruling philosophy, Relativism, has made right and wrong irrelevant; basically anything goes except for dreaming about the good old days or even about any different kind of days.
Cussick works in security for the FedGov and comes into conflict with Jones, because the man has somewhat unintentionally become a messiah of forbidden dreaming and must be stopped. When Cussick's new wife joins the cult of Jones, life becomes seriously difficult.
That is the plot as far as I could tell. The World Jones Made is Dick's second novel and shares some clunky attributes such as wooden characters and dialogue but lacks the excitement of Solar Lottery. I found no character I could really place my hopes on. His theme of moral ambiguity becomes the state of the world in this story; even Jones is caught up in it.
Despite mutants being developed for life on another planet and weird protoplasmic, cloud-like entities, despite a possibly happy ending for some and disaster for others, I was a bit bored while reading. That is not to say Dick was unable to see the future himself. The world he creates has alarming parallels to our current one, including the probability that those in charge don't really know what they are doing.
Possibly The World Jones Made is too similar to the one we have allowed to come into being.
(The World Jones Made is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)
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