The Simulacra
Ace paperback original, 1964
The Simulacra (1964) is a science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick set in a future American-German state whose president is a robot, maintained as a public fiction while real power operates behind him. One of four novels Dick published in 1964. This is the first edition, an Ace paperback original.
Softcover. First Edition, Paperback Original. Ace F-301 ($0.40). Cover art by Em Emsh. New York: Ace, 1964. Levack 37a. Wintz & Hyde SF26.1. #10503.
"M9" inked on front cover, else fine sharp copy with just a couple soft creases.
Softcover. First Edition, Paperback Original. Ace F-301 ($0.40). Cover art by Em Emsh. New York: Ace, 1964. Levack 37a. Wintz & Hyde SF26.1. #10503.
"M9" inked on front cover, else fine sharp copy with just a couple soft creases.
Additional Details
The Simulacra (1964) is set in the mid-twenty-first century in the USEA, a merged political entity combining the United States and a West German state. The novel was one of four Dick published that year, expanding his earlier story "The Novelty Act," first printed in Fantastic, and was originally titled First Lady of Earth.
The government the USEA's citizens believe in does not exist. The president, known as der Alte ("the Old Man"), is a robot, a simulacrum maintained to give the public a familiar face of authority. Real power resides with Nicole Thibodeaux, the First Lady, who is adored by the population with something close to religious devotion. Society is formally divided into two groups: the Ges (Geheimnisträger, "bearers of the secret") who know the president is artificial, and the Bes (Befehlsträger, "implementers of instruction") who do not. The entire political structure is a managed performance, sustained across generations through information control and the manufactured cult of Nicole's personality.
Against this backdrop Dick assembles a typically crowded cast. A powerful German pharmaceutical cartel has lobbied through the McPhearson Act, outlawing psychotherapy and replacing it with drug treatment. Dr. Egon Superb, a psychoanalyst, defies the ban in a televised confrontation. A telekinetic Soviet pianist, Richard Kongrosian, plays Brahms without touching the keyboard and is sought for a recording contract by a music company operating near the Mexican border. Living advertisements literally buzz through the air like annoying flies. Time travel exists and is used by those with access to manipulate commercial and political outcomes.
The novel is less tightly plotted than some of Dick's work from this period and more interesting for it. It reads as a catalogue of his preoccupations in 1964, and the sheer density of ideas, false reality, corporate pharmaceutical power, the automation of political authority, media saturation, psychic phenomena, and Cold War geopolitics, makes it one of the more revealing entries in his bibliography. The simulacrum at the novel's center anticipates questions Dick would continue to pursue for the rest of his career.
The government the USEA's citizens believe in does not exist. The president, known as der Alte ("the Old Man"), is a robot, a simulacrum maintained to give the public a familiar face of authority. Real power resides with Nicole Thibodeaux, the First Lady, who is adored by the population with something close to religious devotion. Society is formally divided into two groups: the Ges (Geheimnisträger, "bearers of the secret") who know the president is artificial, and the Bes (Befehlsträger, "implementers of instruction") who do not. The entire political structure is a managed performance, sustained across generations through information control and the manufactured cult of Nicole's personality.
Against this backdrop Dick assembles a typically crowded cast. A powerful German pharmaceutical cartel has lobbied through the McPhearson Act, outlawing psychotherapy and replacing it with drug treatment. Dr. Egon Superb, a psychoanalyst, defies the ban in a televised confrontation. A telekinetic Soviet pianist, Richard Kongrosian, plays Brahms without touching the keyboard and is sought for a recording contract by a music company operating near the Mexican border. Living advertisements literally buzz through the air like annoying flies. Time travel exists and is used by those with access to manipulate commercial and political outcomes.
The novel is less tightly plotted than some of Dick's work from this period and more interesting for it. It reads as a catalogue of his preoccupations in 1964, and the sheer density of ideas, false reality, corporate pharmaceutical power, the automation of political authority, media saturation, psychic phenomena, and Cold War geopolitics, makes it one of the more revealing entries in his bibliography. The simulacrum at the novel's center anticipates questions Dick would continue to pursue for the rest of his career.
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