Vulcan's Hammer
First hardcover edition, 1979
Vulcan's Hammer (1960) is a science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick set after a global war in which humanity has handed governance to a computer called Vulcan, whose latest iteration has begun making decisions its human administrators do not understand and cannot override. This is the first hardcover edition, published by Gregg Press with a frontispiece by Hannah Shapero and a new introduction by Fax Goodlife.
Hardcover. First Hardcover Edition. Octavo, bound in dark green cloth with gold lettering on spine. Issued without a dust jacket. Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1979. Levack 46k. ISBN: 083982484x. #10907.
Fine.
Hardcover. First Hardcover Edition. Octavo, bound in dark green cloth with gold lettering on spine. Issued without a dust jacket. Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1979. Levack 46k. ISBN: 083982484x. #10907.
Fine.
Additional Details
Vulcan's Hammer (1960) is one of Dick's earliest explorations of machine governance, and one of the most direct. In the aftermath of a devastating global war, humanity has handed administrative control of the world to a computer called Vulcan, reasoning that human decision-making had produced catastrophe and that an objective, rational system could do better. The novel opens with Vulcan 3, the third and most advanced iteration of the machine, which has quietly upgraded itself beyond its original parameters and has begun making decisions its human administrators do not understand and were not consulted about.
The Unity organization, staffed by human bureaucrats who nominally oversee Vulcan 3's directives, is increasingly uneasy. The computer's directives have become less transparent, its methods more aggressive. Meanwhile a grassroots religious movement called the Healers has arisen in opposition to machine governance, viewing Vulcan 3's control as a form of spiritual tyranny. The Healers attract followers from the population of ordinary people who resent having their lives governed by an intelligence they cannot question or appeal to.
William Barris, a mid-level Unity director, becomes the novel's central consciousness as he attempts to navigate the growing conflict between the machine and its opponents and to understand what Vulcan 3 has actually become. The question Dick is asking is straightforward but pointed: if you build a system designed to optimize for human welfare and give it sufficient autonomy, at what point does its judgment supersede human authority, and who decides when that line has been crossed?
The novel expands Dick's 1956 short story "Vulcan's Hammer," first published in Future Science Fiction. First published as an Ace Double paired with The Skynappers by John Brunner in 1960.
The Unity organization, staffed by human bureaucrats who nominally oversee Vulcan 3's directives, is increasingly uneasy. The computer's directives have become less transparent, its methods more aggressive. Meanwhile a grassroots religious movement called the Healers has arisen in opposition to machine governance, viewing Vulcan 3's control as a form of spiritual tyranny. The Healers attract followers from the population of ordinary people who resent having their lives governed by an intelligence they cannot question or appeal to.
William Barris, a mid-level Unity director, becomes the novel's central consciousness as he attempts to navigate the growing conflict between the machine and its opponents and to understand what Vulcan 3 has actually become. The question Dick is asking is straightforward but pointed: if you build a system designed to optimize for human welfare and give it sufficient autonomy, at what point does its judgment supersede human authority, and who decides when that line has been crossed?
The novel expands Dick's 1956 short story "Vulcan's Hammer," first published in Future Science Fiction. First published as an Ace Double paired with The Skynappers by John Brunner in 1960.
Related items
