The World Jones Made
Rare first hardcover edition, 1968
The World Jones Made (1956) is a science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick set in a post-war future governed by a doctrine of enforced Relativism, in which a mutant who cannot escape reliving the past year becomes the focal point of a dangerous mass movement. This is the first hardcover edition, published by Sidgwick & Jackson in 1968, twelve years after the Ace paperback original. Scarce.
Hardcover. First British Edition, First Printing. Octavo, maroon paper-covered boards with gilt lettering on spine. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., 1968. Levack 48g. Wintz & Hyde SF30.8. #11378.
Fine in a near fine dust jacket with minor wear. A new publisher's price sticker has been placed over the original price of "18s" on the front flap.
Hardcover. First British Edition, First Printing. Octavo, maroon paper-covered boards with gilt lettering on spine. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., 1968. Levack 48g. Wintz & Hyde SF30.8. #11378.
Fine in a near fine dust jacket with minor wear. A new publisher's price sticker has been placed over the original price of "18s" on the front flap.
Additional Details
The World Jones Made (1956) is Philip K. Dick's second novel, set in a post-Third World War future where Earth is governed by the Federal World Government under a doctrine called Relativism. Relativism forbids any claim to absolute truth. Belief, faith, and opinion are treated as threats to social stability, and those who insist otherwise are imprisoned for dogmatism. It is a doctrine of enforced agnosticism, and Dick presents it with genuine ambivalence: Relativism is tolerant and repressive in equal measure, a system that achieves peace by making certainty illegal.
Doug Cussick is a Fedgov security officer tasked with enforcing these laws. His work brings him into contact with Floyd Jones, a mutant whose ability cannot be explained by Relativism and cannot be dismissed. Jones does not simply see the future. He is permanently living one year behind the present, experiencing everything twice. He cannot change what he already knows will happen because knowing it in advance is the condition of his existence. He is, as he describes it, a man with one foot permanently stuck in the past, condemned to grind over every moment of his life a second time. The knowledge offers no freedom.
Jones's ability makes him immune to Relativism's logic. What he predicts is, by definition, true. This makes him legally untouchable and politically explosive. He begins as a sideshow curiosity and gradually becomes the center of a mass movement, preaching humanity's destiny among the stars. His crusade turns catastrophic when his followers wage war against the Drifters, strange organism-like aliens drifting toward Earth, mistaking their movement for an invasion. By the time Jones understands the Drifters are harmless, it is too late.
Running parallel is the story of a group of genetically engineered mutants kept in a pressurized habitat called the Refuge, a sealed artificial environment maintained by the government. They are fragile beings who cannot survive in Earth's atmosphere, designed at some point for colonization of Venus, and largely forgotten. Their subplot mirrors the novel's central concern with beings who do not belong to the world they find themselves in.
First published as an Ace Double paired with Agent of the Unknown by Margaret St. Clair in 1956.
Doug Cussick is a Fedgov security officer tasked with enforcing these laws. His work brings him into contact with Floyd Jones, a mutant whose ability cannot be explained by Relativism and cannot be dismissed. Jones does not simply see the future. He is permanently living one year behind the present, experiencing everything twice. He cannot change what he already knows will happen because knowing it in advance is the condition of his existence. He is, as he describes it, a man with one foot permanently stuck in the past, condemned to grind over every moment of his life a second time. The knowledge offers no freedom.
Jones's ability makes him immune to Relativism's logic. What he predicts is, by definition, true. This makes him legally untouchable and politically explosive. He begins as a sideshow curiosity and gradually becomes the center of a mass movement, preaching humanity's destiny among the stars. His crusade turns catastrophic when his followers wage war against the Drifters, strange organism-like aliens drifting toward Earth, mistaking their movement for an invasion. By the time Jones understands the Drifters are harmless, it is too late.
Running parallel is the story of a group of genetically engineered mutants kept in a pressurized habitat called the Refuge, a sealed artificial environment maintained by the government. They are fragile beings who cannot survive in Earth's atmosphere, designed at some point for colonization of Venus, and largely forgotten. Their subplot mirrors the novel's central concern with beings who do not belong to the world they find themselves in.
First published as an Ace Double paired with Agent of the Unknown by Margaret St. Clair in 1956.
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