The World Jones Made

Author - Philip K. Dick ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Vintage was reviewed on 25-Oct-2008.

Search ISBN:0679742190 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. The World Jones Made Reference Book. Classifications : General AAS United States World Literature Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Dick, Philip K. ( D ) Authors, A-Z Science Fiction & Fantasy Subjects Books General Science Fiction Science Fiction & Fan . Click the following link to view the cover of The World Jones Made.

Related topics: General AAS. United States. World Literature. Subjects. Books. Dick, Philip K.. ( D ). Authors, A-Z. Subjects. Books.

1) Paperback Book The World Jones Made by Vintage. The World Jones Made has a wonderful Twilight Zone vibe to it--Jones can see the future, but for him it´s like living in the past. He also suffers from the Cassandra Complex; Nobody will believe his predictions until the future comes to pass. An array of interesting characters struggle in a world that swings from extreme to another. Philip K. Dick does a wonderful job (philosophically at least) demonstrating how ideologies come full circle. The plot is compelling until the middle, where it sidetracks into the mushy terrain of romantic drama with the leading guy & lady. This is not to say sci-fi couldn´t better represent human relationships--it certainly could, a point Philip K. Dick made himself in an interview featured in The Shifted Realities of Philip K. Dick. The problem in The World Jones Made is that much of the dramatic tension between the protagonist and his wife is saved until the dead middle of the story, at which point Philip unfortunately slows down the pacing by making the foray into romantic drama. However, the story picks up the pace again towards the end, hammering a tense climax with an ironic twist. Pacing issues aside, an excellent story filled with interesting ideas.¤

2) Paperback Book The World Jones Made by Vintage. Writing reviews on Philip Dick´s works is unsettling and leaves one open for all sorts of criticism - it is hard to encapsulate all the ideas he floated in each novel. He was a master of conceptual thinking and a great writer of science fiction and futuristic thought. He considered notions and concepts that most authors would kill to be able to have as original thought let alone be able to put them into the public thought pool as worthwhile and interesting fiction.

´The World Jones Made´ is a story based around a simple and fascinating premise. A human is born who can live a year ahead of the rest of us mere mortals. In other words, what we experience today he already knows. There is a catch, of course. A year is not necessarily all that predictive of outcomes that take many years to develop. So you can get it wrong though with interesting consequences, as our character discovers.

The central character is Floyd Jones. We are taken along his life´s journey and the impact his future sense has on society and the future. Dick weaves this journey into a future society with notions of an Orwellian ´big brother´ gone politically correct or as Dick calls it ´Relativism´.

This is not a book for space opera fans but one for the long suffering traditionalist who wants to ponder some concepts that will leave him wondering ´why didn´t I think of that?´

Somehow Dick gets to include in the story - themes of space travel, alien cultures, genetic modification and a raft of other traditional sci-fi concepts. There is no doubt that Dick is a true speculative genius and many a reader will sit quietly contemplating his words and ideas long after the book is finished. Dick just does that to people!

¤

3) Paperback Book The World Jones Made by Vintage. One of Dick´s early novels, The World Jones Made (1956) has well-realized characters and psychological complexity, but lacks a coherent plot focus. Without the reality breakdowns, multi-focal viewpoints, robots, and time paradoxes of Dick´s later pyrotechnic creations, it ranks as a minor work in the PKD canon but is interesting for what it tries to do, showing a blackly ironic rise and fall of a man called Jones. Jones, whose character is based on Hitler, is a "precog" who can see the future, and builds up a mass movement to oppose the prevailing state ideology of Relativism. The Jews´ role here is played by the Drifters, a harmless race of amoeba-like aliens, who represent the universe Jones wants to conquer. Jones is opposed by Cussick, the policeman, who is the voice of conventional, commonsense reality. But Jones is like Cussick´s alter ego, and the two men´s lives are entwined in complex and surprising ways. The psychology of the policeman and the unhappy marriage of the protagonist are elements to be found in a number of Dick´s later books. Here there is a somewhat contrived positive ending, but what impresses is Dick´s precognitive vision, which has been shown time and again in the years since the 50s to be right on the mark politically, sociologically, and philosophically.¤

4) Paperback Book The World Jones Made by Vintage. "The World Jones Made" is an early book in PKD´s huge production. In its frame there are resonances from Sartre and Kerouac. From the first, the deep and frightful knowledge of human acts futility: everything is written and immutable. From the second the angst that pursue many intellectuals in the late Fifties.

PKD constructs a disheveled post catastrophe world that imposes its fearful traits upon the reader. On this background the story of Jones, a foreseer that evolves from a fortuneteller to a religious messianic leader, is seen from the eyes of Cussick, a security agent that tries to stop him. Cussick represents the new establishment: the Relativists. They are trying to create a new utopia, but as many other utopist of the real world they are molding an universe without freedom and creativity. The answer that PKD gives to this is nihilism.

A dark yet captivating novel from a great writer that is trying his own mettle.
Reviewed by Max Yofre¤

5) Paperback Book The World Jones Made by Vintage. The other reviews of the book cover the plot and microcosms of The world Jones made, so I have little to add there.

I am surprised that many of Dick´s "Fans" view this as a "lesser work" I guess Mozart had a few "lesser works" as well eh?
This was actually my first Phillip K Dick novel, I had heard a lot about him, particularly in relation to his connection with Gnosticism and was surprised to find "the world Jones made" in my local book store.

Not yet having had the opportunity to delve into the world of Dick as I would like to, I can only judge this book stand-alone without the rest of Dick´s catalogue.
I started the book on Sunday morning and didn´t put it down until I was finished, a hurried lunch in between. I would describe it as a real page-turner.

If some of my the world´s leading sc-fi authors had Dick´s idea it would have been made into a 3000page trilogy, instead Dick fleshes away the pap of his contemporaries and gives us an emminently readble and thought provoking novel. Highly recommended.¤

6) Paperback Book The World Jones Made by Vintage. Floyd Jones is sullen, ungainly, and quite possibly mad, but in a very short time he will rise from telling fortunes at a mutant carnival to convulsing an entire planet. For although Jones has the power to see the future -- a power that makes his life a torment -- his real gift lies elsewhere: in his ability to make people dream again in a world where dreaming has been made illegal, even when the dream is indistinguishable from a nightmare.

In Philip K. Dick´s unsettling chronicle of the rise and fall of a postnuclear messiah, readers will find a novel that is as minutely realistic as it is prophetic. For along with its engineered mutants, hermaphroditic sex performers, and protoplasmic drifters from the stars, The World Jones Made gives us nothing less than a deadly accurate reading of our own hunger for belief.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 22-Nov-2008, 06797421909780679742197, 500-510-900-040-561-371-8

The World Jones Made, Book, Image © Vintage

Search: Vintage, Book Posters, Book Art