Galactic pot-healer
by Philip K. Dick · first published 1969
50% recommend50% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Inventive science fiction with a wry, offbeat tone. It is an underrated Philip K. Dick novel, featuring a false-creator mythology and a playful plot. Suited to those who already enjoy his mind-bending ideas.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Galactic Pot-Healer is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in 1969. The novel deals with a number of philosophical and political issues such as repressive societies, fatalism, and the search for meaning in life. Dick also wrote a children's book set in the same universe, Nick and the Glimmung, in 1966. It was published posthumously in 1988. The story concerns a man who thanklessly heals pots in a totalitarian future Earth, only to be summoned by a godlike alien known as Glimmung, who has recruited him as part of a multispecies specialist team sent
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…than the Three Stigmata. For me, Ubik is PKD's greatest and most accessible book. 1st rank - Ubik, The Three Stigmata, A Martian Time Slip, Faith of Our Fathers 2nd rank - (The Divine Invasion or The Galactic Pot Healer ... don't remember which now... it's been a long time), A Maze of Death 3rd rank - VALIS, Eye in the Sky Honorable mention: the middle of Lies, Inc -- it has a weak start and ending, but the middle…
on “How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later, Philip K. Dick” ↗…you have to be in the right mood to savor a Dick book, so maybe I was in the wrong mood that time. The other first-tier PKD book for me is Martian Time-Slip. Second-tier PKD books for me are VALIS and Galactic Pot Healer. Third-tier are Maze of Death, Eye in the Sky, and Divine Invasion (the 2nd in the VALIS trilogy.. didn't like the 3rd in the series, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer at all). Many of his other…
on “Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans (1975)” ↗…be any more pleased with anything else he wrote. That said, if you are interested in reading more by him, of his books I can recommend: - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Martian Time-Slip - Galactic Pot Healer - Eye in the Sky - the middle part of Lies, Inc Some of his short stories: - Beyond Lies the Wub - Faith of Our Fathers
on “The Essential Philip K. Dick” ↗…they can be a completely fine introduction to his mind bending ideas, especially if you want to convince friends who aren't into reading to try out his books. INTERMEDIATE: - Stuff from his mid-years: Galactic Pot Healer, Time Out Of Joint, Martian Time Slip, Confessions of a Crap Artist, The Crack In Space. Still very good stuff, but I think you need to be already well acquainted with PKD to fully appreciate them and…
on “Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans (1975)” ↗Galactic Pot Healer. It's fantastic. Odd and certainly not a masterpiece, but still some of Dick's best writing. It's one of his instances of mythology creation; it's closer to a fantasy than sci-fi. Apparently it was one…
on “How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later, Philip K. Dick” ↗…they're often throwbacks to his earlier pre-1960s work. Another sad truth is that Dick's output was also drive by the need for money (by 1964 he had three ex-wives). The odd one out from this period is Galactic Pot-Healer, which Dick claimed to have no memory of having written (too many amphetamines), and which he practically disowned. But it's one of his best, a colourful Vonnegutian mix of tragedy and comedy.
on “Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans (1975)” ↗…variations on Gnostic mythology and metaphysics, even going back to earlier works such as Three Stigmata and UBIK, both of which put forth "false creator" mythologies. My favourite underrated PKD novel is Galactic Pot-Healer, which is a really fun read. This time the false creator is Glimmung, a large whale-like creature that claims to have godlike powers, and which is attempting to remotely contact a number of artisans across…
on “Four Kinds of Dystopia” ↗For those who have read Dick's "standards", I recommend one of his novels that never appears in these lists, and probably never will: Galactic Pot-Healer (1968). PKD later said he couldn't call writing it, this being the period where he consumed copious amounts of amphetamines, and produced a ridiculous number of novels and short stories. I still think…
on “The Essential Philip K. Dick” ↗…bladerunner novel was about a courier carrying surgical instruments so that the doctor would not be arrested for black market medical treatment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bladerunner FWIW I was a Galactic Pot-Healer fan.
on “Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)” ↗It's Galactic Pot-Healer: https://everything2.com/title/machine+translation https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/240589/need-author... Here's an excerpt: “Do you have a title for me?” Joe asked; he held his pen ready.…
on “The Beautiful Mind-Bending of Stanislaw Lem (2019)” ↗…Like translating a phrase into a foreign language and back repeatedly, I inagine you’d end up with something fun and impressionistic. This exact game features in the plot of Philip K. Dick’s 1969 novel, Galactic Pot-Healer.
on “Depixelizing Pixel Art (2011)” ↗Like in Philip K Dick's 1969 book Galactic Pot Healer.
on “How a Portuguese-To-English Phrasebook Became a Cult Comedy Sensation” ↗Galactic Pot Healer by Philip K. Dick has some examples of this too
on “English as She Is Spoke” ↗…out of my own collection. I ended up getting the odd job of looking up the original English for the translations of excerpts from the French editions of Dick's work (a very PKD task, like The Game from Galactic Pot Healer) quoted in the book. Carrere was clearly cribbing heavily from Sutin, when he was wasn't just making it up.
on “Paranoid Android: The Divine Madness of Philip K Dick” ↗