The Zap Gun Book

Zapping good fun.

If PKD's The Zap Gun were ever made into a film, an animated cartoon highlighting the author's tongue-in-cheek humor would work marvels. For more audience fun, a director could even insert a laugh track.

Sure, there's a number of the author's signature New Wave SF themes (government deception, corporate manipulation, media distortion, mind screwing & mind altering drugs) but all the heady philosophic stuff happens within the context of what might be the wackiest, wonkiest, zonkeist SF novel ever written. Zap. Zap. Zap. Got ya!

It's war! 1950s style cold war, that is. We're in 2004 and it's Wes-bloc vs. Peep-East locked in perpetual stalemate. Weapons development is key. Lars Powderdry for Wes-bloc and Lilo Topchev for Peep-East design the latest fashions in deadly weapons while in a trace state - after all, their respective side must always keep one step ahead.

But here's the trick: Lars and Lilo drawings aren't used to create real weapons; rather, their fancy sketches are merely turned into trinkets and toys for the gullible general public. Oh, yes, the pursaps, the poor saps that make up the general population must be kept in ignorance.

Why? Basically for two reasons: 1) Pursaps want to feel safe and secure - nothing better than knowing your side has the latest in sophisticated weaponry to annihilate the bad guys; 2) Pursaps fuel the consumer economy by buying all those fashionable toys and trinkets and gadgets.

Then crisis hits - an alien invasion is under way. For the human race to survive, Wes-bloc and Peep-East must unite in a real war with real weapons with their first line of defense... well, to have Lars and Lilo meet in a luxury hotel in Fairfax, Iceland so they can enter the trace state together and create an honest-to-goodness real, effective weapon to zap those pesky aliens.

Does all this sound out-and-out preposterous, ludicrous, ridiculous? Welcome to The Zap Gun. What's uncanny about PKD 's zapper is all the many stinging, satirical zaps fired at politics and society back in the mid-1960s apply even more to our world today.

Ready, aim, fire! Take a gander at this round of Zap Gun zaps:

Lucky Bagman, TV Personality
Lars Powderdry reflects on the power of television, "I'd be one of those fans of Lucky Bagman and his morning TV interview shows that accepts what he's told, knows it's true because he saw it on that big screen with all those stereo colors, richer than life." Philip K. Dick wrote this novel in the early 1960s. He could see television and mass media would become progressively more influential, creating an entire popular culture that would, in effect, become the dominant influence in people's lives. Deeper into the story, Lars Powerderdry can even threaten government and military officials with his status as celebrity to reach the pursaps directly through his connection with Lucky Bagman and TV.

Turning Loose a Right-Winger
For years, Surley G. Febbs has been scanning educational tapes (edutapes) at the main branch of the Boise, Idaho Public Library. Surley G. Febbs has made himself an expert on the latest deadliest weapons and all other aggressive technologies and gadgets in his off-hours away from his job at New Era of Cooperative-Financing Savings & Loan Corporation of Boise where he performs the job of loan manager, as per:

"In detecting deadbeats he was unmatched. He could look an applicant, especially a Negro, over in less than one microsecond and discern the actual composition of their ethical psychic-structure."

When Surley G. Febbs is chosen to be on the board of an influential government organization, we really get to peer inside the personality and values of this extreme right-winger. Reading about Surley G. Febbs during the events at the Capital in Washington, D.C. this past week has been eerie, eerie, sending shivers up my spine. Philip K. Dick could clearly see the ways in which freedom and democracy would be reduced when all the Surley G. Febbs-types are given power.

Drone On, Drone On
Peter Freid buzzes like a busy bee in his job as draftsman and engineer. Peter always wears his necktie like a "lead-rope from his unbuttoned, sweaty shirt, as if, under former slave conditions, Pete had been led periodically to slaughter by means of it." Philip K. Dick could detect worker bees like Peter surrender their individuality, their creativity, the full flower of their humanity to the humdrum routine of regimentation and conformity centered around the function they perform for their employer. Recall PKD rebelled against being forced to participate in the ROTC program at his college - and for good reason: as a young man of powerful creative imagination, Phil refused to be a cog in anybody's wheel.

Bureaucratic Bullshit
Agencies and organizations come in for a special satiric scalding. Here's Lars talking about one report: "Minor Protocides, Subdivision Crop-production, Archives. Of Bulganingrad. A branch of Middle Auton-tool Safety Standards Ministry, which is their cover for their non-bacteriological warfare research agencies of every kind. As you know."

Large organizations are large organizations - it doesn't matter if the organization is private or public, a corporation or government, the largeness has the tendency to reduce people to order-takers and dullards. And large organizations have a tendency to treat outsiders like inferiors, subjecting them to reams and reams of inflated, jargon-filled babble.

Ol' Orville
Lars discovers a round grapefruit-sized object that speaks and has the vast capacity of, to use our current language, the world wide web. Lars asks Ol' Orville: "What am I." To which all-knowing Ol' Orville replies:

"Mr. Lars, you have posed an ontological query. The Indo-European linguistic structure involved defeats a fair analysis; would you rephrase your question?" Lars says, "No, I wouldn't." At this point, Ol' Orville provides the answer: "Mr. Lars, you are a forked radish."

Having ample experience with the web, we in 2021 can better appreciate Lars' interface with Ol' Orville the all-knowing supercomputer.

The fun continues. The craziness continues. The twists and surprises continue. I purposely avoided writing about Lars' dealing with Ms. Lilo Topchev or any reference to that alien attack. Much better for each reader to discover while turning the pages. Grab The Zap Gun and feel the zap.


American author Philip K. Dick, 1928-1982