Dr. Futurity

By Philip K. Dick and John Brunner

Book Overview

In a future where death is embraced, a time-traveling doctor is the only one who can save a wounded resistance leader.

When Dr. Jim Parsons wakes up from a car accident, he finds himself in a future populated almost entirely by the young. But to keep the world run by the young, death is fetishized, and those who survive to old age are put down. In such a world, Parsons--with his innate desire to save lives--is a criminal and outcast. But for one revolutionary group, he may be just the savior they need to heal and revive their cryogenically frozen leader. And when he and the group journey to 1500s California, what they find causes them to question what they know about history and the underpinnings of their society. With the jarring immediacy of a car crash, Philip K. Dick throws both the reader and protagonist of Dr. Futurity into a bizarre future where healing is a crime and youth rules.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0547572204
• ISBN13: 9780547572208
• Release Date: April 2013
• Publisher: Mariner Books Classics
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Not his best, but good for Dick fans to read

This short PKD novel is not at the top of the list in execution but for Dick completists, it is an interesting time travel/paradox story. Many of us are now searching out more obscure stories by PKD, having read all his "classsics," and this novel certainly deserves a reading to compare it to his more fleshed-out novels.

perhaps the least weird Philip K. Dick novel..

Philip K. Dick novels are an acquired taste. He almost always has interesting things to say but often it is shrouded in some incomprehensible storyline. In one of his earlier and least known works, Dr. Futurity, we can both appreciate Philip K. Dick's imagination and not get bogged down with erroneous weirdness (albeit some would say it is this weirdness that makes his books so appealing).Dr. Futurity has a fundamental theme of the 'Back to the Future' film series - namely, folks travelling forward/backward in time with hopes of altering the course of history. In repeated time travelling episodes they actually see themselves from their previous journeys. In Dr. Futurity the purpose of the time travel is to prevent the white supremacy era, as the author describes, which began when explorers conquered the New World. In Philip K. Dick's twenty-fifth century all the human races are blended and babies are produced through careful selection. Physically defective individuals are encouraged to get euthanised. Now how this all relates to earlier centuries of white supremacy is unclear, but Philip K. Dick certainly takes us on a fun (if rather contrived) ride.Bottom line: readable and enjoyable. Recommended for Philip K. Dick neophytes.