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Loading... The Variable Man (1953)by Philip K. Dick
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) alatar224 | Jun 1, 2024 |  Finished the other three this month, all very enjoyable PKD fare. It may have taken 41 years to finish the book, but it was worth it in the end. (Also...what a cover image!) (  ) CraigGoodwin | Nov 28, 2023 | The story takes you through a variety of places, but it really shines through the personalities of the characters. You really feel for, or hate them. The story contains a good measure of action, and an abundance of futuristic ideas - including faster than light travel, force fields and time travel. Highly recommended for readers of science fiction. ( ) wez | Sep 15, 2021 | “Worked?” “You see, it never was anything more than a toy. With a range of a few city blocks. So the kids could call back and forth from their rooms. Like a sort of portable vidscreen. Commissioner, I tried out the vidsender, pushing the call button and speaking into the microphone. I—I got a ship of the line. A battleship, operating beyond Proxima Centaurus—over eight light years away. As far out as the actual vidsenders operate. Then I called Security. Right away.” The story concerns a man from in the early 20th century who arrives in the future driving a horse-drawn cart to the shock of the scientists who have accidentally scooped him up, and his surprising effect on the computers that calculate the odds of victory in Terra's ongoing war against the Centaurans. It's entirely plot-driven and you never get to see through the man from the past's eyes or really know what he is like, you don't even find out his name until quite a long way through, but it's an interesting story and I enjoyed the conflict between the scientist in his lair under the Ural Mountains and the short-sighted bureaucrats who can only see the man from the past's arrival as a menace. I listened to the Librivox audio-book of this early novella by Philip K. Dick on the SFFaudio podcast. (  )1  isabelx | May 16, 2019 | no reviews | add a review
The Terran system is growing and expanding all the time. But an old and corrupt Centaurian Empire is holding Terra down, as it encircles the Terran system and will not let the humans grow out of their current empire. For this reason Terra is at war with Proxima Centauri and is trying to find a way of breaking free from the Centaurian's hold upon them. Eventually Terra comes up with a concept for a bomb, called Icarus, that Proxima can not defend against. Then the odds start to side with Terra, and Terra prepares to fight with this new-found technology. The only problem being is that Icarus does not yet work which prevents Terra from using it against Proxima Centuari. This is where Thomas Cole, known as The Variable Man, comes in. Cole is a man from the past, from the time just before the First World War. He is brought into the present (or future depending on perspective) as an accident via a Time Bubble that was used for research about the past. He escapes from the authority in the future and spends a lot of time running from them afterwards. It is, however, discovered that this man has a certain genius to fix things and make things work. This is because he comes out of a period of time when humans had a natural genius and an ability to invent things and to solve problems. Read the novel to find out what happens with the Variable Man and the war between Terra and Proxima Centauri. No library descriptions found. |
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