Top 10 #4: Top 10 Least Respectable Titles Of Philip K. Dick Novels

I'm a big fan of Philip K. Dick, but his reputation has problems. Despite writing a lot of deeply intelligent and seriously "literary" fiction, most of his work was originally published as science fiction – and in the city of literature, SF is usually considered a contemptible ghetto. (To be fair, most books published as SF aren't very good; but on the other hand, most books aren't very good, either.)

This is all a shame, but Dick's reputation isn't helped by the frequently bizarre titles of his works. Even the great and memorable ones – Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, and Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said – are still kind of daft. And they're often unusually long, which puts a lot of people off; that's probably why those first two titles were renamed Blade Runner and Total Recall for the movie remakes*.

Many of Dick's books are great, but some people just can't get past the ridiculous, oh-so-science-fictiony titles – "I'm not reading that!" – and it really is a damn shame. So with that in mind, here's the latest of my Top 10 Top 10 Lists That Don't Really Deserve To Be Top 10 Lists.

*Both those movies are only loose adaptations of the original stories, it should be pointed out. Very, very loose.

It's

The Top 10 Least Respectable Titles Of Philip K. Dick Novels!

10. The Zap Gun

This one almost works, actually – it's so plainly generic that it almost feels ironic (which it is). But it's still embarrassingly generic.

9. Confessions Of A Crap Artist

I assume this was bowdlerised for publication, and should really have been Confessions Of A Bullshit Artist (or is "bullshit artist" only an Australian idiom?). As it is, it doesn't seem to quite make sense – is "crap artist" even a real phrase? Either way, it's a misleading title for what is actually a very serious, sad and intelligent novel (and also, fwiw, not science-fictional at all).

8. Our Friends From Frolix 8

The "our friends from" tag is an intriguing allusion, but you can't take any book seriously when it's about a place called Frolix 8.

7. The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch

Oh, come on. "Palmer Eldritch"? Seriously?

6. Galactic Pot-Healer

Anything with "galactic" in the title always sounds like a parody. And "pot-healer" sounds like a weird drug reference. (However: believe it or not, the book really is about a guy who "heals" ceramic pots. Yeah. A pot-healer. Honestly – who would guess that from the title?)

5. A Maze Of Death

Hopelessly generic title: it sounds like an episode of Doctor Who. (Probably a very entertaining episode of Doctor Who, mind you – but it's still not respectable.)

4. The Crack In Space

Hopelessly generic title, and it allows for bum jokes.

3. The Game-Players Of Titan

Game-players from Titan are not a topic of respectable fiction. They're just not. (As far as titles go, it's also bereft of drama and very boring.)

2. Dr Bloodmoney, Or How We Got Along After The Bomb

It's not a parody of Dr Strangelove, yet the title is a direct reference. So it doesn't even make sense, except as the tackiest of marketing strategies; it's just odd. What were the publishers thinking?

1. Clans Of The Alphane Moon

Any fiction that uses the word "clan" (without also, at some point, using the word "kilt") is raising a red flag; to me, it's always going to look like some crappy fantasy novel. And if it also uses the word "moon", I'm going to go straight ahead and logically assume that it's all about caveman sex.

(You just clicked on that "caveman sex" link, didn't you? Yeah, I know what you like.)

And there you have it.

Gosh, I sure hope my new home internet connection is active by now . . .

Friday Is Out Of Context

Gosh, you know what's lovely? Flowers. Flowers are lovely. Everyone loves flowers.

Wouldn't it be great if we could tell a heartwarming children's tale about flowers? And we could give them all names!

And faces.

Oh god their eyes, what have we done? HOLY NO WHAT HAVE WE DONE

*aazdzzrgghghhlmnllnzz!!*

oh sweet william, please stop. please stop

It's all the fault of T. Benjamin Faucett, but I found it here.

Childhood was harsh in 1924.

This Friday Is Out Of Context Thoapsl Says: An anthropomorphism is not sneezing pollen.

Happy Bloomsday!

Eat some kidneys and think about piss! Say hello to a lady on the beach!

Have you read the chapter that's all questions and answers? Or the one that's all musical?

It is one lurid heck of a book. Say yes!

Equuququqqq?

Surprisingly busy these past seven days, what with various encomplicatory happenings & eventuations. In the meantime, do you remember this? I recently found another odd Amazonian amusement (it seems I'm a couple of years late to this one, but anyhow):

Titles like this totally attract the best reviews.

Behooves! hahahahaha rofl

Note also:

Hm.

Excelleunt! Crazeunt! (sic)

So I was looking up the exact technical definition of "Exeunt" (I'm unemployed right now). You know? It's what you see written in the script of a play when it's time for some actors to get off the stage already.

So, it turns out that the prime wikipedia link (& a top google too) isn't a definition of the word. It's a link to SPL: the Shakespeare Programming Language. A programming language that is constructed so that its program code reads like a Shakespearean play. Follow the links to see for yourself, it's really something...

It turns out there's in fact a whole bunch of "esoteric" programming languages like this, each specifically designed to require program code that looks like a joke. Chef programs read like recipes; brainfuck is nothing but punctuation. Huh.

No comment, I just wanted to draw your attention to this.

Dead Poet, No Punchline

Dorothy Porter died very recently and I've been thinking about her all week. Once upon a time I read her Wild Surmise and it hit me in a way that felt very real. As if it was something personal. That book in particular, it really got to me; it still does. Afterwards, I carried around a little fantasy of meeting her in person one day, of letting her know how much her work had meant to me. We lived in the same city, it turns out – the same suburb, even. It was bound to happen eventually.

Now, this all seems overwhelmingly stupid and pointless and self-absorbed of me.

The words aren't right, but for sheer feeling I'm thinking of the music around the last line from that Neil Young song: "what a killer..."

...

A long and tiring week

"You have ten questions," she said.
"Don't you mean twenty?" I asked.
"No. Ten."
"Why ten?"
"It's the shortest number," she replied, "all the other ones take forever."
That's true, I thought. But I didn't say so aloud. Rules! Always with the rules, she is. Damn her and damn her tongue.
"Damn you and damn your tongue! Is everything a game to you?" I asked.

(I might have been a bit loud. I was trying to let a little frustration slip through in my voice - but subtly, yeah?)

"No. Everything is not a game."
"Yeah? Badminton?"
"Yes. It's a sport."
So she didn't know what she was talking about. Honestly, I wasn't too impressed with any of her answers. But it was a sunny day - can you believe that? And I was soaking wet from arm to ankle. This was a worry.
"Do you realise what this looks like?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Really?"
"Yes. Really."
I wasn't sure if she really was really sure, though. She looked a bit shifty that second time. You know how sometimes you have to say things more than once? It was a bit like that. Yeah.

Anyhow, it was time to close things down. To think. Like a brick through the windows of her argument, you know. And there were all these vegetables I was trying to carry with me, too; it was kind of difficult. Not that I'm complaining. I mean, I'm not complaining or anything. Heck no.
"So," I said – there might have been some pointing involved, too – "if you're right, then why do I keep running out of ice cubes?"
"Right about what?"
"Aha! You just asked me a question! Does that mean I win?"

"No," she told me. "And that's why I still have all your old Metallica albums. Now hand over the vegetables and get out of here."

So it's like, every week it's something like this. Forget about it.

Next time I'll bring something sharp.

What I Did On My Lunch Break

Dentist came in slinking, low and sneezy. I've been talking to your teeth. That's what she said, I think like I'm pretty sure. So okay? Your teeth are good. Very good. No decay, or, other bad things of any descrip', it's all sweet without the bad sweet. No cavities. Nothing else. I looked at the whiteness and it shone, it shone like gold. Smooth and supple. I leaned in close and the mirror reflected only perfection. Like, honest. The saliva glistened. Alive. The calcium was so firm and solid, the structure so perfect, the balance! Oh lord the balance was sacred. Like geometry of pyramids, or crop circles or broken angels tinkling into a whiskey bottle. Oh it was delicious. Your teeth are awesome. Seriously, I love them. I think about them at night. I lie there in the dark, and there's something that feels so right. I curl up under the blanket and I'm going to recommend no change to your current dental regimen. Perfection is. Don't worry about it, yeah. Your teeth are awesome.

Okay'm, I said. No fillings then.

No way man, said dentist. I lifted her fingers out of my mouth and collapsed next to the chair. That's okay, I was sleepy anyway. The next morning I caught my teeth writing a farewell letter, or it might have been a suicide note – I didn't read it more than once. I tossed it into the fire and showed my teeth the back of my hand. How dare you! I said. It was a rhetorical question. If you wrote it down, you wouldn't even put a question mark at the end. My teeth started weeping. I found them hiding in the attic later that night. It was pretty dark, but I'm pretty sure that's who it was. They seemed kind of busy, so I decided not to disturb them.

The next day, the dentist was back in my mouth again. I tried to remove her fingers but it wasn't as easy this time. There were more of them, so it took longer. So maybe it wasn't less easy, it was just more, like time-consuming? Whatever. Totally sick of the dentist. I told her, seriously, I'm pretty sure this consultation was over a short while ago. But she was all like yeah but, housecalls and chalk dissolving in milk and there's teeth cancer going around, kids want the pox but the sick shop was all out so they gave them the teeth cancer instead. At a discount, though? I went to the shop but then my lunch break was over so I had to stop

Great Concepts In Literature, Part I

Now this is some excellent cover design, right here. I haven't yet acquired a copy of this to actually read, but the cover is hypnotic. I really like the way the colours are balanced by the typography; it's a fantastic image. From the great cover to the intriguing title, does this not appear to be one of the coolest non-fiction books of all time? Cheers for this blog by Caleb Mozzocco for drawing attention to it for me. If nothing else, the cover is enough to sell me the motivation to go looking for the actual book, so score 1 for canny cover-design marketing towards the Literary Thoapsl...