Our Friends from Frolix 8
0-441-64401-5
Our Friends from Frolix 8 is a 1970 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The novel is set in the 22nd century, where humanity is ruled by mutated humans, "New Men" and "Unusuals", while normal "Old Men" are discriminated against. The story follows Nick Appleton, a low-class worker who falls in love with a subversive agent, while Thors Provoni has gone deep into space to find an ally to the resistance.
Plot summary
In the 22nd century, the Earth is ruled by the "New Men", who have superhuman mental abilities, and the "Unusuals", who possess psionic abilities such as telepathy, telekinesis and precognition. Thors Provoni, who has gone deep into space to find help for his resistance to the ruling groups, is returning with a sentient protoplasmic alien being, a "Friend from Frolix 8" known as Morgo Rahn Wilc, to fight for the "Old Men", human beings who have none of the rulers' powers. Nick Appleton is a tire regroover - a lowly, if skilled, job; his son Bobby fails a Civil Service examination that is deliberately geared toward failing "Old Man" applicants. At the same time, Terran authorities are holding the "Under Man" activist Cordon in prison and preparing for his execution. Appleton becomes politicized, and falls for Charlotte ("Charley") Boyer, a sixteen-year-old subversive. She is involved with alcoholic Denny (in this future, alcohol prohibition has returned as a social policy). After the authorities discover that Appleton has become "subversive", they attempt to apprehend him and Charley, whom Willis Gram is also obsessed with.
Meanwhile, Thors Provoni's craft has eluded Terran fleet defenses and is rapidly nearing Earth, leading to paranoid fears among the ruling elite about the possibility of violent alien invasion. In the event, Provoni does land, but Morgo Rahn Wilc protects him from an assassination attempt. Provoni is actually a "New Man" and an "Unusual" at the same time, and, with the assistance of his alien companion, he strips all Unusuals of their psionic abilities, and all New Men of their advanced cognitive abilities, rendering the New Men intellectually disabled and capable only of childlike cognition.
Background
The novel was written from 1968-69, and published the next year.[1][2] The novel was written on commission for Ace Books, as Dick was short on money.[3]
Reception and analysis
Michael Rogers interpreted the novel as being about class struggle, though described the novel as being "couched in the usual sf trappings".[4] Charles Thorpe compared the struggle between the New and Old Men to the conflict between the Bes and Ges in another Philip K. Dick novel, The Simulacra, comparing both to the rise of newer modes of societal advancement replacing older ones in American society.[5]
Jorge Rosa described the novel as "atypical" for that period of Dick's writings, and described the novel as a "partial reversing" of the premise of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.[6] Darko Suvin described the plot points as happening like a "succession of rabbits out of a hat, in a quite arbitrary way".[1] Kim Stanley Robinson described the ending of the book as a deus ex machina, but argued that the hopefulness of this ending was "ambiguous at best". He noted that the religious discussion given by the Friend in the story was the first discussion of religion in Dick's works, which would show up more often in his later works.[7] Daniel Phi, writing in Horizons du Fantastique [fr], disliked the novel, and Jean-Pierre Andrevon described it as "banal, empty, badly constructed, like a bad van Vogt novel".[8]
References
- ^ a b Suvin, Darko (Winter 2002). "Goodbye and hello: Differentiating within the later P.K. Dick". Extrapolation. 43 (4). Brownsville: 368–397, 363. doi:10.3828/extr.2002.43.4.3.
- ^ Gorman, Ed (May 8, 1983). "A good writer found success too late". The Gazette. pp. 2D. Retrieved February 16, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Dick, Philip K.; Rickman, Gregg (1988). Philip K. Dick: In His Own Words. Fragments West/Valentine Press. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-916063-01-6.
- ^ Rogers, Michael (May 15, 2003). "Our Friends from Frolix 8 (Book)". Library Journal. 128 (9). ISSN 0363-0277.
- ^ Thorpe, Charles (2011). "Death of a Salesman: Petit-Bourgeois Dread in Philip K. Dick's Mainstream Fiction". Science Fiction Studies. 38 (3): 412–434. doi:10.5621/sciefictstud.38.3.0412. ISSN 0091-7729.
- ^ Rosa, Jorge Martins (2013). "Stars in My Pocket". Extrapolation. 54 (1): 47-0_1. doi:10.3828/extr.2013.4.
- ^ Robinson, Kim Stanley (1981). "Lost in Space". The Novels of Philip K. Dick. Studies in Speculative Fiction. Ann Arbor, Mich: UMI Research Press. pp. 99–105. ISBN 978-0-8357-1589-8.
- ^ Bozzetto, Roger; Chatelain, Danièle; Slusser, George; P., R. M. (1988). "Dick in France: A Love Story". Science Fiction Studies. 15 (2): 131–140. ISSN 0091-7729. JSTOR 4239876.
External links
- Official PKDick website review
- Our Friends from Frolix 8 cover art gallery Archived February 6, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- v
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- Gather Yourselves Together (1950)
- Voices from the Street (1952)
- Solar Lottery (1954)
- Mary and the Giant (1954)
- The World Jones Made (1954)
- Eye in the Sky (1955)
- The Man Who Japed (1955)
- A Time for George Stavros (1956)
- Pilgrim on the Hill (1956)
- The Broken Bubble (1956)
- The Cosmic Puppets (1957)
- Puttering About in a Small Land (1957)
- Nicholas and the Higs (1958)
- Time Out of Joint (1958)
- In Milton Lumky Territory (1958)
- Confessions of a Crap Artist (1959)
- The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike (1960)
- Humpty Dumpty in Oakland (1960)
- Vulcan's Hammer (1960)
- Dr. Futurity (1960)
- The Man in the High Castle (1961)
- We Can Build You (1962)
- Martian Time-Slip (1962)
- Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb (1963)
- The Game-Players of Titan (1963)
- The Simulacra (1963)
- The Crack in Space (1963)
- Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964)
- The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1964)
- The Zap Gun (1964)
- The Penultimate Truth (1964)
- The Unteleported Man (1964)
- The Ganymede Takeover (1965)
- Counter-Clock World (1965)
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1966)
- Nick and the Glimmung (1966)
- Now Wait for Last Year (1966)
- Ubik (1966)
- Galactic Pot-Healer (1968)
- A Maze of Death (1968)
- Our Friends from Frolix 8 (1969)
- Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974)
- Deus Irae (1976)
- Radio Free Albemuth (1976; published 1985)
- A Scanner Darkly (1977)
- Valis (1981)
- The Divine Invasion (1981)
- The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982)
- The Owl in Daylight (unfinished)
- A Handful of Darkness (1955)
- The Variable Man (1956)
- The Preserving Machine (1969)
- The Book of Philip K. Dick (1973)
- The Best of Philip K. Dick (1977)
- The Golden Man (1980)
- Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities (1984)
- I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (1985)
- The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (1987)
- Beyond Lies the Wub (1988)
- The Dark Haired Girl (1989)
- The Father-Thing (1989)
- Second Variety (1989)
- The Days of Perky Pat (1990)
- The Little Black Box (1990)
- The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford (1990)
- We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (1990)
- The Minority Report (1991)
- Second Variety (1991)
- The Eye of the Sibyl (1992)
- The Philip K. Dick Reader (1997)
- Minority Report (2002)
- Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (2002)
- Paycheck (2004)
- Vintage PKD (2006)
- The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (2011)
- "Beyond Lies the Wub" (1952)
- "The Gun" (1952)
- "The Skull" (1952)
- "The Little Movement" (1952)
- "The Defenders" (1953)
- "Mr. Spaceship" (1953)
- "Piper in the Woods" (1953)
- "Roog" (1953)
- "The Infinites" (1953)
- "Second Variety" (1953)
- "Colony" (1953)
- "The Cookie Lady" (1953)
- "Impostor" (1953)
- "Paycheck" (1953)
- "The Preserving Machine" (1953)
- "Expendable" (1953)
- "The Indefatigable Frog" (1953)
- "The Commuter" (1953)
- "Out in the Garden" (1953)
- "The Great C" (1953)
- "The King of the Elves" (1953)
- "The Trouble with Bubbles" (1953)
- "The Variable Man" (1953)
- "The Impossible Planet" (1953)
- "Planet for Transients" (1953)
- "The Builder" (1953)
- "Tony and the Beetles" (1953)
- "The Hanging Stranger" (1953)
- "Prize Ship" (1954)
- "Beyond the Door" (1954)
- "The Crystal Crypt" (1954)
- "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford" (1954)
- "The Golden Man" (1954)
- "Sales Pitch" (1954)
- "Breakfast at Twilight" (1954)
- "The Crawlers" (1954)
- "Exhibit Piece" (1954)
- "Adjustment Team" (1954)
- "Shell Game" (1954)
- "Meddler" (1954)
- "A World of Talent" (1954)
- "The Last of the Masters" (1954)
- "Upon the Dull Earth" (1954)
- "The Father-thing" (1954)
- "Strange Eden" (1954)
- "The Turning Wheel" (1954)
- "Foster, You're Dead!" (1955)
- "Human Is" (1955)
- "War Veteran" (1955)
- "Captive Market" (1955)
- "Nanny" (1955)
- "The Chromium Fence" (1955)
- "Service Call" (1955)
- "The Mold of Yancy" (1955)
- "Autofac" (1955)
- "Psi-man Heal My Child!" (1955)
- "The Hood Maker" (1955)
- "The Minority Report" (1956)
- "Pay for the Printer" (1956)
- "A Glass of Darkness (The Cosmic Puppets)" (1956)
- "The Unreconstructed M" (1957)
- "Null-O" (1958)
- "Explorers We" (1959)
- "Recall Mechanism" (1959)
- "Fair Game" (1959)
- "War Game" (1959)
- "All We Marsmen" (1963)
- "What'll We Do with Ragland Park?" (1963)
- "The Days of Perky Pat" (1963)
- "If There Were No Benny Cemoli" (1963)
- "Waterspider" (1964)
- "Novelty Act" (1964)
- "Oh, to Be a Blobel!" (1964)
- "The War with the Fnools" (1964)
- "What the Dead Men Say" (1964)
- "Orpheus with Clay Feet" (1964)
- "Cantata 140" (1964)
- "The Unteleported Man" (1964)
- "The Little Black Box" (1964)
- "Retreat Syndrome" (1965)
- "Project Plowshare (later "The Zap Gun")" (1965)
- "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (1966)
- "Holy Quarrel" (1966)
- "Faith of Our Fathers" (1967)
- "Not by Its Cover" (1968)
- "The Electric Ant" (1969)
- "A. Lincoln, Simulacrum" (1969)
- "The Pre-persons" (1974)
- "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" (1974)
- "The Exit Door Leads In" (1979)
- "Rautavaara's Case" (1980)
- "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" (1980)
- "The Eye of the Sibyl" (1987)
- "Stability" (1987)
Films |
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TV series |
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- Only Apparently Real (1986 biography)
- I Am Alive and You Are Dead (1993 biography)
- Your Name Here (2008 drama film)
- Isa Dick Hackett (daughter)
- Philip K. Dick Award