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Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K. Dick
01/01/2007 . Source: Sue Davies 
Pub: Gollancz. 177 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-575-07462-0. Buy Galactic Pot-Healer in the USA - or Buy Galactic Pot-Healer in the UK  check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
Another day, another Philip K. Dick novel. It's hard to remember my life without reading one of these a month but there are still many more I haven't yet read.
This time the everyman character is Joe Fernwright, a man who's skill is healing ceramic pots, hence the book title, 'Galactic Pot-Healer'. It's a talent that isn't in much demand in the depressingly dreary future. With the lack of pots about, he is under-employed and desperate. Then Joe meets the Glimmung, who has a few pots for him to repair. The downside is that this Glimmung is an inter-dimensional creature and wants Joe to travel to the distant Plowman's Planet to work on raising a mysterious cathedral from the depths of the ocean there.
This is another remarkable book from the mind of Phil Dick who did not think as you and I think. These are not really galactic adventures but Dick's exploration of the concepts that float way over my head. Leaving aside the casual use of interplanetary travel and the acceptance of a multiform of aliens, here we have the concept of a society where everything that will happen appears in a book before it does. This is another obsession of the author: the precognition, making or shaping the future. He also looks at the nature of the collective mind, love and making friends with androids.
How hard it becomes to attempt to interpret this novel. It's quirky, amusing, defies definition and ends on a laugh out loud note. It fulfils the function of literature by both challenging and entertaining the reader. Who could ask for more?
Sue Davies
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