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And, sure enough as Stuart watched, leaning on his broom, the furtive first nut of the day sidled guiltily towards the psychiatrist's office.

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118

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1964

6-11-65

MARTIAN TIME-SLIP

THE GAME -PLAYERS OF TITAN

 
FIRST EDITIONS:

HISTORY

    Under the working title of ‘IN EARTH’S DIURNAL COURSE: A Terran Odyssey’, the manuscript for what would become ‘DR. BLOODMONEY: Or How We Got Along After The Bomb’ reached the SMLA on Feb 11, 1963. Under this new title the novel was published by Ace Books as a paperback original on Jun 11, 1965. Publication in the United Kingdom would not occur until Oct 1977 when Arrow Books published a paperback edition.

DR. BLOODMONEY was nominated for the Nebula Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) for the best novel of 1965.

On March 17, 1964 the SMLA received a manuscript titled "A Terran Odyssey". This was a short story that PKD put together from sections of DR. BLOODMONEY. This story was published for the first time in Volume 5 of THE COLLECTED STORIES OF PKD.

Dick was unhappy with the new title for his novel. In a 1965 letter to Scott Meredith complaining about Don Wollheim’s reaction to the expansion of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN to novel length, Dick wrote:

{...} Anyhow, be this as it may, we are stuck with the fact of Don's reaction; but, if you will recall my fears, you will see at once that basically I anticipated this. I did so on the basis of two events; one {...} and two: the absurd title which I am informed he has tormented me with on my Ace novel to be released next month, something on the order of DOCTOR BLOODMONEY OR HOW WE LEARNED TO LIVE AFTER THE BOMB, a title which will ring down the chambers of time as long as I am so unfortunate as to exist.

Don Wollheim probably renamed the novel after seeing the success of the movie DR. STRANGELOVE for, certainly, Dick’s novel preceded the film.

The title IN EARTH’S DIURNAL COURSE occasions some confusion. Apparently Ray Nelson, Dick’s collaborator on the novel THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER, had said that the original title for THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER was THE EARTH’S DIURNAL COURSE. To this, Terry Carr, an editor at Ace Books at the time DR. BLOODMONEY was published, responds:

Ray's mentioning that THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER was originally titled THE EARTH'S DIURNAL COURSE is a bit confusing to me. Probably Ray is right in saying so -- though the title would have been IN EARTH'S DIURNAL COURSE, a line from a Romantic poet, well-known, but I forget which one. The apparent fact that Phil's and Ray's THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER originally had this title, till Scott Meredith changed it, surprises me because Phil had earlier put that title on some other novel published by Ace Books and it was Don Wollheim who changed it -- I think it was DR. BLOODMONEY, OR HOW WE GOT ALONG AFTER THE BOMB, though I can't swear to that. (90% chance I'm right, no more). Since DR. BLOODMONEY was published in 1965 and THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER in 1967, its quite possible that after Don Wollheim had changed that title once, Scott Meredith may have felt it would be fruitless to submit another even partly PKD novel to Don under the original title.

Philip K. Dick was proud of this novel, mentioning it in correspondence on several occasions. In his 1968 ‘Self Portrait’ he singles the novel out as one of his personal favorites, DR. BLOODMONEY coming in fourth of his selections.

And in conversation with Apel & Briggs he said:

... I do like DR. BLOODMONEY; I reread that recently, and I really thought that part where Bill is swallowed by the owl and the owl barfs him up, and he's shouting, y'know, "Write letters of protest to President Johnson!" was one of the best scenes in science fiction I've ever read. I like the whole book.

And again in a letter to Sandra Miesel:

Your husband comments favorably on DOCTOR BLOODMONEY. I do not consider this a minor work of mine (although God knows I've written many minor works). It's a long novel and very complex, and is a s-f version of a straight literary novel I long ago wrote. Do you want the truth? I like DOCTOR BLOODMONEY better than anything else I've written. Roger Zelazny said that he thought it equal to ANNA KARENINA{...}

And, lastly, in the Anton & Fuchs interview conducted at Metz, France in 1977, when asked what he thought of Norman Spinrad’s ‘Introduction’ to DR. BLOODMONEY, Dick replied:

It just simply astounded me. I was astounded that anyone would think so highly of my writing and also he understood it so well. It wasn't simply complimentary, like saying that I wrote very well, it was his analysis of me as a metaphysical writer, something that I'm just becoming aware of myself, that my writing is progressively assuming more and more metaphysical implications. I got up in the middle of the night and reread it, I found it so interesting, because the book that I'm working on now, my Bantam novel in progress, is extraordinarily metaphysical.

The Bantam novel in progress is, of course VALIS.

In 1979 Dick himself wrote an introduction to DR. BLOODMONEY this introduction appearing for the first time in the 1985 edition of the novel from Bluejay Books. As he goes on at length about DR. BLOODMONEY in this and the Bluejay edition is pretty scarce, I have taken the liberty of reproducing his introduction in full here:

Well, I predicted wrong when I wrote DR.BLOODMONEY back in 1964. Events that I foresaw never came about, and as you read this novel you will see what I mean. But it is not the job, really, of science fiction to predict. Science Fiction only seems to predict. It's like the aliens on STAR TREK, all of whom speak English. A literary convention is involved, here. Nothing more.

I am amused, however, to see what specifically I got wrong. Worst of all, I totally misread the future of the manned space program. But this only shows how rapidly history unfolds. In DR.BLOODMONEY I have one American circling the world forever. This is obvious nonsense, either there would be many Americans -- and many Russians, for that matter -- or none at all.

Of course, the major item that I got wrong is the End of the World. Back in 1964 I was expecting it at anytime; I kept checking my watch. Horace Gold, who edited Galaxy magazine, once chided me for anticipating global wipe-out within the next week. That was back around 1954; I anticipated it by 1964. Well, such were the fears of the times. Right now we have other worries. Our problem seems to be paying our debts with incredibly inflated dollars, finding gas for our cars -- much more mundane worries. Less cosmic.

Oddly, these are the sort of worries that assail the characters in DR.BLOODMONEY in their post-World War Three world. There are horses pulling cars. Eyeglasses are rare and treasured. A man who manufactures cigarettes is honored wherever he goes. Of supreme value is someone who can fix things. Society has reverted, but not to the brutal level that we might expect. Rather, it has become rural in nature. The vast cities are gone, and, in their place, a sort of countryside exists that is not awful at all. I must add, however, that in no sense does it resemble any world that we actually have.

But then, of course, we haven't had World War Three.

In my opinion, this is an extremely hopeful novel. It does not posit the end of human civilization as a result of the next war. People are still around and they are still coping. Those who survive, anyhow, are fairly lucky in their new lives. What is interesting is the subtle change in the relative power status of the survivors. Take Hoppy Harrington, who has no arms or legs. Before the bomb hits, Hoppy is marginal in terms of power. He is fortunate if he can get any kind of job at all. But in the postwar world this is not the case. Hoppy is elevated by stealthy increments until, at last, he is a menace to a man not even on the planet's surface; Hoppy has become a demigod, and a complex one at that. He is not really evil but that his power is evil.

In the satellite, Walt Dangerfield is transformed from a man assisting the fragmented postwar society, giving it unity and strength, raising its morale, to a man desperate for help from it, a man who is becoming weaker day by day. He signifies isolation, which is the horror of the many down below; isolation and a loss of the objects and values that comprised their original world. As time passes, Walt Dangerfield must gain strength from those on the planet's surface, rather than giving strength to them. And into the vacuum created comes Hoppy Harrington, who epitomizes the monster in us: the person who is hungry. Not hungry for food but hungry for coercive control over others. This drive in Hoppy stems from a physical deprivation. It is a compensation for what he lacked from birth. Hoppy is incomplete, and he will complete himself at the expense of the entire world; he will psychologically devour it.

You will note in DR.BLOODMONEY an account of a test conducted in 1972 that turned out to be a catastrophe, and, of course, there was in fact no such test and no such catastrophe. But then, there was no such person as Dr. Bluthgeld. This is a work of fiction. And yet at a certain level it is not. The West Marin County area where much of the novel is set is an area that I knew well. When I wrote the novel I lived in that area. Many of the features that I describe are real. So a great deal of the veridical is blended in with the fiction. As do some of the characters, I searched for wild mushrooms in West Marin, and I found the varieties they find (and avoided the varieties they avoid). It is one of the most beautiful areas in the United States, and is called by the Sierra Club "The Island in Time." When I lived there in the late 50s and early 60s it was set apart from the rest of California and therefore seemed to me a natural locus for a postwar microcosm of society. Already, in fact, West Marin was a little world. When I read over DR.BLOODMONEY I discover, to my pleasure, that I have captured in words much of that little world that I so loved -- a little world from which I am now separated by time and distance.

My favorite character in the novel is the TV salesman Stuart McConchie, who happens to be black. In 1964, when I wrote DR.BLOODMONEY, it was daring to have a major character be a black man. My God, how much change has taken place in these recent years! But what an excellent change, one we can be proud of. In my first novel, SOLAR LOTTERY, I had a black man as captain of a spaceship -- daring, indeed, for a novel published in 1955. Stuart is in my opinion the focus of the novel, and he appears first. It is through his eyes that we initially see Dr. Bluthgeld, which is to say, Dr. Bloodmoney. Stuart's reaction is simple; he is seeing a lunatic, and that is that. Bonny Keller, however, knowing Dr. Bluthgeld more intimately, holds a more complex view of the man. Frankly, I tend to see Bluthgeld as Stuart McConchie sees him. I am, so to speak, Stuart McConchie, and at one time I was a TV salesman at a store on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. Like Stuart, I used to sweep the sidewalk in front of the store in the early morning, noticing the cute girls on their way to work. So I do have to confess to an overly simple view of Dr. Bluthgeld: I hate him and I hate everything he stands for. He is the alien and the enemy. I cannot fathom his mind; I cannot understand his hates. It is not the Russians I fear; it is the Dr. Bluthgeld's, the Dr. Bloodmoney's in our own society that terrify me. I am sure that to the extent that they know me, or would know me, they hate me back and would do exactly to me what I would do to them.

"And, sure enough as Stuart watched, leaning on his broom, the first furtive nut of the day sidled guiltily toward the psychiatrist's office."

This is our initial glimpse of Dr. Bloodmoney: through the eyes of a man pushing a broom. I am with the man pushing the broom, here at the beginning of the novel and all the way to the end. Stuart McConchie is an astute man, and in seeing Dr. Bloodmoney he has experienced a moment of instant insight that Bonny Keller in her years of personal, intimate knowledge lacks. I admit to prejudice, here. I think the first response by the man pushing the broom can be trusted. Dr. Bloodmoney is sick, and sick in a way that is dangerous to the rest of us. And much of the evil in our world now emanates from such men, because such men do exist.

So in writing DR.BLOODMONEY in 1964 I may have erred in many of my predictions. But upon rereading the novel recently I sensed a basic accuracy in it -- an accuracy about human beings and their power to survive. Not survive as beasts, either, but as genuine humans doing genuinely human things. There are no supermen in this novel. There are no heroic deeds. There are some very poor predictions on my part, I must admit; but about the people themselves and their strength and tenacity and vitality... there I think I foresaw accurately. Because, of course, I was not predicting; I was only describing what I saw around me, the men and women and children and animals, the life of this planet that has been, is, and will be, no matter what happens.

I am proud of the people in this novel. And, as I say. I would like to number myself as one of them. I once pushed a broom on the sidewalk of Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley and I felt the joy and sense of busy activity and industry that Stuart feels, the excitement, the sense of the future.

And, as the novel depicts, despite the war -- the war that did not in fact happen -- it is a good future. I would have enjoyed being there with them in their microcosm, their postwar West Marin world.

    The novel is set in Marin County, California after nuclear bombs have devastated the world. In this milieu a depleted micro-society goes about its daily living, adapting to a life of sudden deprivation. But there’s some mighty strange characters gathered here. For instance, Dr. Bruno Bluthgeld, the man who is blamed for starting the whole shooting match. Then there’s Hoppy Harrington a ‘phocomelus’ who wields obscure powers as he rolls around in his little cart. Over this little world a satellite looks down, inhabited by a stranded disc jockey who dispenses news and music and who is slowly going insane. Toss in Bill, an embedded and hidden twin who is telepathic and inevitably we have a plot that defies description. All the commingling is great fun, though, and DR. BLOODMONEY: Or How We Got Along After The Bomb gets ô ô ô ô


OTHER ENGLISH EDITIONS:            For Cover Pix Click Here:  aaaPKDickBooks.jpg (3234 bytes)


FOREIGN EDITIONS:


NOTES

PKDS-2 10:

Publication date: June 11, 1965.

PKDS-1 4:

Five titles have been purchased by Bluejay... DR.BLOODMONEY... to be published later in 1984.

PKDS-2 8:

I don't think I need to go into the matter of Jane C. Dick and THE DIVINE INVASION at all. The whole thing is screamingly obvious, and, of course, it occurs to me as an afterthought, that fractured pairs of siblings and twins show up everywhere in PKD: the invisible brother in DR.BLOODMONEY that turns out to be a whatchamacallit-incompletely-fissioned-twin (not to mention a reincarnation of a character from earlier in the story, but that's another matter)... {Letter to PKDS from Patrick Nielsen, Toronto}

PKDS-2 13:

I enjoyed writing all of them. But I think that if I could only choose a few, which for example might escape World War 3, I wouold choose, first, EYE IN THE SKY, then THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, MARTIAN TIME-SLIP (published by Ballantine), DR.BLOODMONEY (A recent ACE novel). Then THE ZAP GUN and THE PENULTIMATE TRUTH, both of which I wrote at the same time. And, finally, another ACE book, THE SIMULACRA. {PKD 1968}

PKDS-3 6:

Bluejay Books to come: DR.BLOODMONEY, Dec 1984.

PKDS-6 9:

Dear PKDS,

{... ...}

Ray's mentioning that THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER was originally titled THE EARTH'S DIURNAL COURSE is a bit confusing to me. Probably Ray is right in saying so --though the title would have been IN EARTH'S DIURNAL COURSE, a line from a Romantic poet, well-known, but I forget which one. The apparent fact that Phil's and Ray's THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER originally had this title, till Scott Meredith changed it, surprises me because Phil had earlier put that title on some other novel published by Ace Books and it was Don Wollheim who changed it -- I think it was DR. BLOODMONEY, OR HOW WE GOT ALONG AFTER THE BOMB, though I can't swear to that. (90% chance I'm right, no more). Since DR. BLOODMONEY was published in 1965 and THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER in 1967, its quite possible that after Don Wollheim had changed that title once, Scott Meredith may have felt it would be fruitless to submit another even partly PKD novel to Don under the original title.

{... ...} {Terry Carr>PKDS, 1985}{See: THE UNTELEPORTED MAN for more of this letter}{See SL-38 for possible alternate title for THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER}

PKDS-11 5:

In Japan San Rio is publishing translations of ... DR.BLOODMONEY..

PKDS-12 10:

Edhasa in Spain will publish DR.BLOODMONEY.

PKDS-16 11:

Jonathan Letham notes that David Dowling's Fictions of Nucl;ear Disasters (Univ. of Iowa Press, 1987) contains a 4-page analysis of DR.BLOODMONEY.

PKDS-17 11:

DR.BLOODMONEY will be reissued in a mass market paperback by Carroll & Graf in July '88 ($3.95)

PKDS-24 11:

Century/Legend has also reissued DR.BLOODMONEY.

PKDS-28 16:

John Clute has a full-page piece in the Washington Post Book World (Aug 25, 1991), titled "Modern SF; A Reader's Guide." He singles out 29 books written in the last 30 years, including 4 by Dick.

Clute's excellent piece goes on to cite MARTIAN TIME SLIP and DR.BLOODMONEY as "two of the best novels published in the 1960s, in or out of the genre, hilarious, unsettling, convoluted, surreal, nervy, paranoid and wise."

PEPKD

Working title: IN EARTH’S DIURNAL COURSE

Completed by: 11 Feb 1963.

TDC ?

(PKD:) ... I do like DR. BLOODMONEY; I reread that recently, and I really thought that part where Bill is swallowed by the owl and the owl barfs him up, and he's shouting, y'know, "Write letters of protest to President Johnson!" was one of the best scenes in science fiction I've ever read. I like the whole book.

TTHC 349:

{...} Drake's Bay ({in Marin County, California}where Admiral Drake is supposed to have landed in 1579) is used, along with Drake, in his science fiction novel DR. FUTURITY (1960), and Dick makes brilliant use of the locale in CONFESSIONS, TEETH, and his later sf novel, DR. BLOODMONEY.{...}

SF EYE

What do you think of Norman Spinrad's introduction to Dr. Bloodmoney?

It just simply astounded me. I was astounded that anyone would think so highly of my writing and also he understood it so well. It wasn't simply complimentary, like saying that I wrote very well, it was his analysis of me as a metaphysical writer, something that I'm just becoming aware of myself, that my writing is progressively assuming more and more metaphysical implications. I got up in the middle of the night and reread it, I found it so interesting, because the book that I'm working on now, my Bantam novel in progress, is extraordinarily metaphysical. { SF EYE, #14, Spring 1996, pp. 37-46. Interview by Uwe Anton & Werner Fuchs, transcribed by Frank C. Bertrand } {The edition of DR. BLOODMONEY referred to here is probably the Gregg Press edition of June 1977. And the metaphysical novel Dick mentions is most likely VALIS -- Lord RC}

SL-38 189

Dear Scott,

{...} Anyhow, be this as it may, we are stuck with the fact of Don's reaction; but, if you will recall my fears, you will see at once that basically I anticipated this. I did so on the basis of two events; one {...} and two: the absurd title which I am informed he has tormented me with on my Ace novel to be released next month, something on the order of DOCTOR BLOODMONEY OR HOW WE LEARNED TO LIVE AFTER THE BOMB, a title which will ring down the chambers of time as long as I am so unfortunate as to exist.

{...}{PKD>Scott Meredith, May 22, 1965} {note: See THE UNTELEPORTED MAN for more from this letter}

SL-38 285

Dear Sandra,

{...}{...}

Your husband comments favorably on DOCTOR BLOODMONEY. I do not consider this a minor work of mine (although God knows I've written many minor works). It's a long novel and very complex, and is a s-f version of a straight literary novel I long ago wrote. Do you want the truth? I like DOCTOR BLOODMONEY better than anything else I've written. Roger Zelazny said that he thought it equal to ANNA KARENINA{...}

{...}{...}

Take care, {PKD>Sandra Miesal, Sep 8, 1970} {note: PKD gives opinions about several of his novels in this letter. See: UBIK, and GALACTIC POT-HEALER}Sutin notes that this ‘straight literary novel’ could have referred to the lost novel THE EARTHSHAKER or the lost novel PILGRIM ON THE HILL.

TSR 80 is the source for the text of PKD's 'Introduction' to DR. BLOODMONEY copied above.

TSR 221

The best description of this dokos-veil formation that I've read yet appears in an article in Science-Fiction Studies, March 1975, by Fredric Jameson, in "After Armageddon: Character Systems in DR. BLOODMONEY," which is an obscure novel of mine. I quote "... Every reader of Dick is familiar with this nightmarish uncertainty, this reality fluctuation, sometime accounted for by drugs*, sometimes by schizophrenia*, and sometimes by new SF powers, in which the psychic world as it were goes outside, and reappers in the form of simulacra or of some photographically cunning reproduction of the external." (p. 32) (*I hope Jameson means drugs in the writing and schizophrenia in the writing, not in me, but I'll let that pass.)

You can see from Jameson's description that we are talking about something very like Maya here, but also something very like a hologram. I have the distinct feeling that Carl Jung was correct about our unconsciousness, that they form a single entity or as he called it "collective unconscious." In that case, this collective brain entity, consisting of literally billions of "stations," which transmit and receive, would form a vast network of communication and information, much like Teilhard's concept of the noösphere. This is the noösphere, as real as the ionosphere or the biosphere; it is a layer in our earth's atmosphere composed of holographic and informational projections in a unified and continually processed Gestalt the sources of which are our manifold right brains. This constitutes a vast Mind, immanent within us, of such power and wisdom as to seem, to us, equal to the Creator. This was Bergson's view of God anyhow.

See CSVol5 390


COLLECTOR'S NOTES

Phildickian: DR. BLOODMONEY, Ace, pb, F-337, 1965. VG. Moderate creasing, tight binding. $15

Phildickian: DR. BLOODMONEY, Ace, pb, F-337, 1965. VG. Very ligh rubbing, clean copy. $20

Phildickian: DR. BLOODMONEY, Ace, pb, F-337, 1965. G+. There is faint staining to the front cover that actually blends right in with the artwork and some staining to the rear panel. There is light waterstaining to the fore-edge of the first few pages. No creasing along the spine, but a faint crease to the left edge of the front panel along the spine. Internally, the pages are lightly browned, and the binding is still tight. $17.50

Powells: DR. BLOODMONEY, Ace, pb F-337, 1965. $19.95

Phildickian: DR. BLOODMONEY, Carroll & Graf, pb, 1990. VG+. Clean bright copy. $15

Phildickian: DR. BLOODMONEY, Arrow, pb, 1987. VG+. Light creasing, slightly cocked but still holding tight. $20

Phildickian: DR. BLOODMONEY, Arrow, pb, 1977 (1st UK). VG+. Clean bright, very light creasing. $15

Phildickian: DR. BLOODMONEY, Arrow, pb, 1977 (1st UK). VG. This is a solid very good copy with moderate but not severe creasing, and a hint of toning to the pages as is common. $15


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