NICHOLAS AND THE HIGS

Num	N	S	Writing Date	Pub. Date	Previous	Next	Notes
106	18		Late 1957 to Early 1958	na	THE VARIABLE MAN (Col.)	TIME OUT OF JOINT	Lost MS

NICHOLAS AND THE HIGS is now a lost novel and there’s not much information to be found about it. The manuscript was apparently completed by Jan 3, 1958 and rewritten (reduced to half its size) by Apr 30, 1958.

The manuscript of NICHOLAS AND THE HIGS reached SMLA at the same time as the manuscript for TIME OUT OF JOINT (Apr 7, 1958).

Very long, complex story, usual Dick genius for setting. Future society wherein trading stamps have replaced currency and people live hundreds of miles from work (drive at 190 mph), have set up living tracts. Cars often break down, so they have tract mechanic on full-time basis. Mechanic old, has bad liver, seems to be dying. People of tract use general fund to buy pseudo-organ but man is dead for a few days and ‘comes back’ a bit touched. Sub plot concerns man from whom tract got organ (which is illegal), and how his presence causes moral breakdown of people in tract.

This is an odd one, half ‘straight’, half science fiction. An inferior man can destroy a superior one; a Robert Hig can move in and oust Nicholas because he, Hig, has no morals {…} Only by relying on base techniques can Nicholas survive; {…} Awareness of this is enough to drive Nicholas out; he must give up because to win is to lose; he is involved in a terrible paradox as soon as Hig puts in his appearance. In other words, you can’t really best the Adolf Hitlers; you can only limit their success. {…} Stavros is an aristocrat. He would have been able to manage Hig; he would have slighted him, sent him packing, humiliated him. Being able to see through pretensions, Stavros would have not even been worried by Hig.

NICHOLAS AND THE HIGS was rejected by four publishers at its original length of 128,000 words and even when PKD cut it down to 75,000 it was rejected by nine more.

It’s unfortunate that this novel is lost, as NICHOLAS AND THE HIGS may well have been on a par with TIME OUT OF JOINT – one of Dick’s best early novels and itself a hybrid ‘straight’/science fiction novel. The character of the sick mechanic needing an organ transplant reoccurs in PKD’s 1964 novel THE PENULTIMATE TRUTH.

In the future people live miles from work and need mechanics to ensure they can get to work. One mechanic (Nicholas?) is ill and needs a new liver, which he gets after being dead for a couple of days. … Marketed as a mainstream novel.

Stavros is an aristocrat. He would have been able to manage Hig; he would have slighted him, sent him packing, humiliated him. Being able to see through pretensions, Stavros would have not even been worried by Hig. {PKD>Eleanor Dimoff, 01 Feb 1960}

... No new science fiction reached Meredith after JAPED until two hybrid sf/straight novels which reached New York in early 1958, NICHOLAS AND THE HIGS, now lost, and TIME OUT OF JOINT, published as "A novel of Menace" in 1959.