TIME PAWN

Number	Writing Date	Pub. Date	Previous	Next	Notes
57	<Jun 5, 1953	Summer 1954	The Eyes Have It	The Golden Man	Exp. In 1959 to the novel DR. FUTURITY

May 1953 saw three more stories published in the sf magazines: "The Infinites," "Second Variety" and "The World She Wanted." In almost every one of the next 28 months PKD had at least one short story published.

Ambitious at over 22,000 words, the ms for "Time Pawn" clunked to the floor at the SMLA on Jun 5, 1953. The Agency quickly found it a home in the 25^th anniversary issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories in the Summer of 1954. After that it was never republished – not even in THE COLLECTED STORIES. This exclusion would also occur with a couple of other novelettes, "Vulcan’s Hammer" and "A Glass Of Darkness." I suppose that the editors of THE COLLECTED STORIES thought it best to leave these long stories out since they would later be expanded into novels.

"Time Pawn" involves a future American Indian society wherein sterilization and euthanasia are the norm; a doctor is sucked from the past into this society where he actually saves a man’s life thus contravening every law imaginable. In the end, after much involvement with a revolutionary clan within this society, the doctor is returned to his own time.

Even though the sub-agent at the SMLA thought "Time pawn" gave its reader "high hopes for abt 1/3rd of the way" in the end he found it "very disappointing."

In 1959 Don Wollheim of Ace Books would approach PKD with the notion of expanding "Time Pawn" into a novel. This Dick did with the unhappy result of DR. FUTURITY.

I admire and like Don, and he and I have had a rather long and happy business relationship, but his statements about my rewrite of TIME PAWN make me uneasy -- and well they might. You know that I worked hard on the TIME PAWN rewrite, and I did what I believed to be a good job, one that would please Don. If I went haywire, its news to me. Also, I got it in very early, far in advance of the deadline. I did everything I could to rebuild the story in the best possible way, and the letter that I sent outlining my intentions was a fair and accurate statement by me of what I intended to do, and what I actually did do. He was not stuck or stung. He had the legal right to reject my work entirely, to request any amount of changes he wished. Now, I say this only because his odd way of reacting -- both in terms of what he said and when he said it -- makes me fear on this VULCAN'S HAMMER job. From my standpoint, Don is an enigma. I honestly can't tell what will please him, obviously.

Dick's sub-agents at Scott Meredith felt free to comment on Dick's work as they received it. Some of the stories are rated: "G" for "Good," "G plus" for better. Sometimes there are just comments, {...}
"Time Pawn", a novella eventually expanded into DR. FUTURITY (1960), gave its reader "high hopes for abt 1/3rd of the way" but was ultimately "very disappointing."

Patrick Clark notes that "Cantata 140" was also omitted from THE COLLECTED STORIES; because it was included wholesale as the first part of THE CRACK IN SPACE. See Sim Melt #2, Ed. P. Clark, p6ff, 2000.‘The Doctor Will See You Now: The Evolution Of DR. FUTURITY, Part One: Time Pawn’ by Patrick Clark