Humpty Dumpty in Oakland by Philip K Dick

Philip K Dick is best known for his griping and suspenseful Sci Fi stories, many of which have been turned into big budget motion pictures over the years. Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report to name a few. All of his Science Fiction has an overwhelming feeling of doom and despair and lost causes.

One of his best short stories has a man who can hear insects and spiders talking. Turns out the insects and spiders are both alien armies fighting over the conquest of planet earth. The man talks to the spiders and discovers they are here to protect humans from the insects. He asks if they will win and they say yes, they think they will win. The man is relieved, but then the spider tells him that they mean they will win the long game, they will not be able to save him personally. Ah, the man says as the insects move in for the kill.

Humpty Dumpty in Oakland by Philip K Dick is copyrighted 1986, about four years after he died. It appears to have been written in the 1960s, I am not an expert on California history and have no idea when the contemporary events mentioned in passing took place. This is clearly not the work of the Philip K Dick that we know and love. It is an odd story with little drama and little point. The writing is fairly flat and lacks the snap of Philip K Dick’s more famous works.

It’s pretty clear that Philip K Dick was not that interested in getting this work published-he had it lying in a desk drawer for forty years and did not try top bring it to press himself. The cover image is fitting, as it is an Edsel and this book is a lemon.

Is it possible to read Humpty Dumpty in Oakland without comparing it to the Masterworks of one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time? Maybe, but I couldn’t do it. I picked this book up because of the name Philip K Dick and I kept waiting for the supernatural, paranoid, or science fiction elements to come to the forefront-but they never did. This was not a sci fi novel, nor a suspense novel, and in fact, I am hard pressed to describe where it should sit.

Fiction, just plain old fiction. A pointless story about two men living pointless lives.There were moments when I had hope for the story, when it felt like something was going to happen, something was going to be revealed, something shocking was going to happen. But the big shock is that nothing extraordinary happens.

Follow the example of the villain on LOST and read Vallis by Philip K Dick instead.