Eye in the Sky (1955)

This early short novel by Philip K. Dick is not bad, with a few points that struck me as remarkable. The premise is that a group of eight with a guide are touring a particle accelerator when there is an accident. The accelerator malfunctions and a platform collapses, dousing them in cosmic rays or something and tossing them into alternate universes with only passing resemblances to our own. In fact (or “in fact”), these alternate universes are actually the creations of individual members of the group. They are basically lying wounded in the accelerator all this time. The first we encounter is the vision of an elderly fundamentalist Christian. This was the first remarkable point for me, as the system of belief was not very different from that of evangelicals in our day, nearly 70 years later. Dick’s details are as convincing as this world is terrifying. God (or “God”) is actively involved and belief trumps science and reality at all turns. I thought this was the world we would be staying in—I’m pretty sure it’s what the title is primarily about. But we escape that and then enter the heads of others, in total about four of the nine characters. I thought these subsequent ones were weaker though the action is often strange and fun. The fourth is merely a plot device—got to tie these things up somehow! The other remarkable point here is that the tour guide is a key character, he is Black, and his life situation is dealt with accurately and sensitively. He’s a trained engineer, for example, but the tour guide job has been the only work he has been able to get. He’s an important character and an important part of the story resolution. Taking such views in the 1950s should not surprise me, maybe, but I liked finding this treatment. I’ve read hackwork by Dick from the ‘50s but Eye in the Sky is not that. It deals some heady concepts, keeps things moving, and altogether works well. The other two alternate universes are from two of the women characters. Sadly, they are sexist. One woman is single, which seems to signify that she is psychotic. The other is a champion of culture, but something of a philistine. She likes Beethoven but not Bartok, whose work is destroyed or nonexistent in her world. Just being in favor of cultural priorities makes her a winner in my book, but Dick doesn’t seem to think so—maybe because he’s a kind of Bartok of literature.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.