The Game-Players of Titan

I am an avid fan of Philip K. Dick and I see each novel or story as part of a great oeuvre of a brilliant and immensely creative mind. That said, “Game Players of Titan” is probably of middling quality. The story depicts a post-apocalyptic world dominated by a silicone-based life form from Titan called “vugs.” Their invasion was facilitated by devastating planetary war involving the use of “Henkel Radiation” by Red China, which reduced earth’s population and sterilized much of the remainder. A couple that is able to conceive a child has gotten “lucky.”Humans now occupy their time in a game called “Bluff.” Winners not only acquire property but other people’s spouses. Pete Garden, the protagonist, owns large amounts of property. However, at the beginning of the story he has not only lost an area of prime real estate but also his wife. The quality of marital relationships is judged by how well the partners succeed at Bluff together. Pete also suffers from depression and a preoccupation with suicide.The story involves the mysterious murder of an infamous “Bindman” (player and property owner), Pete’s unexpected fatherhood, and the culminating contest between humans and the gambling-addicted vugs; the stakes being the vugs’ withdrawal from Earth or the replacement of the human players with simulacra.There is, as in every Dick novel, there is the never-ending conflict between appearance and reality, and moments in which reality dissolves into its fundamental, frightening “Abgrund” (abyss).This is not one of the Philip K. Dick novels I would read multiple times, such as “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” “Ubik,” or “Now Wait for Last Year,” but any of his novels and stories is both a challenge and a pleasure to read. As with the greatest writers, his style and imagination are one of a kind.

I love almost everything I've ever read by Philip K Dick, and The Game-Players of Titan is no exception. This book features a number of things Dick often used when writing: aliens, psychic powers, drugs, altered consciousness, and a bleak future. What it didn't seem to feature, and what I often look for in Dick's writings, is a thought provoking question about the nature of human existence. For example, A Scanner Darkly explores the use of recreational drugs and gives the reader an opportunity to reflect on addicts and how they live. In this novel, it felt like Dick just wanted to tell a story with his characteristic quirks and style. So if you like Dick and feel you'd enjoy reading something a bit less heavy than his usual works, check this one out.

I've got to rank this in the lower half of Dick's novels, as the last third of the book feels rushed and it doesn't come off as very coherent (even in comparison to his other dense mind-benders). But, the book has its charms. It's got plenty of ideas per square inch, the usual quota of highly imaginative scenarios and incisive moments, and a vivid assortment of characters and alien life forms. It resembles "Solar Lottery" a bit in its unpredictable plot turns (as well as in being nominally centered around some large-scale version of a game - TV Quiz Shows in the earlier case, and a complex board game resembling Monopoly in this case). It also reminds me a bit of "Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldridge" in terms of what Sutin calls Eldridge's "tight plotting" and "hairpin turns".

I cannot put to words how much I enjoyed this book. I'd rank this one around 5th-10th, not quite as mind-bendingly incredible as Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldtritch, or Flow My Tears The Policeman Said, but still fantastic. You might particularly enjoy this if you've lived in California. No amount of alcohol could coax me into gambling away Berkeley!

Philip K Dick's The Game Players of Titan offers an Earth that has been defeated by creatures from Titan along with the population devastated by a failed Chinese weapon. The Titanians maintain a presence on Earth and impose a governance system where select individuals (bindmen) control parcels of land. Basic essentials appear abundant and the bindmen play a game (loved by the Titanians) that is a mashup of monopoly and poker where their property can change hands. There is a human resistance movement as well as factions of Titanians, one of which wants to exterminate Earth.Dick throws in the kitchen sink this time out with telepaths and pre-cogs. The aliens from Titans are suitably alien and come with instantaneous transport between Earth and Titan. In the end, the humans adopt a unique strategy to defeat the aliens at their own game.

Another fantastic book from P K Dick. Enjoyed every minute of it.

Brand new! Awesome! 😍

This is PKD's 13th science fiction novel and he had produced Man in a High Castle a couple of years earlier and it is 10 years since he published his first novel. It is very typical PKD, it has a variety of scifi ideas rather than one of two, some bad jokes, lots of of psychiatry/psychology, drugs and a good plot. It also has a lot of one of PKD's trademarks about identity and false identity and can you trust who you are talking to. It is based around a small group of long lived, almost sterile humans who have lost the war to game playing Titans and have to play an odd form of Monopoly crossed with poker to win huge tracts of land. They are mainly infertile, humans are slowly dying out and they swap partners regularly in the hope of getting pregnant. The game involves a lot of bluffing and the Titans are telepathic, as are a small group of humans. Two plot lines are how can you get away with murder when the Titan police can read your mind to find your guilt and how can you bluff in a game where the opponents are telepathic. You will have to read it to find the answers.

I'm a purest and wouldn't have bought this book if I knew Amazon published it.

Insanely brilliant!!

Product was great but delivered to wrong house

Bit too slow at some parts and quick during some parts