Title: The World Jones Made
Author: Philip K Dick
Date: 1967
Publisher: Ace, NY (Originally Published by Ace in 1956)
Story: Floyd Jones has the dubious blessing of a precognitive ability that lets him see a year into the future, in a world living with the consequences of nuclear war, which has seen the devastation and collapse of the old nation states, and the Federal World Government imposes Relativism as the governing orthodoxy. Everyone can believe and do as they wish, as long they don’t try to impose those beliefs on others, because it was the clash of opposing ideologies that lead to mutual destruction.
When alien civilizations impose a quarantine on humans due to the destruction of apparently non-sentient colonizing life form known as Drifters, Jones uses his precog ability and a cult of xenophobic followers in a destructive rise to power. But is Jones predicting an inescapable future, or creating one?
Artist: Kelly Freas
The Cover: This is actually a printer’s proof of the cover, signed by Kelly Freas, however (barring the signature) it is exactly the same as this edition of the book.
A classic floating head, sinister, visionary, megalomaniac. The towering spires of the future; dark and perhaps crumbling. Riots, warfare, the sky aflame. A soldier or officer in metallic uniform protecting a girl from the chaos. It perfectly expresses some of the classic tropes of the genre, yet revels in a Cold War era fear of chaos and destruction. Along with Jones, perhaps the ego of the young SF fan can only find true freedom when the impositions and constraints of order collapse, and joy is found in apocalypse and destruction.
