He didn't need Jones' talent to see it. The new religion. The crucified god, slain for the glory of man. Certain to reappear, someday; a death not in vain. Temples, myths, sacred texts. Relativism wasn't coming back in, not in this world. Not after this."
Well, Dick's early novel is certainly intriguing. Set in the early 21st century after a disastrous war, the story takes place in a world where a precog named Jones uses his ability to know the future to unseat the Fedgov government which has enshrined Relativism as a value in all aspects of human life. This world government also manages to use forced labor camps, mutants created as a result of the past war perform at circuses, and there's questionable transphobic depictions of "hermaphrodites" in seedy nightclub establishments who will switch genders in the middle of intercourse. I actually think this was weaker than Solar Lottery, although this novel features alien life, settlers on Venus, and a critique of relativism and moral absolutism. His first published novel featured a more suspenseful "action scene" than the assassinations here, but shares with the former some of the future themes Dick obsessively explored throughout his fiction. The experimentation on humans, "myth" of Jones and the doctrine of Relativism propagated by the government are excellent examples of Dick's interest in ethics and metaphysics, perhaps pushing back against the proliferation of relativism in postmodernist discourse?
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