Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Flow My Tears the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
Exiled for ever, let me mourn;
Where night’s black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.
Imagine you are the presenter of a midweek talent show with a world wide audience of thirty million viewers. You have the world at your feet, your every whim is taken as gospel and your word can make or break a career.
This is the life of Jason Taverner presenter of the popular Jason Taverner Show. He lives on the right side of Los Angeles and associates with the beautiful people of that silicone town. His face is known throughout the length and breath of the planet. Women swoon over him, men envy him. Heather Hart with whom he has an on off romance wants to marry him. Taverner albums sell by the millions and his tv ratings soar through the roof.
Jason Taverner is also a six, a government genetic creation forty years previously. Sixes are creative, intelligent and highly sought after.
One evening he is attacked by a disgruntled talentless starlet. He collapses and looses consciousness only to wake up the next day in a grubby hotel room in a part of town he has never been. Confused Taverner phones his agent only to be told that the agent, who is also his best friend, doesn’t recall ever having heard of Jason Taverner.
Very quickly Taverner discovers that his identity cards have been stolen and that all records of him have been erased from the government data banks. His fame is worthless and through the help of a clerk in the hotel he enters a clandestine world of subterfuge and identity falsification.
His survival in this new world where race politics, drugs and a highly addictive communications system based on the phone grid depends on his ability to adjust to his new existence.
Set against the backdrop of a post civil war America where police surround university campus’s and dissenters are placed in forced labour camps in a whim Flow My Tears the Policeman Said is a nightmarish sci-fi journey through alienation, loss of identity and the dangers of drug addiction.
Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
Exiled for ever, let me mourn;
Where night’s black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.
Imagine you are the presenter of a midweek talent show with a world wide audience of thirty million viewers. You have the world at your feet, your every whim is taken as gospel and your word can make or break a career.
This is the life of Jason Taverner presenter of the popular Jason Taverner Show. He lives on the right side of Los Angeles and associates with the beautiful people of that silicone town. His face is known throughout the length and breath of the planet. Women swoon over him, men envy him. Heather Hart with whom he has an on off romance wants to marry him. Taverner albums sell by the millions and his tv ratings soar through the roof.
Jason Taverner is also a six, a government genetic creation forty years previously. Sixes are creative, intelligent and highly sought after.
One evening he is attacked by a disgruntled talentless starlet. He collapses and looses consciousness only to wake up the next day in a grubby hotel room in a part of town he has never been. Confused Taverner phones his agent only to be told that the agent, who is also his best friend, doesn’t recall ever having heard of Jason Taverner.
Very quickly Taverner discovers that his identity cards have been stolen and that all records of him have been erased from the government data banks. His fame is worthless and through the help of a clerk in the hotel he enters a clandestine world of subterfuge and identity falsification.
His survival in this new world where race politics, drugs and a highly addictive communications system based on the phone grid depends on his ability to adjust to his new existence.
Set against the backdrop of a post civil war America where police surround university campus’s and dissenters are placed in forced labour camps in a whim Flow My Tears the Policeman Said is a nightmarish sci-fi journey through alienation, loss of identity and the dangers of drug addiction.
Labels: Flow My Tears the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick. A review
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