Golden Age Sci-Fi 75 (40)

By: Joshua Glenn
September 9, 2016

One in a series of 75 posts about the best science fiction novels published during the genre’s so-called Golden Age (from 1934–63, according to HILOBROW’s Josh Glenn’s periodization schema). For the complete Golden Age Sci-Fi 75 list, click here.

Philip K. Dick’s Solar Lottery (1955).

Picking up where A.E. van Vogt’s Slan and Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man left off, Dick’s first published novel imagines an Earth of 2203 in which the planetary leader (the “Quizmaster”) is protected by a telepathic corps constantly scanning minds in search of a potential assassin. The Quizmaster is chosen at random… and in order to offset the chance that the randomly selected leader might be an incompetent one, an assassin is also chose at random. These proceedings are televised, in an effort to entertain the populace while reassuring them of their leader’s competence. Our protagonist, Ted Benteley, is one of the author’s minor men — not an action hero type, but merely a biochemist who is tricked into swearing fealty to Reese Verrick, a recently deposed planetary leader who plans to assassinate his successor. Benteley joins a team controlling an android killer designed to outwit the Quizmaster’s telepaths… because it’s controlled by 24 alternating minds. Verrick’s replacement, meanwhile, is head of a band of fanatics who take off into deep space in search of a legendary planet. A fast-paced, exciting yarn marred only by the author’s dismissive attitude towards the book’s (bare-breasted) women.

Fun fact: Solar Lottery was first published as one half of an Ace Double; the other novel was Leigh Brackett’s The Big Jump.

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Golden Age Sci-Fi 75 (40)

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