''Solar Lottery'' is a 1955 science fiction novel by American writer
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928March 2, 1982), often referred to by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer. He wrote 44 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his l ...
. It was his
first published novel and contains many of the
themes present in his later work. It was also published in altered form in the UK as ''World of Chance''. The main story is about a man named Ted Benteley who lives in a strange world, dominated by
percentages
In mathematics, a percentage (from la, per centum, "by a hundred") is a number or ratio expressed as a fraction of 100. It is often denoted using the percent sign, "%", although the abbreviations "pct.", "pct" and sometimes "pc" are also u ...
and the
lottery
A lottery is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. Some governments outlaw lotteries, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of ...
. Lotteries are used to choose the next leader as well as a new
assassin
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or VIP, important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not ha ...
, whose job is to try to kill the leader or "Quizmaster". Everybody in society has the opportunity to be selected as a leader or an assassin. Benteley unexpectedly gets chosen to be a member of the committee trying to assassinate the new Quizmaster and he must
decide what he is going to do.
Plot summary
''Solar Lottery'' takes place in a world dominated by
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
and
numbers
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
, and loosely based on a numerical
military strategy
Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek word '' strategos'', the term strategy, when it appeared in use during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow s ...
employed by US and
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
intelligence called
minimax
Minimax (sometimes MinMax, MM or saddle point) is a decision rule used in artificial intelligence, decision theory, game theory, statistics, and philosophy for ''mini''mizing the possible loss for a worst case (''max''imum loss) scenario. When de ...
(part of
game theory
Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has appli ...
). The Quizmaster, head of the
world government
World government is the concept of a single political authority with jurisdiction over all humanity. It is conceived in a variety of forms, from tyrannical to democratic, which reflects its wide array of proponents and detractors.
A world gove ...
, is chosen through a sophisticated computerized lottery. This element of
randomization Randomization is the process of making something random. Randomization is not haphazard; instead, a random process is a sequence of random variables describing a process whose outcomes do not follow a deterministic pattern, but follow an evolution d ...
serves as a form of
social control since nobody – in theory at least – has any
advantage over anybody else in their chances becoming the next Quizmaster.
Society is entertained by a televised selection process in which an assassin is also (allegedly) chosen at random. By countering and putting down threats to his life, using
telepathic
Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...
bodyguards, the leader gains the respect of the people. If he loses his life, a new Quizmaster, as well as another assassin, are again randomly selected. Quizmasters have held office for timespans ranging from a few minutes to several years. The average
life expectancy
Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...
is therefore on the order of a couple of weeks.
The novel tells the story of Ted Benteley, an idealistic young worker unhappy with his position in life. Benteley attempts to get a job in the prestigious office of Quizmaster Reese Verrick. Reese has just been forced out of office, however, and Benteley gets tricked into swearing an unbreakable oath of personal
fealty
An oath of fealty, from the Latin ''fidelitas'' (faithfulness), is a pledge of allegiance of one person to another.
Definition
In medieval Europe, the swearing of fealty took the form of an oath made by a vassal, or subordinate, to his lord. "Fea ...
to the former world leader. Verrick then makes it clear that his organization's mission is to assassinate the new Quizmaster, Leon Cartwright, in the world's most anticipated "competition".
To defeat the telepathic security web protecting Cartwright, Verrick and his team invent an
android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
named Keith Pellig, into which different volunteers' minds are alternately embedded for the purpose of breaking any steady telepathic lock on the assassin. Cartwright ultimately kills Verrick, and Benteley, much to his own astonishment, becomes the next Quizmaster.
A second plotline concerns a team of Leon Cartwright's followers travelling to the far reaches of the solar system in search of a mysterious cult figure named John Preston, who, 150 years after his disappearance, is thought to somehow be alive on the legendary
tenth planet
Following the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846, there was considerable speculation that another planet might exist beyond its orbit. The search began in the mid-19th century and continued at the start of the 20th with Percival Lowell's ...
known as the "Flame Disc".
Publishing history
Dick completed the first draft of ''Solar Lottery'' in March 1954. In December he completed a second draft at the request of Ace Books Editor
Donald Wollheim
Donald Allen Wollheim (October 1, 1914 – November 2, 1990) was an American science fiction editor, publisher, writer, and fan. As an author, he published under his own name as well as under pseudonyms, including David Grinnell, Martin Pear ...
, cutting six passages totalling as much as ten thousand words and adding perhaps seven thousand. In the meantime, however, the book had been sold to a publisher in the UK, where it appeared as ''World of Chance'': this version includes the cut passages. However, the entire text of this version was severely copyedited, with wholesale eliminations of adjectives.
When ''Solar Lottery'' was first published in the United States by Ace Books, as one half of
Ace Double
American company Ace Books began publishing genre fiction starting in 1952. Initially these were mostly in tête-bêche format with the ends of the two parts meeting in the middle and with a divider between them which functioned as the rear cover ...
D-103 in May 1955, it was bound
dos-à-dos
Dos-à-dos (French for "back-to-back") may refer to:
*Dosado or do-si-do, dance move
*Dos-à-dos binding
In bookbinding, a dos-à-dos binding ( or , from the French for "back-to-back") is a binding structure in which two separate books are bo ...
with ''
The Big Jump
''The Big Jump'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Leigh Brackett, centered on the first crewed expedition to Barnard's Star.
Publication
The novel was first published in the February 1953 issue of '' Space Stories''. Its first book ...
'' by
Leigh Brackett
Leigh Douglass Brackett (December 7, 1915 – March 18, 1978) was an American science fiction writer known as "the Queen of Space Opera." She was also a screenwriter, known for ''The Big Sleep'' (1946), '' Rio Bravo'' (1959), and '' The Long Goo ...
. The Ace Double edition ran 131 pages. Ace published a standard-format edition of the novel in 1959, running 188 pages. Its 1968 reissue, also running 188 pages, was labelled, misleadingly in view of the existence of the UK edition, "Complete & Unabridged".
Reception
Reviewing the Ace Double,
Anthony Boucher
William Anthony Parker White (August 21, 1911 – April 29, 1968), better known by his pen name Anthony Boucher (), was an American author, critic, and editor who wrote several classic mystery novels, short stories, science fiction, and radio d ...
praised the novel as "built up with the detail of a
Heinlein
Heinlein or Henlein is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Karl Heinlein (1892–1960), Austrian former footballer
* Klaus Heinlein (born 1953), German former footballer
* Konrad Henlein (1898–1945), Nazi German politici ...
and the satire of a
Kornbluth". Declaring that Dick had created "a strange and highly convincing and self-consistent future society," he faulted ''Solar Lottery'' only for "a tendency, in both its nicely contrasted plots, to dwindle away at the end".
Reviewing a 1977 reissue,
Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg (born January 15, 1935) is an American author and editor, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, and a Grand ...
noted that the novel's final revelation "looks forward to the cynicism of the radicalized Dick of the 1960s".
["Books," ''Cosmos'', September 1977, p.39.]
Sources
* Disch, Thomas, "Towards the Transcendent: An Introduction to ''Solar Lottery'' and Other Works", ''Philip K. Dick'', eds. Olander and Greenberg, New York: Taplinger, 1983, pp. 13–24.
* Gallo, Domenico. “La lotteria del sistema solare”, in ''Trasmigrazioni: I mondi di Philip K. Dick'', a c. di V.M. De Angelis e U. Rossi. Firenze, Le Monnier, 2006, pp. 115–22.
References
External links
*
''Solar Lottery'' cover gallery{{Philip K. Dick
1955 American novels
1955 science fiction novels
Ace Books books
American philosophical novels
American science fiction novels
Novels by Philip K. Dick
1955 debut novels