A very enjoyable post-apocalyptic novel. Dick is especially interested here in the ole mind/body conundrum. There’s no central character, the POV conveniently flitting from one to another, but the best-developed is the limbless Hoppy Harrington, “the first phocomelus”, whose “phocomobile” and mechanical manipulators allow him more agency than the whole-bodied characters — and on top of this, Hoppy has precognition as well as telekinetic and other psychic powers. Then there’s seven year old Edie Keller, whose twin brother Bill is a homunculus inhabiting her inguinal cavity. Bill too is capable of projecting himself beyond his physical confinement, briefly co-opting the body of a worm (to his great disappointment) and ending up in a wild power struggle with the increasingly megalomaniacal Hoppy. Finally we have Walt Dangerfield, whose mission to Mars is curtailed in low earth orbit by the nuclear dingdong, and finds himself circling the irradiated earth as humanity’s only common referent, playing songs over the radio by request and reading Of Human Bondage to keep peoples’ spirits up (ha ha). Another mind confined, straining to connect, to loose the bonds of flesh.

There’s a certain amount of horror in this brutalized California — raw rat, yum yum — but also aspects of anarcho-utopia, especially out in West Marin where society is gradually reorganizing along cooperative agrarian lines. The title character, the Dr Strangelove figure responsible for the whole damn mess, ranches sheep in pseudonymous retirement until his sins catch up with him. Featuring an adorable talking dog who talks exactly like you imagine a dog would talk, homeostatic vermin traps, and a whole lot more delightful Dickian idiosyncrasies, this is almost up there with his best work imo.