2026-10-26 09:57 UTC
The Penultimate Truth (1964). Set in 2025, which was fun, we’re in post apocalyptic mode and the remnants of humanity are eking out a tough existence in bunkers, building robots for the war on the radioactive surface. Meanwhile on the surface, ad men with large households of robot staff compete to write copy that will perpetuate the lie to the bunker dwellers. I realised about halfway through this one that I’d read it at middle school, which would place it as possibly my first ever Dick.
Replies (2)
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@frobisher@mastodonapp.uk 2026-10-26 09:59
There’s a suitcase like machine here called a rhetoricizer that sort of sounds like a laptop, but which a 2026 denizen would further recognise as an LLM. It’s treated, quite rightly, as a novelty.
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@frobisher@mastodonapp.uk 2026-10-26 10:02
Other tech is this one includes a flying machine called a flapple, which is never elaborate on, and artiforgs, artificial organs that turn out to be a bit of a running theme in PKD. The nominal antagonist is using these to stay alive well beyond his natural lifespan to stop the young from ever getting anything, predicting Boomers.