THE UNTELEPORTED MAN     SEE: The Unteleported Man


Also known as LIES INC.

"There were several editions of the Text. And evidently not all were accurate. Like the range of paraworlds, the texts were mutually exclusive; one replaced the other, supplanted and abolished earlier versions" -- from 'The Missing Pages' of TUM

"Find the equation for nonconformity -- or else!"

OTHER ENGLISH EDITIONS:

FOREIGN EDITIONS:

{For the best bibliographic info in French goto: www.multimania.com/ggoullet/pkdick/frames.html Thanks for the cover pix, Gilles}

The SubInfo computers owned by Lies Incorporated had been caught in an unnatural act by a service mechanic. SubInfo computer Five had transmitted information which was not a lie.

Vote for your Fave PKD Story!    I know you all'll think I'm being perverse by picking THE UNTELEPORTED MAN as my #1 Fave of all PKD novels. But it's not so. I've thought a lot about it and I love this book. First because it has the funniest opening of any of his novels with Rachmael Ben Applebaum being hounded by the creditor-jet ballon. And the story really grips you. What the hell is going on at Whalesmouth? And the sub-plots all work in perfectly. Then, at the end -- which is what a lot of fans have bitched about -- you have that great bit where reality breaks down and the worst thing that could happen is that any two of the characters can agree on it! -- Lord RC, IN

The missing pages of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN (from PKDS-8, 1985)

PKDS-6    9:

   Dear PKDS,

    {... ...}

    But while I'm writing about what happened sometimes between PKD and ACE, allow me to address the question of the supposedly censored text of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN that Ace published. The story originally appeared in Fantastic, December 1964, and when I read it there I thought it was excellent: I gave a copy to senior Ace editor Don Wollheim and urged him to buy it. But it was just 32,000 words, pretty short for a novel, so though Don liked it too he wanted to know if Phil could expand it to book-length. Phil said sure, no problem, and signed a contract to produce an expanded version -- which he did within a few months, and it was given to me to read first.

    I discovered that what Phil had done was break into the narrative at its crucial point by having someone shoot the narrator with what amounted to an LSD dart, and then he spent 25,000 or 30,000 words telling us about the "acid trip" the protagnist had, after which Phil returned to the original text which had wrapped up the story. The material Phil wrote in the "acid trip" section had nothing to do with anything (it was a great description of an acid trip but honestly, all of it was quite irrelevant to the story), so I told Don that I thought Phil had "expanded" the story by adding a bunch of irrelevant bullshit. Don then read the ms., and he agreed with me, so he made an arrangement with Phil whereby Ace would publish only the original novella as half of an Ace Double, though as I recall Phil got paid as much money as he would have if he'd expanded his novella to a novel that Ace would have published with pride.

    THE UNTELEPORTED MAN has recently been published in its "full" version, each time with Introductions that castigated the Ace editors for "censoring" the longer text that included Phil's cop-out insertion. I will agree that the irrelevant material Phil added was enjoyable, but I still claim it shouldn't have been there: it's worth reading now solely because Phil wrote it. So what if it showed Phil, uncharacteristically, as essentially a hack writer? PKD had had enough of that characterization by then, and he was beginning to write the novels -- some dreadful, some adventurous and wonderful -- that established and confirmed his reputation.

    I prefer to leave the story there. Philip K. Dick was indeed one of the best science fiction writers who ever practised the craft; he wrote novels that turned on much of a whole generation of readers, and short stories that made even readers experienced in sf raise their eyebrows because they weren't used to sf writers challenging their intellects in the shorter ranges. Good for Phil, and in fact for anyone who is as challenging today as Phil was.

    {Terry Carr>PKDS, 1985}{See: THE GANYMEDE TAKEOVER for more of this letter}

SL:38 123  

{...} Now let's get to Ace, which you may possibly have discerned, has published most of my novels. What would (again I'm asking off the cuff) Ace's reaction be? For instance, in the expansion of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN, what if Ray was brought in? And his name -- despite the contract being in my name only -- appeared with mine? (this would not apply to CANTATA 140, which is written already.) After all, I am dividing, as in the case of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN, the sum with someone else, cutting my earnings in half; obviously I must believe in Ray's intrinsic contribution to the piece, since as you know; I write fast, and escalating the piece from 20 thousand to 50 thousand would be easy for me... but would it be as good if Ray worked on it too? {...} Let's put it this way. Ace let the contract for THE UNTELEPORTED MAN to me, and if they want only my byline on it, etc., naturally they are entitled, legally and morally, to that; no question there. I'm just arguing that it would be to their advantage to have both bylines. And both of us at work on the piece. Ray sees so many things that I don't; I picked him because of a comment he sent in to Fantastic about a short story of mine; I knew at once that I had hold of someone whe "fused" with my mind -- and then some. For instance, I have let him read the gallies of the Fantastic novelette THE UNTELEPORTED MAN, and he has already made several terrific suggestions -- informally -- as to how best it could be made into 50,000 words -- and his basic suggestion would never have occured to me. I can tell you this, for what its worth: doing it along Ray's suggestion, there would not be a mere padding of the magazine novelette, no overwriting which really added nothing to the 20,000 piece; the additional 25,000 words would be new, original, and in my mind beyond dispute exceptionally good. (I don't mean that Ray would write the needed 25,000 additional words; I mean that he would, in plot sessions, mostly orally done, would interact with me -- you know; what they call brainstorming. Then each of us, using the notes he had made, or perhaps a tape of the session or sessions, would repair to his study and conscientiously do an outline of the 25,000 word additional material. Then we would go over carbons of each other's outline and, from the two, find the best part and finalize on one joint outline; then this would be written, with me doing the final, so that style, pace, etc., would coincide with the already written 20,000 words. Now, who is being gypped by this? Ace? Hardly As I say, it's me that pays out the money to Ray, not them. {...}

So, please, Terry, old U-No bar comrade, answer me informally, in confidence (like the confessional) which I ought to do:
(1) Expand THE UNTELEPORTED MAN solo.
(2) Expand it in collaboration with Ray, but under my byline, and give him no credit (though he deserves it, and will let it be known anyhow, as I said before; and I see lots of trouble there)
(3)Expand it in open collaboration with Ace's official approval, in that I would serve formal notification to Don, via Scott, etc. {...}{...}

{PKD > Terry and Carol Carr, Nov 11, 1964}

SL-38 172:

{...} After New Year's I went back to the expansion of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN and so, except for my relationship with Nancy, there isn't much action in progress, here in East Gakville ... except of course for the Morman Temple turning on and off all night. {...} Anyhow, it seems almost certain that she and I will be leaving here, probably for the East Coast, most likely as soon as I finish the work on THE UNTELEPORTED MAN for Ace. {...}
{PKD > Carol Carr, Jan 10, 1965}

SL-38 190:

Don's reaction to the expanded UNTELEPORTED MAN must have been as great a surprise to you as to me, in view of your earlier remark to me that I had nothing to fear; in fact, "that my fears were unfounded," a rather ironic statement in that my fears were justified. {...}

{...} And it has been some time since I was capable of turning space opera out; THE UNTELEPORTED MAN, in its original form in Fantastic, was just about it; the end of the line for me in that direction. However, when I went to expand it for Ace, I did not pad it -- a suggestion which is, at best, an insult as to my integrity -- but to transform it from what was actually not a novel at all but a long story into a true novel -- which I did. And the "far-out" elements which I added, which were not there in the original, i.e., all which Don objects to, were necessary if the piece became a true novel and not merely a longer story. There is a real irony here, too, because a much better case could be made against my additions than the one Don chose to make; fundamentally, the additions follow the lines laid down in my Ace novel THE GAME PLAYERS OF TITAN, which Don nominated for the Hugo.
     I wish, too, to complain of something else: Don's tying in the purchase of my story collection with the completion of the contract for THE UNTELEPORTED MAN. This is a club held over my head, entirely unnecessary, since I frankly worked my goddam ass off over the expansion -- as everyone who knows me is aware of. If Don sees fit, in veiw of his rejection of the completed -- and to my mind satisfactory -- UNTELEPORTED MAN, to reject the story collection as further punishment, then I will insist that the Agency take note of this violation of what Rick Prindle called a "quasi-contract", by that meaning that Ace's statement that they wished to buy a story collection of mine did in no way originally hang on the purchase of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN as a seperate expansion; nor, in fact, did such a seperate expansion even exist. What has happened here is that by failing to satisfy Don on THE UNTELEPORTED MAN I may find myself facing the loss of other sales which have absolutely no connection with it. In professions other than fiction writing a good strong union generally can take care of fink tactics like this; unfortunately we s-f writers do not have a union {...}
c.c.: Don Wollheim, Ace Books, Inc.

{PKD > Scott Meredith, May 22, 1965}

Another face, concealed before, wriggled and squeezed out, as if wishing to escape. As if, Rachmael thought, it knows I can see it, and it can't stand that. That's the one thing it can't endure.

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