I'm having a hard time writing about Game-Players of Titan, and I think I've finally figured out why. It's quite a good PKD novel, but it veers off in so many directions it's hard to get a grip on.
In his best stuff, PKD's focus can be truly awesome. Even throwing in everything but the kitchen sink, his stories move. Either everyone's racing toward the same goal, or everyone's under the influence of the same drug, or the actions of one person will save the world or end it - something. What we've got here are good pieces of four or five different novels, and they don't really gel into one story until about two-thirds of the way through. Once that happens, the novel improves real quick, but the ability to build a story from widely separated elements is a difficult trick and one that PKD didn't master until a little later in his career.
Granted, the same group of people remains more or less intact throughout, which helps the cohesion a lot. They are all California landowners on an Earth where some wartime disaster has depleted human fertility. They spend their time playing a game imported from the alien species native to Titan, which forces losers to trade spouses and land holdings. Fine, but how are you supposed to identify with the group's struggle when the struggle keeps changing?
Story Number One is a thriller in which the group members try to stave off a hostile takeover from an East Coast conglomerate. Story Number Two is a murder mystery in which they all realize that they have no memories of the time at which the murder took place. Story Number Three is a conspiracy fantasy in which they confront a cabal of Homo Superior out to destroy them. Story Number Four is a paranoid nightmare in which they must return to their game, this time against the Titans, for the Earth itself. Game-Players of Titan is less a science fiction novel than a 200-page science fiction library.
Nevertheless, despite the patchwork, Game-Players of Titan is a greater piece than other PKD novels with similar flaws. What saves it this time out is the author's attention to fleshing out his characters. It's not perfect, but by the time the story is over the reader can recognize most of the members of the original character grouping just by their actions and manner of speaking - that's how you can successfully identify with them, not through the plot. The original group consists of about eight characters, and five or so of them are fully three-dimensional - an excellent batting average, and one which PKD would improve upon later.
What's more, underneath all of the plot machinations is a genuinely inspiring story about a man contemplating suicide who recovers his love of life through meaningful work and a good relationship with his wife. Pete Garden is an irritating whiner on the first page, a charismatic leader on the last, and that's a dramatic story well worth anyone's time. You've got to dig for it, though.
So Game-Players of Titan is really a cheer for the guy who struggles unsuccessfully and comes close to despair, but goes out and fights again because his friends help him. Regular readers of PKD's work will recognize this theme as the same dealt with so successfully in classics like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Now Wait for Last Year. Once again, the author proves that he's at least as much interested in love as he is in paranoia and the nature of reality, his better-known concerns.
Benshlomo says, Here's to the ones who don't stop when things get tough.
