What the Dead Men Say (novella)
What the Dead Men Say is a science fiction novella by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in Worlds of Tomorrow magazine in June 1964.[1] The manuscript, originally titled "Man With a Broken Match",[2] was received by Dick's agent on 15 April 1963.[citation needed]
The concept of "half-life" introduced in the story was used again and developed in Dick's 1969 novel Ubik, which even re-uses a page of the novella verbatim.[citation needed]
Plot summary
Louis Sarapis, a highly influential businessman, dies of an embolism. After a prolonged funeral, his public relations manager, Johnny Barefoot, delivers his corpse to a mortuary to partially revive him into a state called "half-life". The process would allow Louis to regain consciousness for a total of about one year (portioned out over a longer time frame), although his mental processes would still gradually fade until his final death. Half-life is considered a routine process, with burial thought of as "barbaric". Louis' will orders for him to be put into half-life as soon as possible, likely so he can participate in the Democratic-Republican National Convention; he previously attempted to elect Alfonse Gam, failing only narrowly. However, the revival process appears to fail; although Louis' brain is active, no communication can be established. At the same time, staff at a radio telescope on the Earth's moon (called "Luna") detects a transmission of human speech coming from one light-week away.
Louis' economic assets are inherited by his granddaughter, Kathy Egmont Sharp. Claude St. Cyr, the businessman's former lawyer, considers her unfit to manage the assets, given her history of drug abuse and general eccentricity. The next morning, she meets Johnny, who is now her employee. When Kathy hears about the mysterious transmission, she starts to suspect it's from Louis; further, she insists that she can communicate with him mentally. Meanwhile, Gam receives a telegram purportedly from Louis, declaring his intent to support Gam at the Convention once again. He requests legal help from to Louis' former lawyer, Claude St. Cyr, who is confused by the situation.
The transmission has since gotten more powerful, starting to interfere with telecommunications. St. Cyr finds that the voice resembles Louis', causing him to start believing Kathy and Gam's assertions. When he and Phil Harvey offer her the moon Ganymede for her assets, she claims that her grandfather "says no". As they discuss, a phone in the office rings; Johnny picks it up, hearing the voice of Louis. Johnny threatens to quit if Kathy doesn't sell, to which she responds: "My grandfather says go ahead and quit." When he returns to his hotel room, Louis communicates with him again, first through Johnny's phone, then through the TV network. Johnny considers jumping out through the window, which Louis communicates to St. Cyr and Harvey by taking over the automated newsletter. Kathy was contacted too and arrives first. Louis insists that Johnny represent Gam, who figures Louis' newfound influence over the media will allow him to get elected.
Louis' influence spreads further, taking over even disconnected devices such as electric typewriters. At the same time, his speech becomes more and more incoherent, devolving to: "Vote for Gam, the man what am. Gam, Gam, vote for Gam, vote for Gam, the one fine man[...]". St. Cyr retrieves Louis' corpse and burns it, but the transmission doesn't stop. He deduces that the source of the voice is Kathy, perhaps in some sort of subconscious process. Johnny rushes to the hospital where she's recovering from an overdose. She confirms St. Cyr's theory, claiming to have "eaten" Louis. Johnny determines that the initial voice came from an artificial transmitter, deployed years ago as part of a plan to terrorize the public and get Gam elected. St. Cyr later concludes that there must be another transmitter closer to Earth, given the voice's quick reaction time. Johnny is selected to assassinate Kathy and now-nominated Gam.
References
External links
- What the Dead Men Say at the Internet Archive
- What the Dead Men Say title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
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- Gather Yourselves Together (1950)
- Voices from the Street (1952)
- Solar Lottery (1954)
- Mary and the Giant (1954)
- The World Jones Made (1954)
- Eye in the Sky (1955)
- The Man Who Japed (1955)
- A Time for George Stavros (1956)
- Pilgrim on the Hill (1956)
- The Broken Bubble (1956)
- The Cosmic Puppets (1957)
- Puttering About in a Small Land (1957)
- Nicholas and the Higs (1958)
- Time Out of Joint (1958)
- In Milton Lumky Territory (1958)
- Confessions of a Crap Artist (1959)
- The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike (1960)
- Humpty Dumpty in Oakland (1960)
- Vulcan's Hammer (1960)
- Dr. Futurity (1960)
- The Man in the High Castle (1961)
- We Can Build You (1962)
- Martian Time-Slip (1962)
- Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb (1963)
- The Game-Players of Titan (1963)
- The Simulacra (1963)
- The Crack in Space (1963)
- Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964)
- The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1964)
- The Zap Gun (1964)
- The Penultimate Truth (1964)
- The Unteleported Man (1964)
- The Ganymede Takeover (1965)
- Counter-Clock World (1965)
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1966)
- Nick and the Glimmung (1966)
- Now Wait for Last Year (1966)
- Ubik (1966)
- Galactic Pot-Healer (1968)
- A Maze of Death (1968)
- Our Friends from Frolix 8 (1969)
- Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974)
- Deus Irae (1976)
- Radio Free Albemuth (1976; published 1985)
- A Scanner Darkly (1977)
- Valis (1981)
- The Divine Invasion (1981)
- The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982)
- The Owl in Daylight (unfinished)
- A Handful of Darkness (1955)
- The Variable Man (1956)
- The Preserving Machine (1969)
- The Book of Philip K. Dick (1973)
- The Best of Philip K. Dick (1977)
- The Golden Man (1980)
- Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities (1984)
- I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (1985)
- The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (1987)
- Beyond Lies the Wub (1988)
- The Dark Haired Girl (1989)
- The Father-Thing (1989)
- Second Variety (1989)
- The Days of Perky Pat (1990)
- The Little Black Box (1990)
- The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford (1990)
- We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (1990)
- The Minority Report (1991)
- Second Variety (1991)
- The Eye of the Sibyl (1992)
- The Philip K. Dick Reader (1997)
- Minority Report (2002)
- Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (2002)
- Paycheck (2004)
- Vintage PKD (2006)
- The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (2011)
- "Beyond Lies the Wub" (1952)
- "The Gun" (1952)
- "The Skull" (1952)
- "The Little Movement" (1952)
- "The Defenders" (1953)
- "Mr. Spaceship" (1953)
- "Piper in the Woods" (1953)
- "Roog" (1953)
- "The Infinites" (1953)
- "Second Variety" (1953)
- "Colony" (1953)
- "The Cookie Lady" (1953)
- "Impostor" (1953)
- "Paycheck" (1953)
- "The Preserving Machine" (1953)
- "Expendable" (1953)
- "The Indefatigable Frog" (1953)
- "The Commuter" (1953)
- "Out in the Garden" (1953)
- "The Great C" (1953)
- "The King of the Elves" (1953)
- "The Trouble with Bubbles" (1953)
- "The Variable Man" (1953)
- "The Impossible Planet" (1953)
- "Planet for Transients" (1953)
- "The Builder" (1953)
- "Tony and the Beetles" (1953)
- "The Hanging Stranger" (1953)
- "Prize Ship" (1954)
- "Beyond the Door" (1954)
- "The Crystal Crypt" (1954)
- "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford" (1954)
- "The Golden Man" (1954)
- "Sales Pitch" (1954)
- "Breakfast at Twilight" (1954)
- "The Crawlers" (1954)
- "Exhibit Piece" (1954)
- "Adjustment Team" (1954)
- "Shell Game" (1954)
- "Meddler" (1954)
- "A World of Talent" (1954)
- "The Last of the Masters" (1954)
- "Upon the Dull Earth" (1954)
- "The Father-thing" (1954)
- "Strange Eden" (1954)
- "The Turning Wheel" (1954)
- "Foster, You're Dead!" (1955)
- "Human Is" (1955)
- "War Veteran" (1955)
- "Captive Market" (1955)
- "Nanny" (1955)
- "The Chromium Fence" (1955)
- "Service Call" (1955)
- "The Mold of Yancy" (1955)
- "Autofac" (1955)
- "Psi-man Heal My Child!" (1955)
- "The Hood Maker" (1955)
- "The Minority Report" (1956)
- "Pay for the Printer" (1956)
- "A Glass of Darkness (The Cosmic Puppets)" (1956)
- "The Unreconstructed M" (1957)
- "Null-O" (1958)
- "Explorers We" (1959)
- "Recall Mechanism" (1959)
- "Fair Game" (1959)
- "War Game" (1959)
- "All We Marsmen" (1963)
- "What'll We Do with Ragland Park?" (1963)
- "The Days of Perky Pat" (1963)
- "If There Were No Benny Cemoli" (1963)
- "Waterspider" (1964)
- "Novelty Act" (1964)
- "Oh, to Be a Blobel!" (1964)
- "The War with the Fnools" (1964)
- "What the Dead Men Say" (1964)
- "Orpheus with Clay Feet" (1964)
- "Cantata 140" (1964)
- "The Unteleported Man" (1964)
- "The Little Black Box" (1964)
- "Retreat Syndrome" (1965)
- "Project Plowshare (later "The Zap Gun")" (1965)
- "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (1966)
- "Holy Quarrel" (1966)
- "Faith of Our Fathers" (1967)
- "Not by Its Cover" (1968)
- "The Electric Ant" (1969)
- "A. Lincoln, Simulacrum" (1969)
- "The Pre-persons" (1974)
- "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" (1974)
- "The Exit Door Leads In" (1979)
- "Rautavaara's Case" (1980)
- "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" (1980)
- "The Eye of the Sibyl" (1987)
- "Stability" (1987)
Films |
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TV series |
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- Only Apparently Real (1986 biography)
- I Am Alive and You Are Dead (1993 biography)
- Your Name Here (2008 drama film)
- Isa Dick Hackett (daughter)
- Philip K. Dick Award