When computers rule the world...

short plot description: after a devastating third world war national governments are abolished and policy making is turned over to an advanced computer called "Vulcan 3" and its directives are implemented by the "Unity" organisation which higher members are the only ones with access to "Vulcan 3". As the novel starts things are going bad, the "Unity" organisation suffers from infighting, a movement called "Healers" is rebelling against "Unity" and "Vulcan 3" has been silent for some months. One man tries to find out the cause of these problems...

my thoughts: this novel from 1960 (an expansion of a 1956 novella) has a pulpy scifi feel to it, lots of action but the characters are thin, the plot threadbare and technology (never PKD's strong side) hasn't aged very well. The ideas which will turn up in later PKD's works are only present in trace amounts. If I hadn't known from the beginning that this is a PKD novel I would never have guessed after finishing the book, could have been written by most of the scifi authors of the 40s and 50s. Also the techno optimism is jarring and untypical for PKD. Quote: "...Machines were free of the poisoning bias of self-interest and feeling that gnawed at man; they were capable of performing the objective calculations that for man would remain only an ideal, never a reality..."

Sure, after more than sixty years of progress in the field of Artificial Intelligence since PKD wrote this novel, do tell me how that has worked out.

my advice: if you are new to PKD, don't start here. His next published novel "The Man in the High Castle" is way stronger. More of a read for completists.