The Ganymede Takeover - Philip K. Dick and Ray Nelson (1967)

 

Rating: Excellent

Some part of me the desired, no, actually needed a shot of paranoid weirdness that only Philip K. Dick can provide. This happens at least a couple of times a year. Fortunately, Dick was prolific, so there are still plenty of his novels I’m yet to read, despite being an avowed ‘Dickhead’ for decades. The Ganymede Takeover is one of the few novels that Dick collaborated on with another writer, in this case Ray Nelson, who was an interesting character in his own right, as an author, cartoonist and the inventor of the propeller beanie hat that went on to become emblematic of science fiction geekdom. Nelson and Dick were friends from childhood and it was after Nelson gave Dick his first LSD trip (I read somewhere that Dick didn’t have a particularly good time, no surprise there...) they decided to collaborate and apparently Dick rounded up some in-progress story fragments and they came up with The Ganymede Takeover. Set on a future Earth that has been invaded by reptilian worm creatures from, you guessed it, Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede. The Ganymedian invaders are also aided by a ‘Creech’ slave race of ugly bipedal monsters. There’s only one area (a ‘bale’) left on Earth in Tennessee that resists the worms from Ganymede, where a ‘Neeg’ leader called Percy X leads a small army of black Americans. There’s also another rebel group called the ‘World Psychiatric Association' (of course) who end up collaborating with Percy X. This premise is merely the framework for hanging all of the typical Dickian tropes from, such as flying cars (ionocraft), telepaths (Percy X and Mekkis, one of the Ganymedian's), vidphones, androids, liberal drug taking and, of course, half deranged doctors who design weird brain warping machinery; everything you’d want from a Philip K. Dick novel basically.

P. K. Dick, staring down Ray Nelson

The Ganymede Takeover can be placed among Dick’s lesser novels, however it is a much better effort than many of his pulpy novels, which typically were knocked off under the influence of legal amphetamines to keep the money, and the amphetamines, coming in. It could very well have been the collaboration with Nelson that created a narrative that is more polished than the usual knock-off effort by Dick. It’s still a wild, schlocky ride though, particularly about half way through, when an epic battle begins between the Neegs and the Creech led Ganymedian army, involving a herd of gigantic African Aardvarks with “...evil, glittering eyes...” and "...tongues that lick ionocraft out of the sky...", causing the greedy and slovenly character of Gus Swenesgard (a typical Dick character, well and truly trapped within the maw of his flaws) to exclaim “Oh my god, not Aardvarks!!” It becomes unbelievably wilder from that point on, with a totally crazy battle involving all kinds of bizarre creatures that emerge straight from the fevered minds of Percy X and his assistant, who are using a machine stolen from the mentally unstable Doctor Balkani that can create very real shared hallucinations. The plot becomes a bit convoluted from that point on, but it is entertaining non-the-less and it was a totally enjoyable 157 pages of Dick freakiness. The Ganymede Takeover is not the place to start for Philip K. Dick initiates, but for established Dickheads it's lots of freaky fun of the kind you’d expect and, of course, need in your life.