Galactic Pot-Healer: 05/18/07

I got a copy of Galactic Pot-Healer from another BookCrossing member. Although I enjoyed this book thoroughly, I'm not sure my short review can do this book justice. It's one of those books that though short, requires a lot of re-reading and thought.

The basic plot is fairly typical Dick: a common man in a deadened job finds himself exposed to the true mysteries of world and is uncertain how to deal with it all. Meet Joe Fernwright, pot-healer in a dead-end job with lots of time on his hands and nothing to do. In a world of metal and plastic, no one ever seems to need his ceramic mending skills until the demigod of a distant planet offers him a job he cannot refuse.

Joe is presented with a prophesy in the form of the Book, a precognitive tome written by the native Kalends. So many books now would show the protagonist trying to thwart the vision and exert free will (to then either succeed or fail). This book, though, embraces Fatalism as a central theme and Joe goes by the Book.

In the end of Galactic Pot-Healer with all its discussions of Faustian deals and Fatalism and its poking fun at government, Joe's adventures to Plowman's Planet turn out to be an elaborate shaggy-dog story.

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