Philip K. Dick(PKD) is a science fiction legend who has written 44 novels and 121 stories in his career. He wrote The World Jones, made in 1954, and the book was published as the author's third novel in 1956.
Although The World Jones Made is considered an early period work, PKD, who was 26 years old at the time of writing the book, has previously written seven novels and dozens of stories.
The book was translated into Turkish in 1971 as part of Okat Publishing House's Space Series. Modern Turkish readers can read the novel through the translation of Gonca Gulbey, published by Alfa publications in 2019.
The novel is based on the question: "What would happen if we knew we were going to live in the next year's time frame?"
The novel is set in the period following a major nuclear war around the world. The suffering caused by the war has led the ruling authorities to adopt a principle called relativism. Relativism is a philosophy in which people are free to believe what they want. As long as they do not express an opinion that is not supported by concrete facts and force everyone to act according to the truths they believe in. Relativism has made it possible to legally consume drugs such as heroin and cannabis and watch live sex shows of hermaphrodite mutants. Mutants, the product of radiation from nuclear war, are mostly employed in the entertainment industry.
The Federation, which came to power after the nuclear war caused by Islamist and Christian fanatics, protects relativism with forced labor camps, prisons and detention centers created for dissidents.
Doug Cussick, the main character in the novel, is a member of the federation government police force. Doug is an ordinary man who values tolerance and respect and wants a world where future generations can grow up safely. Early in the novel, Doug meets Floyd Jones, who works as a fortune teller at a carnival of various mutants and is horrified by Jones's prophecies about the world's future.
The novel's 'evil' character Floyd Jones was born with the ability to see the future. This characteristic, which seems desirable at first glance, has turned Jones' life into a dungeon because he feels like a sideshow who portrays others' lives. In this regard, Jones has a rather dark mood than typical PKD characters who are passionately committed to living. This pessimistic mood, combined with his ability to predict the future, will eventually make him the religious leader of the discontented masses.
Another Jones, a true religious leader, appeared in the United States years after the novel was written also comes across as a case of complete prophecy. James Warren "Jim" Jones, founder and leader of the Temple of peoples' cult movement, is best known for his 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, which killed 918 people.
The World Jones Made consists of three intertwined storylines. At the beginning of the novel, we encounter eight mutants living in a womb-like bunker outside San Francisco. These mutants wonder why they are treated so generously, even though they have no benefit to society. Because they are aware that they live in an atmosphere created specifically for them. They wonder if their mutations are the result of nuclear war, or are they the original genetic engineering product?
The second storyline follows the life story of Jones and tells how he built a popular movement step by step that would trouble the Federation administration.
In the third storyline, we witness the days of Doug Cussick, a member of the Federation's police force, spent with his Danish wife, Nina. Unlike his wife, Doug, Nina does not see relativism as a satisfying philosophy. “Most people want certainty,” he explains in the novel.
Aliens are also not missing in the novel, in which the individual problems of the characters and social problems are intertwined. A few meters in diameter, single-celled creatures that drift from another solar system to Earth for many years in space seem quite harmless and melt under the influence of the sun sometime after they are placed on the surface of the earth. Although the Federation administration passes laws to protect these unusual aliens, who do not harm anyone, Jones and his followers prefer to burn them by pouring gasoline on them.
The World Jones Made was a novel I read with pleasure by the PKD, who was never satisfied with easy answers while dealing with issues such as determinism, free will, and struggle with bigotry.