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"The field marshal is in retirement." Heydrich added, "And old."
"It is pla
"Or Adolf Hitler."
"Hitler's legendary reputation as a strategist has dimmed. The Wehrmacht knew his failings at the time; most of the German people know them now. As I'm sure you realize. You do keep tabs on such matters."
"It was the peresis of the brain," Heydrich said hotly. "If the UrFuhrer had not contracted that disease during his youthful days in Vie
Rising to his feet, Wegener said, "This discussion, as far as I am concerned, is over. I am required to report back to my superiors as to my accomplishments. Guten Tag."
Also standing, the Reichsfuhrer SS started to speak. But then the intercom system on his desk buzzed. "Yes?" he said, depressing a key.
"General Skorzany to see you, sir," the intercom said.
"All right. Send him in." Heydrich folded his arms, rocked back and forth on his heels, reflecting.
A burly, gray-haired man, reasonably good-looking, with wary, intelligent eyes, wearing the uniform of a Waffen-SS general, entered Heydrich's office. He glanced at Wegener, sizing him up, then turned inquiringly to the Reichsfiihrer SS.
To Wegener, Heydrich said, "Turn my suggestions over in your mind. For a time I will suspend any action vis-a-vis your activities recently in the Pacific States. I'll be in touch with you before the end of the week and I hope a favorable decision will occur to you. Keep it in mind that your position is not good."
Part Four. Plot Proposals and Outlines
This section contains examples of Dick at work sketching out his ideas -- lucidly, and with a penchant both for dramatic possibilities and cognitive paradoxes -- for the consideration of agents, editors, and potential television and film producers. All four of the selections date from the late 1960s, the only period in his life in which Dick seriously attempted to break into writing for television. (One of his finest early short stories, "Colony," had been adapted, in 1956, for the X Minus One radio program, devoted to SF dramatizations.) There is no evidence that he gained even the interested attention of anyone in that industry. The lure to attempt to do so may have stemmed from the success of certain of his SF peers, such as Harlan Ellison and Theodore Sturgeon, in placing scripts with the original Star Trek series.
The novel outline "Joe Protagoras Is Alive and Living on Earth" (1967) was first published posthumously in New Worlds #2, edited by David Garnett (Gollancz, London, 1992).
"Plot Idea for Mission: Impossible" (1967) and "TV Series Idea" (1967) have never before been published.
"Notes on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (1968) was first published posthumously in PKDS Newsletter, No. 18 (August 1988). The notes were written for the benefit of Bertram Berman, a filmmaker who had, in that year, obtained a first option on the just released Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968). This novel was ultimately adapted (with no involvement by Berman) into the acclaimed film Blade Ru
"Joe Protagoras Is Alive and Living on Earth" (1967)
Theme: A revolution which has brought forth conditions less favorable than the dictator pla
Plot: Joe Protagoras has a puny job -- but in the overpopulated and economically malfunctioning socialist world of 2007 he is lucky to have any job at all. However, he has been saving up a sum of money by which to consult Mr. Job. This peculiar entity, with tens of thousands of outlets throughout Earth and its planetary colonies, is virtually alive, although artificial, and is important in the lives of Earth's hordes of jobless and near-jobless citizens. Mr. Job can tell Protagoras, after an analysis of his aptitudes and experience, where he can find a genuinely adequate career appointment; Mr. Job, through its network of multiple extensors, keeps computer-style tabs on all job openings everywhere. But consulting Mr. Job is expensive. Protagoras hasn't much "real" money saved up (i.e., metal coins, in contrast with the nearly worthless inflationary scrip floated by the government), but he can't wait any longer (among other things, his girlfriend is putting pressure on him). He accordingly enters one of Mr. Job's many booths (like a telephone booth), dials his facts in, drops his precious coins into the slot. He gets back a cryptic sentence-and-a-half: "Your twenty words are up," Mr. Job tells him, and then clicks off. Joe Protagoras leaves the booth, trying to decipher the oraclelike message, and at this point the novel shifts to its other main character.
Simon Herrlich, the ancient, tottering despot, has kept himself alive by means of artificial organs for far too many years -- and has kept himself in Earth's top office at the same time. He is ill-liked by his heir, an ambitious aspirant named Arthur Self. For years, Self has been trying to persuade the Old Man to bow out voluntarily and hence turn everything over to him, i.e., to the younger, more virile Art Self. It is Self's contention that if he had been ruling all this time, Earth would be in better shape economically, politically, and socially -- if not spiritually (i.e., ideologically, this being a totalitarian state).
From Self's viewpoint we learn about Project Almost, the breaking through to and investigation of alternate Earths. We learn about the scientist in charge of operating the inter-Earth project: Nick Edel, a close associate and good friend of Simon Herrlich -- a man whom Self hates because it is Nick Edel who is, by means of his project, keeping Herrlich in office... inasmuch as all alternate Earths visited are worse than their own.