GALACTIC POT-HEALER

1st.EDITION:

UK 1st: Gollancz, hb, 00596-3, Jul 1971, 191pp, L1.60 (?) {Levack: "Bound in maroon paper boards with gold lettering on the spine. '1971' on the title page"}

OTHER ENGLISH EDITIONS:

FOREIGN EDITIONS:

{For the best bibliographic info in French goto: www.multimania.com/ggoullet/pkdick/frames.html Thanks for the cover pix, Gilles}

His father had been a pot-healer before him. And so he too healed pots, in fact any kind of ceramic ware left over from the Old Days, before the war, when objects had not always been made out of plastic.

PKDS-2 10:

Publication date: May 26, 1969.

PKDS-5 9:

The Castel Of Babel (Japan) is a book about PKD's work -- a collection of essays, editor unknown -- published by Hokuso-sha on Dec 25, 1983. 265pp. Containing several dozen different essays on widely varying topics... {one is} "The Afterimage of a Certain Deconstructor" (or, alternately, "What's Left After The Autopsy"), apparantly about gabble, kipple, Existentialism and the Form Destroyer of GALACTIC POTHEALER

Vote for your Fave PKD Story   GALACTIC POT-HEALER. A strange and engaging meditation on the meaning of community and humankind's need for it. -- Steve Walsh, WA

PKDS-8 4:

(JB:) Even the weaker novels are worth reading, because they're so obviously PKD novels. I mean, the things the characters say and the way they're drawn, and the funny prose style and all.
(TP:) Oh, he says about, for example GALACTIC POTHEALER, that he "just winged it", and didn't think about it twice. Wrote it out fast and was never in control. but in some ways that is one of his very best books. {Powers & Blaylock 1985}

PKDS-15 8:

{James Tiptree, jr. (Alice Sheldon) died May 19, 1987} was another admirer of Dick's writing -- she corresponded with him for a while in '69-'70, when she was just beginning to be published as an sf writer., waxing eloquent and extremely enthusiastic about each new Dick novel she read. On one occasion she describes taking GALACTIC POTHEALER and mailing it to herself after reading the opening pages, as the only way to force herself to meet a writing deadline (if the book was in the house she would have to go on reading it).

PKDS-15 11:

Grafton (UK) recently released new paperback editions of ... GALACTIC POTHEALER.

PKDS-15 12:

With his as-yet-unpublished children's novel THE GLIMMUNG OF PLOWMAN'S PLANET (1966) -- an early version of what evolved into GALACTIC POTHEALER, opening with a little boy protagonist trying to save his cat from a world state that has abolished pets -- we can draw an inference as to what cats meant to Dick as a writer: a symbol of beleagured independence. {Rickman}

PKDS-16 7:

Earlier in 1987 Grafton released ... GALACTIC POTHEALER...

"Hello, there," a cheerful dream-voice declared. "Tonight's dream was written by Reg Baker and is called In Memory Engraved."

TDC 79

(PKD:) One that I vacillate about is GALACTIC POTHEALER. Sometimes it seems funny to me, sometimes it seems...stupid. Stupid. Nothing can be said for it. Another one I'm not sure of is A MAZE OF DEATH...

Vote for your Worst PKD Story!    Also on the least-favorite list is GALACTIC POT-HEALER -- Charles Broerman, VA

SL-38 227

Dear Scott,

Here are the three signed contracts back, to be given to Berkley Books for their signatures. (The contracts are for the outline called THE GALACTIC POT-HEALER.) Now, I notice that the contracts specify "sample chapter and outline form." They do have the outline, of course, but no sample chapter. Therefore I have written a sample chapter, plus excerpts from other chapters, which you will find included. They total thirty pages and should give Tom Dardis all that he needs.
However, if Mr. Dardis will sign the contracts without seeing these thirty pages, then let him do so; i.e. you might merely send the contracts back to him, retaining the thirty pages in your own office. Then, if he asks for the sample chapter, send him the thirty pages. My reasoning is as follows: he might not like the thirty pages, so if we can get a signature without them then by all means let's do so. Would you not agree?
By the way -- thanks from the bottom of my heart for this sale. We are almost out of money and couldn't have made it another month. God bless you. You are the best agent in the world.

Cordially,

Philip K. Dick.

{PKD > Scott Meredith, Nov 3, 1967}

SL-38 229:

{...} Second, I have finished the novel for Berkley Books, the outline for which is called , THE GALACTIC POT-HEALER. All that is left is doing the final draft, which usually takes me no more than ten days to two weeks. I can't find my copy of the contract with Berkley Books, and I am not sure whether the novel is due on the first of March or the fifteenth or the thirty-first; all I remember is that its due in March. Could you check over your copy of the contract of Berkley's and then let me know. If its due on the first, then ask them for two more weeks or until the end of the month. The novel came out quite well, I think. If Berkley doesn't buy it I'm sure Doubleday would. {...}

{PKD > S. Meredith, Feb 28 1968}

SL:38    285

Dear Sandra,

{...}{...}

GALACTIC POT-HEALER is minor, very minor; in fact I wish I hadn't written it. I think, though, it has one good part: the section in which -- aw the hell with it. No part of it is any good (I was going to say the part where the protagonist is reached by telephone while crouched in a packing crate). (I sort of hate GALACTIC POT-HEALER, as well as ZAP GUN plus a few more.Wrrgh.)

{...}{...}

Take care,

{PKD>Sandra Miesel, Sep 8, 1970}

Vote for your Fave PKD story!    GALACTIC POT-HEALER has meant a lot to me over the years -- Cat Imril Ishikawa

To the Novels page

Return to philipdick.com