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sammystarbuck's review against another edition
2.0
Meh. Especially on the heels of reading the fantastic Ubik. Although I do kinda want to read a 3D holographic comic that "wiggles" now...
alyssa_tauber's review against another edition
3.0
3.5
"The Zap Gun" is not one of PKD's best, but is still a fun read. I've read a number of Dick's works and would rate "Zap Gun" towards the middle. It has great ideas, some of which are pretty relevant to today's world, but there are some plot lines that could have been either more developed, or better incorporated into the rest of the story.
Overall, while "Zap Gun" could have been even better, it's still good and most PDK fans will probably enjoy it.
"The Zap Gun" is not one of PKD's best, but is still a fun read. I've read a number of Dick's works and would rate "Zap Gun" towards the middle. It has great ideas, some of which are pretty relevant to today's world, but there are some plot lines that could have been either more developed, or better incorporated into the rest of the story.
Overall, while "Zap Gun" could have been even better, it's still good and most PDK fans will probably enjoy it.
smcleish's review against another edition
4.0
Originally published on my blog here in November 2001.
Philip K. Dick had two concerns which appear over and over again in his novels, the meaning of humanity and the chance or occult motivation of events. The second theme is of primary importance here. The idea of the novel is that the arms race is effectively over, but that those not in the know ("pursaps" as opposed to "cogs") need to be persuaded that weapons research is still going on. So there has arisen a "weapons fashion industry", which each week comes up with a design, which is shown in action on TV (against androids; none of the weapons really work) and then elaborately "ploughshared" - turned into some peaceful gadget. The weapons designers get their ideas acting as mediums in trances, which is where the occult motivation of events comes in.
The crisis comes when Earth is invaded by aliens and suddenly real weapons are required - weapons which the pursaps believe to be already in existence. Or is this what is happening - the only source of information about what is going on (cities disappearing after satellites appear in orbit) is a toy designer who appears to have travelled in time from the future with a warning.
The extremely trashy title may have prevented this novel, which with its theme of the alien slavers is a satire on the pulp science fiction genre, being one of Dick's better known, but it is easily up to the high standard regularly reached by his fiction. It lacks the punch of his biggest classics, but doesn't fall far short.
Philip K. Dick had two concerns which appear over and over again in his novels, the meaning of humanity and the chance or occult motivation of events. The second theme is of primary importance here. The idea of the novel is that the arms race is effectively over, but that those not in the know ("pursaps" as opposed to "cogs") need to be persuaded that weapons research is still going on. So there has arisen a "weapons fashion industry", which each week comes up with a design, which is shown in action on TV (against androids; none of the weapons really work) and then elaborately "ploughshared" - turned into some peaceful gadget. The weapons designers get their ideas acting as mediums in trances, which is where the occult motivation of events comes in.
The crisis comes when Earth is invaded by aliens and suddenly real weapons are required - weapons which the pursaps believe to be already in existence. Or is this what is happening - the only source of information about what is going on (cities disappearing after satellites appear in orbit) is a toy designer who appears to have travelled in time from the future with a warning.
The extremely trashy title may have prevented this novel, which with its theme of the alien slavers is a satire on the pulp science fiction genre, being one of Dick's better known, but it is easily up to the high standard regularly reached by his fiction. It lacks the punch of his biggest classics, but doesn't fall far short.
darwin8u's review against another edition
4.0
Project Plowshare, or don't touch my Love Gun.
I ended up liking this one way more than I thought I might. I started reading thinking this was going to simply be one of PKD's early, pulpy sci-fi novels. Look. The guy wrote over 44 novels (and hundreds of short-stories). Not every book is going to be [b:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|7082|Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|Philip K. Dick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1435458683s/7082.jpg|830939] or [b:Ubik|22590|Ubik|Philip K. Dick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327995569s/22590.jpg|62929], but I had a copy, so...
Yes. I read it because it was there. Was it pulpy? Hell yes, even pulpier than I could have imagined. I'm not sure everything was fully realized in this novel. I'm sure he padded this novel with some unnecessary words simply because he was being paid by the word. It may have been written fast and lose, but there is clean, mad logic to it all. The book feels like a strange combination of Orwell's [b:1984|5470|1984|George Orwell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348990566s/5470.jpg|153313] mixed with Vonnegut's [b:Cat's Cradle|135479|Cat's Cradle|Kurt Vonnegut|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327867150s/135479.jpg|1621115] but finished with a bit of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. For me, thus far, it is the funniest of Dick's novels. And no, it wasn't as good as '1984' or 'Cat's Cradle'.
The book also seems to have early seeds of Dick's later religious explorations. It isn't as heavy as his Valis (or Gnosis) trilogy, but it is hard to escape the feeling that already in the early 60s Dick's mind is working over some of his God/gnosis/divinity ideas. Looking at a timeline for Dick, I notice this novel was written right after [b:The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch|14185|The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch|Philip K. Dick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1338461946s/14185.jpg|1399376]. This makes sense, because they seem very similar (not identical twins, but Irish twins at least). Anyway, if you are a PKD fan, this one should definitely be on your list.
I ended up liking this one way more than I thought I might. I started reading thinking this was going to simply be one of PKD's early, pulpy sci-fi novels. Look. The guy wrote over 44 novels (and hundreds of short-stories). Not every book is going to be [b:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|7082|Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|Philip K. Dick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1435458683s/7082.jpg|830939] or [b:Ubik|22590|Ubik|Philip K. Dick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327995569s/22590.jpg|62929], but I had a copy, so...
Yes. I read it because it was there. Was it pulpy? Hell yes, even pulpier than I could have imagined. I'm not sure everything was fully realized in this novel. I'm sure he padded this novel with some unnecessary words simply because he was being paid by the word. It may have been written fast and lose, but there is clean, mad logic to it all. The book feels like a strange combination of Orwell's [b:1984|5470|1984|George Orwell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348990566s/5470.jpg|153313] mixed with Vonnegut's [b:Cat's Cradle|135479|Cat's Cradle|Kurt Vonnegut|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327867150s/135479.jpg|1621115] but finished with a bit of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. For me, thus far, it is the funniest of Dick's novels. And no, it wasn't as good as '1984' or 'Cat's Cradle'.
The book also seems to have early seeds of Dick's later religious explorations. It isn't as heavy as his Valis (or Gnosis) trilogy, but it is hard to escape the feeling that already in the early 60s Dick's mind is working over some of his God/gnosis/divinity ideas. Looking at a timeline for Dick, I notice this novel was written right after [b:The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch|14185|The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch|Philip K. Dick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1338461946s/14185.jpg|1399376]. This makes sense, because they seem very similar (not identical twins, but Irish twins at least). Anyway, if you are a PKD fan, this one should definitely be on your list.
nv6acaat's review against another edition
4.0
expanding on ideas from his 'toy'-based short stories. the shorts are better but this one's okay.
creepysnowman's review against another edition
3.0
Far and away, my favourite of Philip K Dick's novels will always be "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". I also really enjoyed "The Man in the High Castle", but predominantly, I've always preferred PKD's short stories. I find in some of the novels I've read, that the plots often begin to waver and the end don't always satisfy, but in the medium of the short story, Dick's satire is first rate, his pacing taut, and the imagination runs wild.
So the Zap Gun is a weird duck - it's not as good as the "great" PKD books I've read, but not as bad as the ones that left me cold (I really couldn't get into Ubik.) The plot (summarized adequately above and in the the other reviews) plays fair with the reader and the ending does have something interesting to say that actually ties into the human condition, the nature of empathy, and the protagonists' growth as a person - so those are all points in the book's favour - but there are quite a few places where the storytelling seems bloated - padding out an outstanding novella into an "okay" novel.
Still - worth a read.
So the Zap Gun is a weird duck - it's not as good as the "great" PKD books I've read, but not as bad as the ones that left me cold (I really couldn't get into Ubik.) The plot (summarized adequately above and in the the other reviews) plays fair with the reader and the ending does have something interesting to say that actually ties into the human condition, the nature of empathy, and the protagonists' growth as a person - so those are all points in the book's favour - but there are quite a few places where the storytelling seems bloated - padding out an outstanding novella into an "okay" novel.
Still - worth a read.
mathew's review against another edition
4.0
The two superpowers engage in an arms race of weapons that don't actually work, accompanied by faked-up promotional videos that seem to show them in action; the technology eventually gets repurposed in consumer electronics. Then aliens from Sirius turn up and start putting weapons satellites in orbit, and suddenly both sides need to find superweapons that work. Meanwhile, a paranoid self-important nobody starts a political campaign... It being a Philip K Dick book, there are then a couple of surprise revelations and aspects of the protagonist's reality start to break apart; I won't say more than that to avoid spoilers.
According to the biography "Divine Invasions", the story was written on a steady diet of amphetamines at a rate of 57 pages per day while Dick's marriage was imploding. I'd say it's mid-tier quality Dick, which is remarkable given those circumstances. But even mid-tier Dick is far ahead of many other SF authors.
According to the biography "Divine Invasions", the story was written on a steady diet of amphetamines at a rate of 57 pages per day while Dick's marriage was imploding. I'd say it's mid-tier quality Dick, which is remarkable given those circumstances. But even mid-tier Dick is far ahead of many other SF authors.