Two hundred years in the future, Earth and the Solar System are governed by lottery. At random times the lottery chooses a new world leader, known as the Quizmaster. The general public’s lives are determined by their classification. The classified swear fealty to their bosses. These are binding contracts that they can’t get out of unless they are terminated from above. The unclassified (‘unks’) make up an underclass that is discriminated against in various ways. Unks tend to be tradesmen and people who work with their hands: mechanics, carpenters, etc. Blue collar workers. The classified are what a former coworker of mine called ‘knowledge workers’ — people with college degrees.

Quizmasters are at their most vulnerable in the first days of their term. This is when the opposition typically calls for a Challenge Convention. At the convention, an assassin is chosen to kill the Quizmaster. If they succeed, the person to whom the assassin owes fealty becomes the new Quizmaster.

That’s the setting for Philip K. Dick’s first published novel, Solar Lottery, a science fiction thriller that contains many of PKD’s usual themes: a dystopian society, telepaths, synthetic people, a reluctant antihero, and something mysterious at the edge of known space. The book was written in 1954 so don’t expect any strong female characters. The women in this book are mostly ornamental (and for some reason topless?) The science is quaintly analog and retro. Nothing is digital or wireless, they use video and audio tape. Pluto is still a planet.

In spite of the datedness, there are some intriguing ideas presented in this book, starting with the notion of government leadership chosen by a roll of the dice. In this society, personal responsibility is an alien concept. People’s lives are determined by their classification. They willingly give over their autonomy and sign up for serfdom. The assassin sent to kill the new Quizmaster is a synthetic body piloted by the old Quizmaster’s minions in random rotation to stymie the telepaths guarding him.

Dick imagined a society in which massive multinational corporations pursue record profits while their rank & file employees are literal serfs, luxury goods are piled up and destroyed because the general population cannot afford them, robots have replaced service and hospitality workers, and people who work with their hands to produce tangible goods are scorned. Sound familiar? There’s also a subplot involving a group of outcasts on a journey to find a mythical tenth planet known as the Flame Disc.

Solar Lottery is a quick, fun read and as good a place as any to begin your discovery of the worlds of PKD. You can read more about PKD here.