2006 books
21) Philip K. Dick, The Man Who Japed, 1956
An early novel and it shows, though still identifiably 'Dickian' and one that probably helped shape Terry Gilliam's Brazil. In a twisted 22nd Century obsessed with the puritanical moral reclamation of society after the late 20th Century world war, Allen Purcell finds himself in a position to restore some balance to interpersonal relations in the world at large, if he can get to grips with why he inexplicably defaces the statue of his society's founder and then suppresses the memories. Purcell's eventual use of disinformation is clever, and is probably a microcosm of the kind of tactic being used to marshall public opinion in today's bogus 'war on terror'. Mostly a humourless and two-dimensional book, though Dick's twisted grin eventually comes through despite a few loose ends.