SFF Audio Podcast: Vulcan’s Hammer by Philip K Dick

My journey through all of Philip K Dick’s novels continues! We’ve reached the 1960s, and this time my trusty guides Jesse Willis (of the SFF Audio Podcast) and Paul Weimar led me into the strange and creepy world of Vulcan’s Hammer.

This might not be one of PKD’s best or most famous novels, but it’s kinda special because it has so many unsettling and interesting ideas to play with, and this turned out to be one of my favorite recent podcast recordings with Willis and Weimar.

In this episode (#339), we talk Artificial Intelligence, angry machines, Terminator, and ALL THE GOOD (SCARY) STUFF. Listen streaming at the link above or at itunes.

This is a readalong, so it’ll make more sense if you’ve read the novel, and yes there are spoilers.

More PKD readalongs to follow… next PKD episodes are Now Wait For Last Year and The Man in the High Castle.

Back cover blurb of Vulcan’s Hammer:

After the twentieth century’s devastating series of wars, the world’s governments banded together into one globe-spanning entity, committed to peace at all costs. Ensuring that peace is the Vulcan supercomputer, responsible for all major decisions. But some people don’t like being taken out of the equation. And others resent the idea that the Vulcan is taking the place of God. As the world grows ever closer to all-out war, one functionary frantically tries to prevent it. But the Vulcan computer has its own plans, plans that might not include humanity at all.