When overpopulation threatens the Earth, one company offers a solution: transportation to the colony Whale's Mouth. The only problem? The teleportation machine only works one way. the whole thing sounds too good to be true to Rachel ben Applebaum, who sets himself to reveal the scam only to get ensnared in surveillance by the transport company, who will do anything to thwart him.

There is a MASSIVE tone and plot shift in the middle of the book that was incredibly bewildering, but slowly makes sense of itself. This book had a particularly tortured publication history, which was interesting to read about in the Afterword. It really explained some things!

Far from my favorite Dick, but I did really enjoy it. ( )

Whoo, boy. Unless you like your Philip K. Dick mixed with a heavy dose of Hunter S. Thompson, avoid this book like the plague. If you don't believe me, read the afterword first, which explains how the book went through several iterations - it's a Frankenstein's monster of parts and revisions. ( )

The crisis which defines the novel borders on mastubatory as one ascertains Dick's predilection towards confusion. The drug-induced stream of consciousness prose is not helpful in gaining any deeper understanding of the work. ( )

The premise is baller: Earth is overcrowded, an evil genius invents and then capitalizes on a one-way teleportation system to a habitable planet (Whale's Mouth) outside the solar system. Rachmael ben Applebaum surmises that the grass might not be so green on the other side of the Telpor gates and decides to take his ship out there the long way (18 year one-way trip) to see if anyone wants to join the Earthling ranks again. The teleportation syndicate's attempts to thwart his journey leave him without a deep-sleep component. Hooray! Love reading about descents into madness. Except... this was too bizarre and disjointed. Disappointing! Shockingly, the inhabitants of Whale's Mouth have been conscripted into an army with the purpose of conquering Earth (turns out the teleportation system CAN function both ways... everyone's pretty upset with themselves that they fell for the evil genius's ruse). Hopefully this is one of his worst - I like the drug-trip feel of his writing, but this was WAY garbled. ( )

An odd little book for sure, but very well written, very human and very Dickian. ( )

I've read a few books by Philip K Dick before I got to Lies, Inc. Out of the seven books I've read, this one is my least favorite. If you do a bit of research on this book you will learn that this started out as a short story entitled 'The Unteleported Man' when it was first published. PKD later tried to fill it out to what he originally wanted it to be, he inserted the majority of the newer material into the middle of the story and when you read the book, you start to pick up on it pretty quickly. It just starts to get a bit complicated to understand.

In the research, it says that PKD passed away before fully finishing the changes he wanted to make and add. There were apparently a few holes that weren't completely filled and connected. Some of the pages were later found and added but there were still a couple gaps in the story that they pulled another writer to try and add a bit to make sense of it. I don't know if that really worked or if PKD should have just left well enough alone and not added in the extra text.

I really enjoyed the beginning of the book and when we got to the end of the book I really enjoyed it as well. I wonder if maybe you can just tell that the parts were written at different points in PKD's career and it just sticks out more. I also think the two parts would have worked well individually, if they'd been expanded separately and not together as one work. I don't feel the need to go into the details of the book, since it's quite apparent most readers pick up on the change quite easily.

So I'd say if you are just a casual reader and are curious about PKD, stick to his better known works. But if you are a fan of his I'd say it's probably worth a read. You may still enjoy parts of the book, like I did reading it. It also made me think of the liberties some film makers take when adapting his work, and how that could make this book work in a way. If they are inspired by it but don't do a fully faithful adaption they could make the story work well in a way that this book didn't quite do it. ( )

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

In the early 21st century, Earth has become overcrowded and has begun to look toward space as a potential new home. Only one habitable planet has been found — Whale’s Mouth — and it’s said to be a paradise. Rachmael ben Applebaum’s company has developed a spaceship that will take settlers there, but the trip takes 18 years. Just as business is about to begin, it’s undercut by Trails of Hoffman, Inc., a company who has developed a new teleporting technology that will get settlers to Whale’s Mouth in only 15 minutes. The only catch is that it’s a one-way trip — once you leave, you can’t come back. Ben Applebaum, whose company has been financially devastated by this new technology, discovers that the videos of happy settlers have been faked and thinks there’s something nefarious going on at Whale’s Mouth. After all, Trails of Hoffman is run by Germans, and their eugenic ideas have not been forgotten. Ben Applebaum also believes that the United Nations, also led by Germans, might be in league with Trails of Hoffman. With the help of a company called Lies, Inc., ben Applebaum sets out on the 36-year round-trip to investigate and inform the world about what’s happening in Whale’s Mouth.

Lies, Inc. is the most inaccessible PKD work I’ve ever read. It actually starts off well — I loved the premise and couldn’t wait to find out what was going on at Whale’s Mouth. (Except that I still have no idea what was up with the rat in ben Applebaum’s head.) But just as ben Applebaum sets out, things get really weird. Too weird. In the middle of the novel, ben Applebaum gets hit by an LSD-coated dart and most of the rest of the story is one big time-warped acid trip for him and for the reader. There’s talk about paraworlds, hypnagogic experiences, paranoia, bad psychotherapy, and the illusion of reality. None of this is new for a PKD story, but this time the reader has no idea where or when the characters are. The plot jumps around in time and space and is so disorienting that the reader doesn’t know what’s going on. I think perhaps that if I read it a few more times, I could make more sense of it, but I really don’t want to.

Suddenly at nearly the end of Lies, Inc., things get back on track. At that point, I said to myself, “This feels like someone dropped a huge acid sequence into the middle of a novella.” After a few minutes of investigation on the internet, I found an afterword by PKD’s literary executor, Paul Williams, explaining that that’s exactly what happened. Lies, Inc. is an expansion of Philip K. Dick’s novella The Unteleported Man. The huge awful chunk in the middle (you can tell exactly where it begins and ends) is an addition to the novel that was originally rejected (with very good reason) by Don Wollheim at Ace. It gets complicated after that, but basically it was added back in after Dick’s death and patched up a bit by SF author John Sladek. The result is that a really cool novella was turned into something quite unreadable. I can recommend it only to PKD completists who want to know how weird it can get. To others, I suggest reading The Unteleported Man instead.

I listened to Lies, Inc. on audio. Brilliance Audio has just produced several old PKD works, and I’m excited about that! This one was read by Luke Daniels, who is fast becoming one of my favorite readers. His narration actually made the acid trip bearable — it’s probably the only reason I didn’t quit Lies, Inc. ( )

Even as a fairly strong PKDick enthusiast, it was hard to enjoy this one. Like other works typical of his final writings, this book also meanders through a bevy of half-formed ideas. A madness infects these works that repeatedly hints at the writer's brilliance, but unfortunately he can't reign in his enthusiasm for big ideas like reality, meaning, sanity, identity, government, corporatism, etc. into a cohesive plot. With some bits of comedy, suspense and occasional insight into the universe and human condition, this book should still be skipped when greater realizations of the author's vision can be enjoyed elsewhere in his earlier oeuvre. ( )

I read this a few years ago. Not much to remember except that this was not close to blade runner. Dry and stilted. I look forward to reading another P. Dick novel. Depending on whether its similar to this or blade runner will determine if I read a third ( )

As many people have already said, it is one of his lesser works. I will agree on that point that I enjoyed Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and A Scanner Darkly much more than Lies, Inc. Some things to be considered is the afterword which mentions the quite interesting publishing history of the complete novel as we see it now. It had a somewhat disjointed publishing history and part of that reflects the "disjointed narrative" that Shibberson may be talking about. I think this adds a distinct depth to the book that makes it all the more interesting, if not confusing sometimes. It is almost as if you the reader are experiencing the same kind of "bouleversement" that Rachmael experiences when he imagines he is a rat, or the LSD dart episode and the continuation of that experience. All in all, it was an interesting read that deserves perhaps, more of a solid approach with heavy notes to keep track of everything. If anything, I would suggest reading the afterword first and the continue on to read the novel. ( )

All of Dick's familiar themes are there - deception of the media, shameless big corporations calling the shots, the blur between reality and fantasy - but for some reason this novel didn't really engross me as much as I thought it would. I found the disjointed narrative sometimes confusing to follow, which made it a disorientating read almost to the degree of "What the hell is happening here?!?! Which of this is meant to be real?!?! ( )

The usual Phildickian paranoia. One of his lesser works. ( )

http://home.comcast.net/~tonydal/wiseguy_reviews.htm ( )