American Writers (one Hundred Pages At A Time)

In this episode I look at Thomas Jefferson's public papers from the time before he became Secretary of State, when he was mostly working in Virginia politics. Of special interest is his draft for a Virginia Constitution and his laws on education, crime, and religion.

In part one of my review of OUR FRIENDS FROM FROLIX 8, I examine how meritocracy and posthumanism leads to a pretty interesting dystopia.

The finale of my look at Philip K. Dick's A MAZE OF DEATH. Tell me, is this book the antithesis of GALACTIC POT-HEALER?

The conclusion to my brief series on Jefferson's important text "Notes on the State of Virginia". In this episode we take a look at Jefferson's views on race, immigration, land rights, and industry.

During a quest to find out where they are, the unfortunate pioneers on Delmak-O begin to learn that their subjectivities are coming true. The results are murderous. Learn about this and more in part 3 of my review of Philip K. Dick's "A Maze of Death."

In this episode, I look at "Summary of the Rights of British America" by Thomas Jefferson. I also jump into the first half of "Notes on the State of Virginia". So let's begin exploring his political ideas as well as what his thoughts on science, nature, the "Columbian Exchange" and Native Americans.

Part two of my thoughts on "A Maze of Death" by Philip K. Dick. Things start to get dark quickly.

The autobiography of Thomas Jefferson was written in 1821 and covers his life from the 1760s to his return from Paris. It has some interesting things to say about his views of slavery, the French Revolution, and the writing of the "Declaration of Independence". We kick off a new series on American political writing with this interesting, if unessential work.

Now for the antithesis to "Galactic Pot-Healer". "A Maze of Death" by Philip K. Dick asks some of the same questions as GPH but comes to very different and bleaker answers. What to make of this?

In Philip K. Dick's final story from the 1960s, "The Electric Ant" we get a mixture of reality bending metaphysics and android anxt.

The conclusion of my thoughts on Philip K. Dick's greatest novel "Galactic Pot-Healer". We are coming to the end of this very long series on Dick's publications of the 1960s. Excited to move into the 1970s with "Maze of Death", the antithesis novel of GPH.

This podcast is the third in my series on "Galactic Pot-Healer" by Philip K. Dick. In this part of the novel, we explore the theme of entropy. What does it have to do with meaningful work?

Part 2 of my review of my favorite Philip K. Dick novel "Galactic Pot-healer". Joe Fernwright is guided by the Glimmung to a new life with an actual purpose.

We get to the end of Herman Melville's prose writing with our look at "Billy Budd", published in 1924. It is a great little novel on power, the law, and duty.

Let's raise Heldscalla! "Galactic Pot-Healer" is my favorite Philip K. Dick novel. Let me tell you why.

Part two of my review of "The Confidence Man" by Herman Melville. Maybe we will get the final answer to the age old question: should you trust your neighbor?

Part one of Herman Melville's exploration of America's market economy, "The Confidence Man." Can the economy work without confidence and charity? We will explore these and other questions in this review.

The quite bleak finale of "Ubik" by Philip K. Dick. It is not entirely clear what is going on as this novel closes. You will either love it or hate it, but in my view it does not ruin a fascinating novel.

Joe Chip, our story's hero, tries to make sense of a world in which everything decays and even technologies revert to earlier forms, in part three of our look a Philip K. Dick's "Ubik". Maybe the secret is that everyone is dead.

We finish up looking at Herman Melville's short fiction in this episode. Some great tales about class, family, and technology. These may not all be known as Melville's greatest works of short fiction, but they are mostly all entertaining and rich in meaning.