Dagon: The Fish God that Wasn't

 

We take a moment to talk about the non-merman in the room. Dagon, arguably the most famous aquatic god and how he was never depicted as a merman by his worshippers or associated with the oceans.

Divine Merfolk II

 

We continue our survey of Divine and Demonic Merfolk from mythologies and religions from across the world. Today we look at African deities, many of whom crossed the Atlantic with the TransAtlantic Slave Trade and after that, we look at the... Interesting Deities that arose among the ancient Greeks.

Divine Merfolk I

    We finally begin covering actual Merfolk myths thank you for your patience! 

Defining my terms: Mermaids

In which I explain what I am counting as a mermaid for the purpose of this video series and admit it's gonna take a bit because holy hell there's a lot of lore to parse through here.  Thank you for your patience. 

 

Paycheck 2003 Film

 

Paycheck companion video.

 Companion video to the written review, for the short story Paycheck by Philip K Dick

Paycheck (short story) By Philip K Dick

           Paycheck (short story)

By Philip K Dick

Paycheck is a novelette that was written in 1952 and published in 1953, in the June issue of the science fiction magazine Imagination. A fun side fact for y’all, the founder of Imagination was Raymond A Palmer, who was the namesake of the DC comic book character The Atom. The aforesaid Palmer sold the magazine to Greenleaf Publishing on its 3rd issue in 1950; the magazine would continue until 1958, lasting 63 issues. 

But let’s turn to the story we’re actually here to review. Fair warning, given the age of the work I am going to be spoiling the story below.

Paycheck takes place in a future United States recently fallen into a police state, with the ever-present Security Police having wide powers of arrest and questioning. The government’s biggest problem is the Rethrick Construction Corporation, which has so far managed to stay independent of government control. In fact, police don’t even know where the main operations center and factory of the corporation is located, and the company has even managed to keep the identity of the owner and CEO a secret.

As a 21st-century American this kinda boggles my mind, but keep in mind the story was written about 70-odd years ago.  Back then no one foresaw the internet or the sheer difficulty of hiding information in the modern age. However, the story tells us this government is barely more than a year old, and that it hasn’t consolidated its power enough to crack down on large wealthy targets like the Rethrick Corporation. This story element is an example of Philip K Dick’s “less is more” world-building: in Mr. Dick’s short stories, he often prefers to use implication and character actions to suggest elements of his world, letting the readers figure things out from there.

Our main character is an incredibly talented electrical engineer named Jennings. Jennings has been working for Rethrick for 2 years. This is about to become a problem for him: the police have been grabbing known employees of the corporation off the street to interrogate them, the latest of them being Jennings. However, Jennings has no memory of his time with Rethrick, as part of his employment agreement was that he would have all of his memories from signing the contract to collecting his pay erased. And why did he agree to this? He agreed for the hefty sum of 50,000 credits; however, when I looked it up in today’s money, it worked out to be about half a million dollars. I’m still not sure that it was worth it. 

Why Jennings never just tells the police that his memories had been erased is never addressed in the story. To me, this implies that this isn’t a common technology in this world, or else why not just sing that out right when the cops throw you in the back of the squad car? If nothing else, you could at least avoid some unpleasantness when the cops realize you don’t have those memories anymore, although you still might catch a beating just for having made the cops have to do actual work.

Jennings isn’t completely out of luck. It turns out that his past self, instead of taking the 50,000 credits, decided he would get paid with a bag full of small items: a wire, half a poker chip, a ticket stub, a bus token, a strip of green cloth, and a receipt for a parcel left in a safety deposit box. Jennings has to figure out what his past self meant for him to use these items for in order to escape from the police. Jennings quickly develops an intense faith in that past version of himself and refers to himself as an entirely separate person in the story, often asking things like “I wonder what he meant for me to see here.” This raises an interesting question: is a past you, a you don’t remember being and can’t remember being, the same person, or should you be considered entirely separate from the past you? Unfortunately, the story doesn’t have the space or time to really grapple with that question.

What then follows is Jennings hunting for the location of the Rethrick factory, for the sole reason of blackmailing them into giving him sanctuary from the government. And not just sanctuary, but part-ownership; he doesn’t want to come in as an employee again only to get his mind wiped and go through this later, but rather he wants to be brought in on his own terms and have control of his future. It’s hard to blame him; after all, why should he feel any loyalty to either the company or the government? The government is hunting him like a wild animal, and will likely torture him into infirmity or death to get information he can’t give. The company turned him loose with a smile and not even a real warning knowing he was going to be a target! I can’t say I would have any loyalty to these groups in this situation and I’m willing to bet most of you dear readers wouldn’t feel any loyalty either!

Jennings does find the factory, and when he does, not only does he realize what work he’s been doing for two years, but he learns how he knew what items to give to himself in the future. Rethrick has a device he calls a Time Scoop, a device that can be used to look into the future as well as move objects from one time to another. This is a device that the government would kill for, as no secret would be safe from them, and no revolt against a government that can look into the future to identify any future flash points would ever have a chance to succeed. So the question then becomes, having gained the information, what will Jennings do with it?

In all honesty, Jennings' plan can’t be worse than Rethrick’s plan, which was to sit around and wait for a revolution to build up among the lower classes, then sell them all the weapons they need to overthrow the government. I have a few criticisms of this plan. First of all, they declare it will be a revolution of bus drivers, waitresses, and teachers. You know, normal working-class people. People who are not known to have a lot of spare cash. So who are you planning to have to pay for these weapons? Second, if things are that bad and you’re already so good at keeping secrets… why not just build the revolution yourself? You have a device that lets you see the future! This means you never have to guess who to recruit! You just look forward in time, which kills the vast majority of the risk! Why are you sitting around waiting for the revolution, you useless loons!?! Honestly, these people need Jennings in charge, because he can at least devise a plan of action and execute it with results!

The story does have a fair amount of action, mostly from Jennings constantly fleeing the police. He’s not a fighter, so his response to danger is to either outrun it or outthink it. Which I’m actually in favor of; not every protagonist needs to solve their problems with their fists or with weapons. Having a character whose main trait is being fleet of both foot and mind is a nice change. His overwhelming faith in his past self is an interesting twist as well; I don’t know if I would call this a ridiculous amount of self-confidence, or utter faithfulness to an outside force. Because, while Jennings thinks of his past self as a different person (on that, to be fair, he doesn’t remember being), it’s still him, so he’s still putting all his faith in his own abilities. The mystery of what he’s supposed to use those items for and why he traded so much money for them is also interesting enough to draw you in. I found myself trying to figure out just what Jennings was trying to tell himself and what he’d do next.

All this being said, given the shortness of the story, the characterization is sparse. There are three named characters, and of these Jennings is the only one we spend any time with. Also, the plot moves at breakneck speed.  Jennings makes several leaps of logic that I found questionable, but always played out well for him. To be fair, if I were getting clues from my past self, I suppose I could make some logical leaps and land safely too.

 To sum up, this is a short, punchy story about a guy saving himself from getting crushed between an oppressive government and a corporation looking to compete with that government, and it tells this story rather well. It’s also under 50 pages, so even if you end up disliking it you don’t invest a lot of time or energy to read it. I’m rating Paycheck at a C; it’s quick and flashy, and the retro elements will make you giggle a bit, such as when in the story Jennings catches a rocket to Iowa from New York City for example. It’s not something that’s going to stick with you for a while, nor does it stand out among Mr. Dick’s short stories or science fiction short stories in general, but it is a fun read. 

    I hope you enjoyed this review, which was voted for by my ever-wise patrons. If you like a vote on my upcoming content consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month. You can also view a companion video to this review at https://youtu.be/Hu6FQ348dNU Next week I'll be posting a video on the film Paycheck and I hope to see you there. Until then however take care of yourself, each other and of course, Keep Reading!