Name: We can build you
ISBN: 9780006146162

We can build you

Louis Rosen and his partners sell people--ingeniously designed, historically authentic simulacra of personages such as Edwin M. Stanton and Abraham Lincoln. The problem is that the only prospective buyer is a rapacious billionaire whose plans for the simulacra could land Louis in jail. Then there's the added complication that someone--or something--like Abraham Lincoln may not want to be sold. Is an electronic Lincoln any less alive than his creators? Is a machine that cares and suffers inferior to the woman Louis loves--a borderline psychopath who does neither? With irresistible momentum, intelligence, and wit, Philip K. Dick creates an arresting techno-thriller that suggests a marriage of Bladerunnerand Barbarians at the Gate.

What Hacker News says

bookofjoeApr 2025

>... terrible at titles...

I disagree. Here are some that retain their power all these decades later and will likely do so for the foreseeable future:

Time Out of Joint

The Man in the High Castle

Martian Time-Slip

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Clans of the Alphane Moon

The Simulacra

Now Wait for Last Year

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)/Blade Runner (1982)

Ubik

We Can Build You

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

A Scanner Darkly

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

Radio Free Albemuth

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shervinafsharApr 2025

Most of the above are his titles. Some which were published in serialized form before being published in a single volume (Martian Time-Slip and We Can Build You) had different titles. Letters, manuscripts, and publication notes are helpful to shed some light on this matter; e.g. The Transmigration of Timothy Archer was regularly referred to as the "Archer novel" or "Bishop Timothy Archer".

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atombenderApr 2025

Minor point, but in most cases the title was made up by the editor, not Dick.

For example, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? had several terrible tentative titles originally, including "The Electric Toad", "Do Androids Dream?", "The Electric Sheep", and, most improbably, "The Killers Are Among Us! Cried Rick Deckard to the Special Man".

Dick's editor at Doubleday came up with the current title. Dick didn't like it and thought it was too long and unwieldy.

Some more:

* The Divine Invasion: "VALIS Regained"

* The Transmigration of Timothy Archer: "Bishop Timothy Archer

* Ubik: "Death of an Anti-Watcher"

* Martian Time-Slip: "Goodmember Arnie Kott of Mars" (also serialized as "All We Marsmen" before getting its current title)

* We Can Build You: "The First in Your Family"

* A Maze of Death: "The Hour of the TENCH"

* Counterclock World: "The Dead Grow Young"

My main source here is Lawrence Sutin's excellent "Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick".

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atombenderApr 2025

In total, I count 14 books with titles chosen by the publisher/editor:

    Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
    Dr. Bloodmoney
    The Simulacrum
    Ubik
    We Can Build You
    Martian Time-Slip
    The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
    The Divine Invasion
    A Maze of Death
    Counterclock World
    Radio Free Albemuth
    Solar Lottery
    The Zap Gun [1]
    The World Jones Made

Among his notable works, the only titles PKD came up with were The Man in the High Castle, VALIS, Flow My Tears, Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly.

So. Yes, most.

Editors changed his shorts, too. I love the title "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon", but PKD wanted to call it "Frozen Journey".

[1] This one was unusual in that the editor gave PKD the title and asked him to write a plot around it.

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shervinafsharApr 2025

> Most of the above are his titles

Back to original list from the parent comment that is the "above" in my comment. X denotes PKD title, O denotes otherwise:

X Time Out of Joint

X The Man in the High Castle

O Martian Time-Slip

X The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

X Clans of the Alphane Moon

X The Simulacra

X Now Wait for Last Year

O Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)/Blade Runner (1982)

O Ubik

O We Can Build You

X Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

X A Scanner Darkly

O The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

O Radio Free Albemuth

So..."most" of what exactly?

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PaulHouleApr 2023

It is here. There was a post today about someone who trained an LLM on chat logs from his college days and was able to reconstruct that kind of conversation. I think of We can build you by Phillip K. Dick or the early version of “Here After” from the Hechee Saga books by Pohl.

People cloning your voice and scamming your family, friends and business associates is a clear and present danger right now.

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