Published in 1966 as The Unteleported Man, Lies, Inc takes the short story and makes it longer and less focused. Lies, Inc has a number of odd futurisms. We have trans-galactic travel and time travel of a sort, but we also have everyone using magnet tape to record and send messages. It’s also very much a Man’s World in Lies, Inc. We have a couple of women characters, but they are mainly sex toys for the heroes, even when they are smarter than the heroes. Most amazing of all, the villains in the piece are left over Nazis. Wasn’t this kind of a cliche, even in the 1960s?
Anyway. It’s by Philip K Dick, one of the greatest Sci Fi writers of all time and it is an interesting and mostly baffling book. There are several concurrent stories, none of which seem to matter and all of which shift and change and vanish as the story moves forward. It’s kind of annoying that these alternate time lines/realities/possibilities don’t pan out, as one or two of them were kind of interesting.
Another odd bit of business is the use of LSD as a weapon of mass destruction. LSD was so common that everyone routinely had hallucinogenic drug experiences. It seems that the water supply of every city on earth has at least a small level of LSD present. One of the soldiers in the story uses LSD darts and there is a small lecture about the uses of these darts in recent history. All very odd.
The bulk of the story has to do with a Nazi run UN fighting a Nazi run corporation called Trails of Hoffman Limited. What a great name that is. Perfectly meaningless, and yet, pregnant with potential. These two powers are battling for control of a colony World called Whale’s Mouth some 22 light years away. One of our heroes, such as he is, is a man who owns the last of the great Space Liners, and he wants to take the 18 year trip through conventional space, as apposed to the 15 minute trip through a Stargate. There are a lot of stargates all over the place and they are very cheap to use. But once you go to the Whale’s Mouth, there is no coming back.
In the end, I wasn’t sure which, if any, of the many stories I read was true. People die or change into monsters or never exist in the first place. There was a lot of talk about alternate realities and there was some question as to what was really real. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what happened. It was still an interesting story.
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