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    Deus Irae
    Deus Irae
    Deus Irae
    Audiobook7 hours

    Deus Irae

    Written by Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny

    Narrated by Luke Daniels

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    An artist searches for God so he can paint his portrait in Philip K. Dick's collaboration with Roger Zelazny. After World War III, the Servants of Wrath cult deified the mysterious Carlton Lufteufel, creator of the doomsday weapon that wiped out much of humanity. But to worship the man, they need an image of him as a god, and no one has ever seen him. So the high priests send a limbless master painter named Tibor McMasters into the wilderness on a mission to find Lufteufel and capture his likeness. Unfortunately for Tibor, the nation's remaining Christians do not want him to succeed and are willing to kill to ensure that the so-called Deus Irae remains hidden. This hallucinatory tale through a nuclear wasteland asks what price the artist must pay for art and tries to figure outjust what makes a god.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateApr 16, 2013
    ISBN9781469251875
    Author

    Philip K. Dick

    Over a writing career that spanned three decades, PHILIP K. DICK (1928–1982) published 36 science fiction novels and 121 short stories in which he explored the essence of what makes man human and the dangers of centralized power. Toward the end of his life, his work turned to deeply personal, metaphysical questions concerning the nature of God. Eleven novels and short stories have been adapted to film, notably Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly, as well as television's The Man in the High Castle. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, including the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and between 2007 and 2009, the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

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    Reviews for Deus Irae

    3.5/5

    222 ratings12 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I almost quit this book 2/3rds of the way through… it seemed very off-track and was growing uninteresting. If you find yourself there, please: finish the book. The last third makes the entire book well-worth the price of admission. The payoffs are truly fantastic. PKD and Zelazny work very well together — asking the right questions and granting a world-expanding set of possibilities. Something in the heartbeat of this book rings true at the core of life… I will definitely revisit (at least the final third of) this book!
    • 3/5
      A dystopian tale with some interesting characters and concerns, but a little too loosely executed. It is one of those books that may have been more effective either as a tightly crafted short story, or instead allowed to metastasize into some sprawling and even more chaotic larger novel. At a little over two hundred pages, Deus Irae only flitted about some of the more interesting philosophical, theological, and dystopian aspects the authors set up. A definite highlight of the novel is the limbless main character Tibor McMasters. Aside from being an interesting character, the physical struggles of Tibor's pilgrimage serve as a nice parallel to the larger questions of faith and religion presented in the story. Overall, probably not one of Philip K. Dick's strongest, but enough in there to be worth a quick read.
    • 5/5
      A post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel in which the weapon’s manufacturer responsible for the destruction of the earth has been deified. Dick’s themes about religion & revelation are here, but it’s particularly good as Zelazny obviously worked on the flesh of the prose, so the quality of the writing is better than Dick’s usual speed induced maniacal gushing.
    • 4/5
      This collaboration between Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape where much of the world has been destroyed by radiation after World War III. It is an examination of philosophy and religion, for the survivors worship the God of Wrath, whom they believed was incarnated as the CEO of the weapons' manufacturer responsible for the destruction of life on Earth. The protagonist, Tibor, is an "incomplete" who was born without arms or legs because of the radiation. He is an artist who uses mechanical arms to paint and travels in a cow cart. At the start of the novel he has been commissioned to paint a mural of the God of Wrath, but in order to do so he must go on a Pilgrimage to find the mortal incarnation of the god. Tibor is terrified of leaving the safety of the community to venture out into the wastelands where his cart might get stuck or fall apart and in desperation, he turns to the last remaining Christian church - only to be turned away. The Christian priest advises him to go only a little ways then make something up and paint that, but Tibor is too honorable for that. The story could easily devolve into a straightforward morality tale where Christianity is the obvious superior choice, but Dick's writing is more nuanced then that. Not only does he create a landscape in which worship of a god of death and destruction is believable, but the Christians here are not one-dimensional, either as it happens that the Christian priest sends one of his followers out to track Tibor - and kill him if it looks like he will return with something that will draw more followers to the God of Wrath. Tibor's quest itself is weirdly like a high fantasy adventure story, and probably the chapters written by Zelazny. One of my favourite chapters sees Tibor encounter the damaged remains of "the Great C" a sort of prewar supercomputer with a mobile (android-like) component that wanders the area, capturing people and trying to explain things about science and nature that they no longer understand, while dragging them towards a pit with an acid bath. Somewhat less interesting were his encounters with lizard-men, man-sized talking insects, magical giant worms, talking birds, et cetera. Pete, the man who has been sent by the Christians to kill Tibor, is also a complex character. He believes in the Old Religion (Christianity) and struggles with the morality of his quest, which he was essentially blackmailed into because of his penchant for taking hallucinogenic drugs. The priest himself will not acknowledge what he is asking Pete to do, nevertheless the implications are clear. "Churches and the Cosa Nostra have something in common: a pristine indifference at the very top levels. All the malignant chores fall to the smallfries down at the bottom." (p.114) Pete tries to convince himself that his quest is not patently malign, that he would help Tibor if the crippled man were injured or trapped somewhere. But of course, he is aware of what the priest expects him to do, and this leaves him brooding and miserable.This is a complex and interesting novel, with some unique insights into philosophy and religion. For example, on the masochism of the Christian God: "He loves everybody, democratically, in fact relentlessly. But he created people so that they could not go through life without hurting him. He wanted something painful to love." (p. 131).
    • 4/5
      As good as the other four or five times I've read it!
    • 5/5
      This was a great Philip K. Dick, and Roger Zelazny. I was a bit skeptical at first, not sure how PKD would manage a transition from being a solo writer to a collaborator (and I had never heard of Zelazny before) but I was pleasantly surprised. This is a metaphysical journey into the psyche of PKD through the creation of his characters as they explore the unknown and, even more, the beyond. The plot is tight and the prose crisp and subtle in the right places. I was amazed at the output here, much of it is quality content with just the right amount of absurdism to keep things creative and flowing. Truly a fine creation and top marks for the ending. This reads like a legend, but in the Sci-Fi universe. I really enjoyed it.4.5 stars- and all deserved!
    • 3/5
      Why You can't trust St. Paul too much….an Apostle Changes a religion, and not for the better.
    • 5/5
      I think I've made my love for Philip K. Dick's writing known before, so of course when I saw this book for sale at my local comic shop (they briefly branched out into selling used sci-fi, fantasy, and pulp novels, picked up some good reads at the time) I just had to pick it up. And while I'd never read any Zelazny, I knew the name and was interested to see what these two had cooked up together.And boy, it did not disappoint. Deus Irae is a statement on religion set in a post-apocalyptic future where the old faiths are failing to the new religion, worship of the God of Wrath. A painter for this church is sent on a mandated pilgrimage to find the physical embodiment of their god, get a picture, and return to paint a mural featuring the Deus Irae as the centerpiece.Fantastic read. Also, it's not often you find a book featuring a protagonist with no arms and no legs (a condition some post-war individuals suffer, apparently) called "incomplete" by this post-apocalyptic society.
    • 5/5
      It's not a perfect marriage, this collaboration between two giants, but I still love it. Why not? It has farmers (lizards, but still, they're farmers), and artificial intelligences, and the rich language that they were both known for."The jay fluttered up into the air, with impatience visible in every trembling feather.""Each time the blade struck against the protruding piece of metal, his head felt like the inside of a cathedral bell, and it was minutes before he could proceed again."Wrath of God indeed.
    • 3/5
      When authors collaborate, the concern is whether they can actually come together and build something that is a combined work, or they just take two pieces, stick them together, and then try to smooth out the rough edges. This feels like the latter.I almost didn't make it through the first part of the book. Philip K. Dick is noted for his explorations regarding religion, using his internal discussions as the impetus for some very interesting and good books. Based on this, if I were going to guess, I would guess this is his half of the book. It goes on (and goes on and goes on) about the discussion of religion. Don't get me wrong, some of this is integral to the further development of the book (after all, it is called Deus Irae), but it seems unendingly ploderous.I thought the book would be unsalvageable.Then the second part moves forward with the tale of an artist's search for the god he has been commissioned to paint. Taking another guess, this would be Zelazny's part. What emerges is an excellent tale of the exploration of an area, continued exploration of beliefs, and a few twists and turns and bizarre situations that keep the whole thing moving.And yet, it may not be two separate writings. The explorations of religion are also prevalent in Zelazny's writing, and his work may be evident in the first part. And Dick is famous for the bizarre ideas and concepts he brings to his stories, and those are evident in the second part.But, really, trying to decide who wrote what is a mug's game. The important part is that the second part of this book is not great enough to overcome the slog of getting through the initial discussions. A good book brought down from greatness by the long, meandering discussions in the beginning.
    • 3/5
      "Deus Irae"is decidedly unlike your usual post-apocalyptic science fiction fare. This work explores a perennial issue in face of utter destruction and misery: the philosophical problem of theodicy, or the compatibility between the existence of an evil which reigns so supremely as to allow the world to be devastated and the existence of a goodly, omnipotent God. It depicts a society where the old Christian religion, their numbers rapidly declining, was superseded by an apocalyptic cult, the Servants of Wrath.

      The SoW deified the man who brought civilization to its end, the creator of the bomb, Carl Lufteufel -- the Deus Irae. Tibor McMasters is a limbless artist who has been commissioned with the painting of a mural representing the Deus Irae himself. As there are no reliable pictures of the man-made god, Tibor is sent into a dangerous Pilgrimage to find Lufteufel and capture his dreadful likeness for the glory of his church.

      Thus, we accompany McMasters and his unlikely fellow, Pete Sands - a christian acolyte - through his difficult errand to find the Deus Irae. Throughout his path, he finds the living remnants of the terrible war that decimated humanity: verbose mutants such as lizards and bugs, as well as artifacts from the information age. Crazed computers and automated factories that cannot decide whether to aid or kill their former masters.

      This work has a strong philosophical and theological component, which may make it unsuitable for readers who are looking for more straightforward action.
    • 4/5
      In the years after World War III a new church has formed, The Servants of Wrath. Unlike the now faltering Christian church, they do not believe in a benevolent Supreme Being but in a Wrathful One who came to Earth in the human incarnation of Carlton Lufteufel, the man who ordered the detonation of the weapon that would wreak destruction upon the world during the war. Tibor McMasters, an inspired painter born without arms or legs, has been commissioned to by the new church to create a mural depicting the Deus Irae, the God of Wrath. In order to accurately represent the god, he is sent on a pilgrimage to find Him in the wilderness amongst what little is left of civilization and the human race. Quite an interesting novel, really. Somewhat depressing, but it brings up some good points to think about. In many ways, Deus Irae is reminiscent of Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Liebowitz. Experiments in Reading