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Adjustment Team
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FIRST PUBLICATION

   Orbit Science Fiction #4, Oct-Nov 1954 {ill. by Faragasso}

HISTORY:

   "Adjustment Team" and "The Impossible Planet" arrived together at the SMLA on Feb 11, 1953. The story was published in Orbit SF #4 in Oct 1954 and was selected for DAW’s THE BOOK OF PHILIP K. DICK in 1973. And that was it until THE COLLECTED STORIES in 1987.

    There is a literary curiosity out there somewhere; this would be the Australian book THE SANDS OF MARS And Other Stories published by a company called ‘Jubilee’ in 1958. There is also a Hungarian version from 1983.

    Gregg Rickman said this about "Adjustment Team" and some others of the early stories:

    {...} As {PKD} himself said, his stories of the 1950s "were written when my life was simpler and made sense. I could tell the difference between the real world and the world I wrote about." Again and again the real world of suburban life in the 1950s is evoked: "Adjustment Team", "Exhibit Piece", "The Commuter", "Small Town" -- only to be revealed as a shadow world, fading away when confronted with a darker reality beneath." {TTHC 273}

    As for the story itself, a late-rising businessman was where he shouldn’t have been when the Adjustment Team come along to shore up reality. He sees what lies beneath and doesn’t like it wanting only to return to his normal life. In the end he knows he’s going to be adjusted but is glad and not too concerned with the question of ultimate reality.

    "Adjustment Team" rates ô ô ô

Other Magazine and Anthology appearances

1958		THE SANDS OF MARS And Other Stories, Anon, Jubilee, Australia
1973		THE BOOK OF PHILIP K. DICK, DAW, pb, 44, ?,? (?)
1987		THE COLLECTED STORIES OF PKD

NOTES:

Ken Lopez: "Adjustment Team" in Orbit Science Fiction, No. 4, Oct-Nov 1954 (1^st). VG-NF. Signed by the author. Mild watermarking to top of back cover and pages. $145.00

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