Al libro le daría 5 estrellas. No se las doy por esta edición. Sin avisarlo, se trata no de una traducción de Galactic Pot-Healer más o menos acertada (no entraré ahí, me parece bien, aunque algunas traducciones arriesgadas), sino que viene precedida de un estudio sobre el autor y su obra que ocupa la mitad del libro. Ya sorprende de entrada que un libro de algo más de 200 páginas, más de 100 sean de la introducción, cosa que no estaría mal si se anunciase así, como un estudio del autor y su obra, acompañado de Gestarescala.

Sobre el libro, es Philip K. Dick, es su estilo, gustará a los fans, pero no es el que recomendaría para quien quiera empezar a conocer a PKD. ( )

Su nombre es Joe Fernwright, y es ceramista...en el siglo XXI, cuando la cerámica ha sido completamente desplazada por el hierro y los plásticos. Frustado, desesperado, está al borde del suicidio, cuando un extraño ser de un planeta lejano requiere sus servicios para un cometido grandioso que lo inmortalizará: el resurgimiento de Gestarescala.

More that most of his other novels, the main character, in this case Joe Fernwright, doesn't so much exist as drifts from one scene to another. Everything he touches, he brings doom to, and though you want to grab Joe by the shoulders and try to shake him out of his fatalistic ennui, you can't help but sit back and watch the train wreck of his life. Dick doesn't pull any punches and keeps his characters consistent, right to the very sardonic end.
One of my favourite Dick novels. ( )

The Galactic Pot-Healer is a melange of analogue and future technology brought together by an alien mythology, the shapeshifting Glimmung who is an alien deity but not actually a god, the gods of Plowman's Planet were Borel and Amalita who were worshipped in two magnificent cathedrals now plunged in the depths of the vast ocean where the shadows of the dead survive. The story follows Joe a "pot-healer", someone who repairs ceramics as he is coaxed to leave Earth and his rather banal existence to join a team gathered by the Glimmung. Philip moves his protagonist in a seemingly random way through-out the plot but by the omniscience of Glimmung and the Book (A tome which writes in real-time the past/present/future of all beings), his actions despite their oblique reasoning are in fact quite linear. Although initially set on a futuristic Earth and an alien planet, Philip retains some old world technologies such as tape recorders, telephones, and the phonograph. There are humorous scenes as if written in on occasion when Philip was in the mood and moments of science-fiction fancy such as when Joe and Mali use the SSA machine. This is the second book featuring a Glimmung and set on the Plowman's planet, the first was Dick's Nick and the Glimmung written as a children's book. ( )

This novel was a bit of a subdued, yet still wild, ride through the mind of Philip K. Dick. The premise is enticing, but there is a sense of humor and satire-- especially regarding the ending, associated with it. Overall, I felt this to be a little detached from the rest of the oeuvre that I've seen by Dick, and his style seems to be verging on experimentation and poise rather than the usual romp through science fiction that I have become associated with through reading him. Nonetheless, it was not a bad read, per se, but rather an unexpected one. Nevertheless, it was still worthwhile.

3 stars. ( )