Time Out of Joint

Name: Time Out of Joint
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Rating: 3.9 (7 reviews)
Author: Philip K. Dick
ISBN: 9798894864839

Author: Philip K. Dick

Narrator: David Aaron Baker

Unabridged: 8 hr 13 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 06/17/2025

Categories: Fiction, Science Fiction

Synopsis

From the Hugo Award–winning author of The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick's twisty and paranoid Time Out of Joint is "marvelous, terrifying fun, especially if you’ve ever suspected that the world is an unreal construct built solely to keep you from knowing who you really are. Which it is, of course" (Rolling Stone).

"The time is out of joint; O curs'd spite, That ever I was born to set it right!" (William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act I, Scene V)

Ragle Gumm has a unique job: every day he wins a newspaper contest. And when he isn’t consulting his charts and tables, he enjoys his life in a small town in 1959.

At least, that’s what he thinks.

But then strange things start happening. He finds a phone book where all the numbers have been disconnected, and a magazine article about a famous starlet he’s never heard of named Marilyn Monroe. Plus, everyday objects are beginning to disappear and are replaced by strips of paper with words written on them like
"bowl of flowers" and "soft drink stand."

When Ragle skips town to try to find the cause of these bizarre occurrences, his discovery could make him question everything he has ever known.

About 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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Baba on June 04, 2023

SF Masterworks 55: Ragle Gumm is an ordinary Joe living in 1950s America, except for one important fact, well two; one: he lives with his married sister and her husband; and two: he's nationally known for being the continuous daily winner of an incident plotting competition in the Daily Herald (dail......more

Goodreads review by Leonard on February 13, 2021

Time Out of Joint is one of Philip K. Dick’s earliest novels (1959). For a science fiction story of that period, it is quite unusual and ahead of its time. The first half of the book is a sort of picture of America’s “Golden Age”: the blissful, apparently harmless and relatively uneventful life in a......more

Goodreads review by Susan on April 03, 2020

This is my third of Dick’s six 1950s novels. The other two were The Cosmic Puppets and The World Jones Made. On the surface, Time Out of Joint reminds me of The Cosmic Puppets. Both are linear narratives, both are set in the 50s, and most importantly, both pose questions about the nature of reality,......more

Goodreads review by Cosimo on March 31, 2019

Non provarci, signor Dick “Possiamo mettere insieme tutto quello che sappiamo, si rese conto, ma non ci dirà nulla, tranne che qualcosa non va. E questo lo sapevamo fin dal principio. Gli indizi che stiamo raccogliendo non ci danno una soluzione; ci mostrano soltanto la portata di questa incongruenza......more

Goodreads review by Theresa on January 04, 2015

Why didn't I start reading Philip K. Dick ages ago?!?! WHERE HAVE I BEEN ALL MY LIFE......more