THE ZAP GUN
Back covers
1978 Dell edition
THE 'DEADLY DREAMERS
The 21st Century super-states. Wes-bloc and PeepEast. kept an uneasy balance of power with a bizarre arms race-each producing a flood of terror weapons, then promptly "plowsharing" them into consumer' goods. Lars Powderdry, Wes-bloc's weapons fashion expert.. and his Peep-East counterpart. Lilo Topchev. were their nations' most jealously guarded assets. Only 'they could produce designs for such fiendish devices as the Evolution Gun from their mediumistic trances. The theOry was that they had somehow tapped ihe concepts of another dimension. The truth was a lot odder than that-as they discovered when alien satellites ringed Earth and began deleting cities.... THE ZAP GUN shows the author of A Scanner Darkly. the Hugo Award-winning The Man in the High Castle. and co-author of Deus Irae. at his extravagantly inventive. biting best.
1985 Bluejay edition
In a cold war future fraught with nightmarish) ironies, Wes-bloc and Peep-East maintain a precarious stalemate in the arms race. Each side,produces hideously destructive weapons, only to "plowshare" them into mundane consumer goods. The designers of the weaponry produce their work under the influence of drugs that enable,them to reach trance state. They think -as does the rest of. the world-that their designs are inspired, perhaps even by God. But even the designers, Wes-bloc's Lars Powderdry aod Peep-East's Lilo . Topchev, are like the rest of us: mere pawns in a far stranger reality. Ultimately, only the power of love and the mind of a child can save Earth's billions from aliens who threaten to take over our world. This edition includes a new Afterword by Hugo nominated editor and writer Maxim Jakubowski.1989 Caroll & Graf edition
A precarious stalemate in arms escalation leaves the East and West hovering on the brink of armageddon. Both sides carefully monitor and mirror each other's production quotas. But Liloo Topchev and Lars Powderdry, chief weapons designers of the East and West, are no ordinary technocrats. Under the influence of govemment hallucinogens, they reach trance-like states and resemble prophetic fashion designers dreaming up ways to convert warheads into ashtrays, trinkets and other consumer goods. But when the Earth's fate finally hinges on the erratic mind of a child, Lars and Lilo become mere pawns caught in a terrifying predicament.
2002 Vintage edition
Scaldingly sarcastic yet enduringly empathetic, The Zap Gun is Dick?s remarkable novel depicting the insanity of the arms race. Lars Powderdry and Lilo Topchev are counterpart weapons fashion designers for a world divided into two factions?Wes-bloc and Peep-East. Since the Plowshare Protocols of 2002, their job has been to invent elaborate weapons that only seem massively lethal. But when alien satellites hostile to both sides appear in the sky, the two are brought together in the dire hope that they can create a weapon to save the world, a task made all the more difficult by Lars falling in love with Lilo even as he knows she's trying to kill him.