The Last of the Masters
Encyclopedia
"The Last of the Masters" (aka "Protection Agency") is a science fiction
novelette
by Philip K. Dick
. The original manuscript of the story was received by the Scott Meredith Literary Agency on July 15, 1953, and the story was published by the Hanro Corporation in the final issue of Orbit Science Fiction
in 1954. It has since been reprinted in several Philip K. Dick story collections, beginning with The Golden Man
in 1980.
"The Last of the Masters" depicts a society 200 years after a global anarchist
revolution has toppled the national governments of the world (the exact year is unstated). Civilization has stagnated due to the loss of scientific knowledge and industry during the now-legendary revolt. Elsewhere, the last state, governing a highly centralized and efficient society, conceals itself from the Anarchist League, a global militia preventing the recreation of any government. When three agents of the League are sent to investigate rumors of the microstate
's existence, the government arranges for them to be killed, leading to the death of one and the capture of another. Tensions rapidly escalate after the agents of the state realize that the third has escaped. Assuming he will report the state's existence, the government mobilizes for total war
. In actuality, the surviving anarchist elects to attempt his comrades' rescue and assassinate
the head of state
: the last surviving "government robot
".
The primary theme of the story is the conflict between anarchism
and statism
, the political and ethical dimensions of which are explored through the characters' dialogue. Though the attention the story received was limited prior to the author's death in 1982, it has since seen greater circulation in Philip K. Dick story collections, and has been reviewed and analyzed for its postmodern critique of technology and its political implications.
is in a state of decline. An artificially intelligent
machine who displays a degree of emotion and even psychological
complexity, he is informed by Fowler, a personal mechanic, that his body has begun to break down due to age. His legs no longer work, his motor system will be irreparable in a matter of months, and full paralysis will take place in under a year.
Of his entire body, only five "synapse coils" have not yet begun to degrade. These memory
units are irreplaceable due to the lack of skilled technicians and rare components needed to recreate them. Within them, he stores the last records of advanced science and technology, which he uses to guide his society at high efficiency as a benevolent dictator
, operating according to utilitarian
principles. Though he wields hegemonic control over his society, he views his dictatorship as the last bastion of humanity's scientific progress, and views himself as a guardian who oversees and protects that progress. This causes him to privately despair that he—and the knowledge only he possesses—will soon die. He also becomes increasingly paranoid, fearing to trust a loyal assistant, Peter Green, and confiding only in Fowler, his personal mechanic.
Hidden in a remote mountain valley, Bors commands the world's last government. The microstate
is tightly centralized around him, and he manages it bureaucratically for optimum efficiency in all sectors of the economy and military. The effect is "an accurate and detailed reproduction of a society two centuries gone." Bors is immediately established as an utterly necessary figure in his society and is quickly escorted back into service as the leader of the government by Fowler. A personal assistant as well as mechanic to Bors, Fowler maintains a pretension of loyalty to the robot, but privately recognizes that his society is stagnant and that its leader is becoming mentally unbalanced. Pessimistic, he expresses cynicism regarding the subservient role humans in his society play to Bors. He is contrasted with Peter Green, a genuinely loyal assistant to the robot, who is among the few humans trusted to oversee his body while it is unconscious for repair. Though loyal to his leader, Green nonetheless draws Bors' distrust as the robot's paranoia steadily grows.
The three member team is composed of Edward Tolby, his daughter, Silvia Tolby (of unspecified age, but vaguely described as an adolescent or young adult), and their mutual friend, Robert Penn. While en route to the valley, the team arrives in a small rural town by the name of Fairfax. Fairfax is littered with ancient, decaying gadgets; the last remnants of the era of governments and high tech
society, which none of the locals know how to fix or reproduce. Excited by the strangers, the locals ask about the League. Tolby answers their questions in turn, ending with an explanation of the timeline of events which led up to the great revolt. The event is summarized as having begun with revolts in Europe which overthrow the national governments. After France exists for a month free of government, millions join the by then explicitly anarchist movement to disarm the nuclear powers. At each toppled government center, millions of records are burned and government integration robots are destroyed. These events result in the setting of the story; a world full of anachronistic
high-technology, interspersed in a pre-industrialized
, agrarian
culture.
Bors is alerted to the situation and overreacts upon learning that one of the three anarchists has escaped. Fearing that the agent will alert the world to their existence, he initiates plans for a war economy
and decides to question Silvia in her hospital room. Their dialogue reveals the story of his escape during the collapse of governments and the establishment of the microstate. He was damaged and in transport for repairs when the anarchist revolution began 200 years prior, allowing him to survive in hiding. Enraged by his calm indifference to the prospect of war, Silvia attacks him and attempts her escape, but is restrained by guards.
Tolby infiltrates the mountain valley, sneaking past the rapidly mobilizing army of the state. After killing and outmaneuvering inexperienced soldiers, he arrives at the government center and encounters Fowler. Fowler alludes to his desire to end the government and spurs Tolby onward. Ultimately, Tolby confronts and kills Bors, sending the building into confusion as the citizens react with hysteria and grief. The condition is implied to spread outward from the city to troops in the hills, resulting in mass desertion
. No longer resisted by guards, Tolby reunites with Silvia. The story concludes as Fowler secretly salvages three remaining synapse coils from Bors' remains, "just in case the times change".
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The exact date Philip K. Dick wrote "The Last of the Masters" is unknown, but the original manuscript of the novelette was received by the Scott Meredith Literary Agency on July 15, 1953. 25 years old at the time, Dick was in the habit of submitting a new story to the agency weekly. Just prior to receiving "Last of the Masters", the agency received "The Turning Wheel
" on July 8, and following the former, the agency received "The Father-thing
" on July 21.
"The Last of the Masters" was published over a year later, in the 1954 November/December issue of Orbit Science Fiction no.5. The issue was the last in a science fiction anthology series edited by Donald A. Wollheim
. Orbit Science Fiction advertised "The Last of the Masters" on its cover and included Dick among an advertised list of prominent contributing authors, among them August Derleth
, Gordon R. Dickson
, and Chad Oliver
. The novelette was republished in 1958 for the Australian market by Jubilee Publications Pty., in Space Station 42 and Other Stories, a part of the Satellite Series.
The novelette was not published again until the 1980 release of The Golden Man
, the sixth collection of classic stories by Dick. This collection also included the only commentary Dick ever wrote regarding the story.
Thereafter, "The Last of the Masters" was included in six more print collections—most of which have seen multiple print runs—and two audiobooks.
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} Read by William Hughes. (cassette/CD/MP3)
} Read by William Hughes. (iTunes)
in the United States
because it was published in the United States between January 1, 1950 and December 31, 1963, but copyright was not renewed with the U.S. Copyright Office within a year period beginning on December 31 of the 27th year of the copyright and running through December 31 of the following year. When renewal registration was not made within the statutory time limit, copyright effectively expired at the end of its first term and protection was lost permanently. Copyright
protection for Orbit Science Fiction No.5 and its contents was created under Registration Number B00000497234.
After the author's death, a nonexistent story with the same title was included under the new renewal Registration Number RE0000190631. This created the appearance that "The Last Of The Masters" is still under copyright protection. This incorrect first publication date has been cited in several Dick anthologies (e.g., The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick & The Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick); these publications falsely list the original publication of the story to have been in Imaginative Tales in November 1955.
While "The Last of the Masters" was little noticed in the years immediately following its publication, it was reviewed after its 1980 publication in The Golden Man collection. Fellow science fiction writer Thomas M. Disch
reviewed Dick's The Golden Man
collection among other works in "Fluff and Fizzles", an essay dated to 1979, but published in a 1980 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. While celebrating several stories in the collection, and proclaiming to readers the "categorical imperative" of buying a copy, he nonetheless derided most of its contents as "turkeys", citing specifically "The Last of the Masters" as an example. Referring to the story as "a hyperkinetic forway into hairy-chested-style hugger-mugger", Disch also mocked its "action-packed denouement" involving Edward Tolby as an example of "bogus machismo".
In her 1982 review of the Golden Man collection, Hazel Pierce lauded the sophistication of the story, summarizing the theme of "The Last of the Masters" as an examination of "the paradoxical cast of human existence."
Christopher Palmer, of La Trobe University
, has written on the postmodern literary themes
of Dick's early short stories, analyzing stories in which "breakdown and ignorance" are the result of social upheaval. Palmer proposed that Dick often created post-apocalyptic scenarios of ruined worlds which held high tech gadgets in an attempt to present a view of postmodern materialism
. Common to many of Dick's short stories were settings in which the outgrowth of modernity is a world where that which is natural is in ruin, and what is artificial is reshaped through science into a fantastically high tech form. Palmer presented "The Last of the Masters" as an example of this, as well as "The Variable Man
" and The Penultimate Truth
, two other post-apocalyptic works by Dick. Palmer contended that these shared themes were "...not simply the expression of dystopia
n malaise, or of Luddism
treacherously taking up residence in popular SF... It points to a coherent interpretation of industrialism and post-industrialism."
Suggesting that many of the philosophical and political underpinnings of the author's short stories stemmed from his views on domestic life, Palmer's focus turned to Dick's common use of sterility as a metaphor
. In "The Gun", "Second Variety
", The Penultimate Truth, and "The Last of the Masters", people and sometimes the earth itself have been driven to sterility. As Palmer noted of "The Last of the Masters", Bors can be interpreted as a symbol of infertility
: "It is not clear why he does not replicate himself, or educate his human servants: it is simply a given that he is sterile. The old, technologically advanced, highly organized civilization is a civilization of production, but now under Bors it can do no more than maintain itself." Following an inspection of other short stories with similar references to sterility, Palmer asserts that Dick's work presented a social and existential
protest. Palmer interpreted Dick's social critique to be that if the act of creation validates existence, and genuinely expresses a form of individuality, then the process of reproduction is alienating, oppressive, and retards an individual's liberty. As Palmer explains, "...this process disempowers consumers, and even technocrats, by making them dependent on a process of which they have become entirely ignorant." Existentially, Palmer interpreted Dick to further mean that reproduction violated the author's concept of what made an object unique and valuable: "A thing can't be a real thing unless it is in some sense an individual thing."
In writing a biography on the author, Brian Stableford
placed several of Dick's short stories in a context that established their relationship to the author's personal hardships. "...it always seemed to him [Philip K. Dick] that his career was a catalogue of undeserved disappointments and the record of his published work a travesty of his true ambitions." The personal problems which Dick struggled throughout his life provided fuel for several of the anxiety driven themes for his short stories. In Dick's early work, Stableford highlighted recurring themes in those most popular. These included paranoid suspicions; the dangerous hostility of "seemingly innocent entities"; and "the mechanization of the environment and the computerization of political decision-making". Stories in which androids and robots are a danger to the protagonist include "Autofac
", "Colony
", and Vulcan's Hammer
. However, "The Last of the Masters", Stableford contends, was an exception to Dick's common dystopic portrayals of technology, given Stableford's interpretation of Bors as an altruist, who was "benign" in its role.
. In analyzing Dick's short fiction, Barlow presented their themes against the backdrop of post-September 11, 2001 America. In particular, Barlow compared many of the philosophical underpinnings of Neoconservatism
, and its rise to prominence during the George W. Bush administration, to the philosophy of Philip K. Dick. "To [Dick]," writes Barlow, "the elites were both alien and dangerous. To him, the focus of vision and of political debate should never be on the rulers, but on the little person, the shopkeeper, the mechanic." In his dissection of Dick's work, Barlow compared several stories in which normal humans lose some form of liberty in their society to an elite group. Examples presented include "Autofac", "Null-O
", and "Some Kinds of Life". From these stories, Barlow drew three themes important to Dick's anti-government writings: first, that humanity is often doomed by institutions of power created by the humans themselves; second, that paranoia is a natural aspect of governance, as "[n]o elite can ever completely trust the people it governs," and this distrust leaves a governed people in perpetual danger; and third, that the belief that individuality must be sacrificed—either for the sake of social stability or survival—is a constant threat. "To Dick," Barlow adds, "there are few attitudes more dangerous than this." Each of these themes would be revisited in "The Last of the Masters".
Continuing his analysis, Barlow addressed "The Last of the Masters", contrasting it with an earlier work by Dick, "The Defenders
". In "The Defenders", humanity has been duped by a noble lie
—provided by their robot soldiers—into believing in a war which is not actually taking place. In the latter story, Barlow asserts that Dick surprisingly agreed with such neoconservative theorists as Leo Strauss
in the efficacy of the deception. "Here, the [robots] have saved mankind... The 'noble lie' has served its purpose." However, Barlow concedes, "[b]ut this is an extremely early story and Dick had not yet clarified his own world view..." Comparing this story to "The Last of the Masters", Barlow took note of Dick's commentary from The Golden Man collection ("...sometimes there lies a gulf between what is theoretically right and that which is practical.") and concluded that the story represented Dick's understanding of "the problems at the other extreme..." in politics. Where most of Dick's stories presented government in skeptical terms to warn the reader of potential abuse, "The Last of the Master" presented an argument for the utility of government.
Barlow dissected the Anarchist League and "the contradictory nature of their organization" which patrolled a "poor and dirty" world, and juxtaposed this with the "opulent organization of the (state)". In particular, he highlighted dialogue by the robot master, Bors, as illustrating the importance of his leadership to the success of the micro-state. In the story, a conversation with a mechanic leads the robot to state, "You know I'm the only one who can keep all this together. I'm the only one who knows how to maintain a planned society, not a disorderly chaos! If it weren't for me, all this would collapse, and you'd have dust and ruins and weeds. The whole outside would come rushing in to take over!" Barlow concluded that while the story ended in triumph for the anarchists, the story did not go so far as to validate their society. "Dick does not vindicate them," writes Barlow, "keeping it clear that the robot had certainly accomplished something in that valley, though it had eventually gone too far."
", manifested in the character of Bors. This was touched upon in the Dick biography Divine Invasions, by memoirist and biographer Lawrence Sutin
. Drawing on Dick's commentary, Sutin sees Bors as part of a religious pattern in Dick's stories as a "Christ-like robot", and likens the robot to characters in other stories by Dick who suffer from illness.
did not alter this requirement. Renewal registration had to be made within a year period beginning on December 31 of the 27th year of the copyright and running through December 31 of the following year. [...] However, if renewal registration was not made within the statutory time limits, these copyrights expired at the end of their first terms and protection was lost permanently."
. To reference an online listing of Orbit Science Fiction No.5's Registration Number, B00000497234, it is necessary to follow links and search Copyright Catalog for B00000497234 by Registration Number. A direct link to the search result page or search page may cause an immediate Time Out.
The incorrect renewal registration number for "The Last of the Masters", RE0000190631, can be viewed at the Public Copyright Catalog database:
The incorrect publication date for "The Last of the Masters" has been included in the following collections: Read by William Hughes. (cassette/CD/MP3) Read by William Hughes. (iTunes)
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novelette
Novelette
A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...
by Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
. The original manuscript of the story was received by the Scott Meredith Literary Agency on July 15, 1953, and the story was published by the Hanro Corporation in the final issue of Orbit Science Fiction
Orbit Science Fiction
Orbit Science Fiction was a short lived science fiction magazine anthology published in 1953 and 1954 by the Hanro Corporation. Only 5 issues were published, each of which were edited by Donald A. Wollheim, although Jules Saltman was credited within the publication. Several prominent science...
in 1954. It has since been reprinted in several Philip K. Dick story collections, beginning with The Golden Man
The Golden Man (collection)
The Golden Man is a collection of science fiction stories by Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Berkley Books in 1980. The stories had originally appeared in the magazines If, Galaxy Science Fiction, Beyond Fantasy Fiction, Worlds of Tomorrow, Science Fiction Stories, Orbit Science...
in 1980.
"The Last of the Masters" depicts a society 200 years after a global anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
revolution has toppled the national governments of the world (the exact year is unstated). Civilization has stagnated due to the loss of scientific knowledge and industry during the now-legendary revolt. Elsewhere, the last state, governing a highly centralized and efficient society, conceals itself from the Anarchist League, a global militia preventing the recreation of any government. When three agents of the League are sent to investigate rumors of the microstate
Microstate
A microstate or ministate is a sovereign state having a very small population or very small land area, but usually both. Some examples include Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Nauru, Singapore, and Vatican City....
's existence, the government arranges for them to be killed, leading to the death of one and the capture of another. Tensions rapidly escalate after the agents of the state realize that the third has escaped. Assuming he will report the state's existence, the government mobilizes for total war
Total war
Total war is a war in which a belligerent engages in the complete mobilization of fully available resources and population.In the mid-19th century, "total war" was identified by scholars as a separate class of warfare...
. In actuality, the surviving anarchist elects to attempt his comrades' rescue and assassinate
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
the head of state
Head of State
A head of state is the individual that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state. His or her role generally includes legitimizing the state and exercising the political powers, functions, and duties granted to the head of...
: the last surviving "government robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
".
The primary theme of the story is the conflict between anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
and statism
Statism
Statism is a term usually describing a political philosophy, whether of the right or the left, that emphasises the role of the state in politics or supports the use of the state to achieve economic, military or social goals...
, the political and ethical dimensions of which are explored through the characters' dialogue. Though the attention the story received was limited prior to the author's death in 1982, it has since seen greater circulation in Philip K. Dick story collections, and has been reviewed and analyzed for its postmodern critique of technology and its political implications.
The last government
The title character, Bors, a 200-year-old "government integration robot"—and the last in existence—awakens after a routine maintenance check to learn that his motor systemMotor system
The motor system is the part of the central nervous system that is involved with movement. It consists of the pyramidal and extrapyramidal system....
is in a state of decline. An artificially intelligent
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
machine who displays a degree of emotion and even psychological
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
complexity, he is informed by Fowler, a personal mechanic, that his body has begun to break down due to age. His legs no longer work, his motor system will be irreparable in a matter of months, and full paralysis will take place in under a year.
Of his entire body, only five "synapse coils" have not yet begun to degrade. These memory
Computer memory
In computing, memory refers to the physical devices used to store programs or data on a temporary or permanent basis for use in a computer or other digital electronic device. The term primary memory is used for the information in physical systems which are fast In computing, memory refers to the...
units are irreplaceable due to the lack of skilled technicians and rare components needed to recreate them. Within them, he stores the last records of advanced science and technology, which he uses to guide his society at high efficiency as a benevolent dictator
Enlightened absolutism
Enlightened absolutism is a form of absolute monarchy or despotism in which rulers were influenced by the Enlightenment. Enlightened monarchs embraced the principles of the Enlightenment, especially its emphasis upon rationality, and applied them to their territories...
, operating according to utilitarian
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...
principles. Though he wields hegemonic control over his society, he views his dictatorship as the last bastion of humanity's scientific progress, and views himself as a guardian who oversees and protects that progress. This causes him to privately despair that he—and the knowledge only he possesses—will soon die. He also becomes increasingly paranoid, fearing to trust a loyal assistant, Peter Green, and confiding only in Fowler, his personal mechanic.
Hidden in a remote mountain valley, Bors commands the world's last government. The microstate
Microstate
A microstate or ministate is a sovereign state having a very small population or very small land area, but usually both. Some examples include Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Nauru, Singapore, and Vatican City....
is tightly centralized around him, and he manages it bureaucratically for optimum efficiency in all sectors of the economy and military. The effect is "an accurate and detailed reproduction of a society two centuries gone." Bors is immediately established as an utterly necessary figure in his society and is quickly escorted back into service as the leader of the government by Fowler. A personal assistant as well as mechanic to Bors, Fowler maintains a pretension of loyalty to the robot, but privately recognizes that his society is stagnant and that its leader is becoming mentally unbalanced. Pessimistic, he expresses cynicism regarding the subservient role humans in his society play to Bors. He is contrasted with Peter Green, a genuinely loyal assistant to the robot, who is among the few humans trusted to oversee his body while it is unconscious for repair. Though loyal to his leader, Green nonetheless draws Bors' distrust as the robot's paranoia steadily grows.
The Anarchist League
Elsewhere, three members of the "Anarchist League" are on a mission to investigate rumors of a government in existence near a remote mountain valley. The League is a global organization dedicated to seeking out and eradicating governments. Established at some unknown point during or after the global revolt, the League is organized around "League camps" which dot the landscape. Members of the League are easily recognized by their "ironite staffs": metallic walking sticks which they are trained in using as weapons. These tools are a symbol of the League—"the walking Anarchists who patrolled the world on foot, the world's protection agency."The three member team is composed of Edward Tolby, his daughter, Silvia Tolby (of unspecified age, but vaguely described as an adolescent or young adult), and their mutual friend, Robert Penn. While en route to the valley, the team arrives in a small rural town by the name of Fairfax. Fairfax is littered with ancient, decaying gadgets; the last remnants of the era of governments and high tech
High tech
High tech is technology that is at the cutting edge: the most advanced technology currently available. It is often used in reference to micro-electronics, rather than other technologies. The adjective form is hyphenated: high-tech or high-technology...
society, which none of the locals know how to fix or reproduce. Excited by the strangers, the locals ask about the League. Tolby answers their questions in turn, ending with an explanation of the timeline of events which led up to the great revolt. The event is summarized as having begun with revolts in Europe which overthrow the national governments. After France exists for a month free of government, millions join the by then explicitly anarchist movement to disarm the nuclear powers. At each toppled government center, millions of records are burned and government integration robots are destroyed. These events result in the setting of the story; a world full of anachronistic
Anachronism
An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
high-technology, interspersed in a pre-industrialized
Pre-industrial society
Pre-industrial society refers to specific social attributes and forms of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution. It is followed by the industrial society....
, agrarian
Agrarian society
An agrarian society is a society that depends on agriculture as its primary means for support and sustenance. The society acknowledges other means of livelihood and work habits but stresses the importance of agriculture and farming, and was the most common form of socio-economic oganization for...
culture.
Conflict and resolution
While retelling the story of the anarchist revolution, Tolby attracts the attention of a local who invites the trio of anarchists to her home, but who is in secret a government spy ordered to kill them. The ensuing assassination plot is bungled, as the spy dies in the process, but succeeds in killing Penn. Silvia is also badly injured and left unconscious. Her father survives the tragedy largely unscathed, however, and awakens as a patrol of military scouts arrives. The scouts panic after a brief counterattack by Tolby and retreat with Silvia captive. After re-arming himself, Tolby sets out to mount her rescue.Bors is alerted to the situation and overreacts upon learning that one of the three anarchists has escaped. Fearing that the agent will alert the world to their existence, he initiates plans for a war economy
War economy
War economy is the term used to describe the contingencies undertaken by the modern state to mobilise its economy for war production. Philippe Le Billon describes a war economy as a "system of producing, mobilising and allocating resources to sustain the violence".Many states increase the degree of...
and decides to question Silvia in her hospital room. Their dialogue reveals the story of his escape during the collapse of governments and the establishment of the microstate. He was damaged and in transport for repairs when the anarchist revolution began 200 years prior, allowing him to survive in hiding. Enraged by his calm indifference to the prospect of war, Silvia attacks him and attempts her escape, but is restrained by guards.
Tolby infiltrates the mountain valley, sneaking past the rapidly mobilizing army of the state. After killing and outmaneuvering inexperienced soldiers, he arrives at the government center and encounters Fowler. Fowler alludes to his desire to end the government and spurs Tolby onward. Ultimately, Tolby confronts and kills Bors, sending the building into confusion as the citizens react with hysteria and grief. The condition is implied to spread outward from the city to troops in the hills, resulting in mass desertion
Desertion
In military terminology, desertion is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning...
. No longer resisted by guards, Tolby reunites with Silvia. The story concludes as Fowler secretly salvages three remaining synapse coils from Bors' remains, "just in case the times change".
Publication history
The Turning Wheel
The Turning Wheel is an 8,400 word science fiction novelette by Philip K. Dick. The Scott Meredith Literary Agency received the submission on July 8, 1952 and it was published in Science Fiction Stories No. 2, 1954....
" on July 8, and following the former, the agency received "The Father-thing
The Father-thing
The Father-Thing is a 1954 science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. The story, written from a child's point of view, concerns the replacement of a boy's father by a replicated version. Only the child sees the difference and has to recruit other children to help him reveal the truth...
" on July 21.
"The Last of the Masters" was published over a year later, in the 1954 November/December issue of Orbit Science Fiction no.5. The issue was the last in a science fiction anthology series edited by Donald A. Wollheim
Donald A. Wollheim
Donald Allen Wollheim was an American science fiction ' editor, publisher, writer, and fan. As an author, he published under his own name as well as under pseudonyms, including David Grinnell....
. Orbit Science Fiction advertised "The Last of the Masters" on its cover and included Dick among an advertised list of prominent contributing authors, among them August Derleth
August Derleth
August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...
, Gordon R. Dickson
Gordon R. Dickson
Gordon Rupert Dickson was an American science fiction author.- Biography :Dickson was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1923. After the death of his father, he moved with his mother to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1937...
, and Chad Oliver
Chad Oliver
Symmes Chadwick Oliver was an American science fiction and Western writer and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin...
. The novelette was republished in 1958 for the Australian market by Jubilee Publications Pty., in Space Station 42 and Other Stories, a part of the Satellite Series.
The novelette was not published again until the 1980 release of The Golden Man
The Golden Man (collection)
The Golden Man is a collection of science fiction stories by Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Berkley Books in 1980. The stories had originally appeared in the magazines If, Galaxy Science Fiction, Beyond Fantasy Fiction, Worlds of Tomorrow, Science Fiction Stories, Orbit Science...
, the sixth collection of classic stories by Dick. This collection also included the only commentary Dick ever wrote regarding the story.
Thereafter, "The Last of the Masters" was included in six more print collections—most of which have seen multiple print runs—and two audiobooks.
Publication list
"The Last of the Masters" has been included in the following publications, listed by publication type:- Pulp magazines
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- Philip K. Dick collections
- Hardcovers
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- Paperbacks
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- Audio collections
} Read by William Hughes. (cassette/CD/MP3)
} Read by William Hughes. (iTunes)
United States
The Last Of The Masters is in the public domainPublic domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
because it was published in the United States between January 1, 1950 and December 31, 1963, but copyright was not renewed with the U.S. Copyright Office within a year period beginning on December 31 of the 27th year of the copyright and running through December 31 of the following year. When renewal registration was not made within the statutory time limit, copyright effectively expired at the end of its first term and protection was lost permanently. Copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
protection for Orbit Science Fiction No.5 and its contents was created under Registration Number B00000497234.
After the author's death, a nonexistent story with the same title was included under the new renewal Registration Number RE0000190631. This created the appearance that "The Last Of The Masters" is still under copyright protection. This incorrect first publication date has been cited in several Dick anthologies (e.g., The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick & The Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick); these publications falsely list the original publication of the story to have been in Imaginative Tales in November 1955.
Reception
Thomas M. Disch
Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W...
reviewed Dick's The Golden Man
The Golden Man (collection)
The Golden Man is a collection of science fiction stories by Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Berkley Books in 1980. The stories had originally appeared in the magazines If, Galaxy Science Fiction, Beyond Fantasy Fiction, Worlds of Tomorrow, Science Fiction Stories, Orbit Science...
collection among other works in "Fluff and Fizzles", an essay dated to 1979, but published in a 1980 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. While celebrating several stories in the collection, and proclaiming to readers the "categorical imperative" of buying a copy, he nonetheless derided most of its contents as "turkeys", citing specifically "The Last of the Masters" as an example. Referring to the story as "a hyperkinetic forway into hairy-chested-style hugger-mugger", Disch also mocked its "action-packed denouement" involving Edward Tolby as an example of "bogus machismo".
In her 1982 review of the Golden Man collection, Hazel Pierce lauded the sophistication of the story, summarizing the theme of "The Last of the Masters" as an examination of "the paradoxical cast of human existence."
Technological critique
In his 1980 commentary on the story, Dick also suggested that his reasoning for making Bors sympathetic was a result of a form of trust he advanced towards robots, as opposed to androids. "Perhaps", he suggested, "it's because a robot does not try to deceive you as to what it is". One of the themes that runs throughout all of Dick's fiction is the "power of empathy" and he uses it as the "key element defining the authentic human being". For example, when Silvia meets the robot that runs the government, she exclaims "My God, you have no understanding of us. You run all this, and you're incapable of empathy. You're nothing but a mechanical computer."Christopher Palmer, of La Trobe University
La Trobe University
La Trobe University is a multi-campus university in Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1964 by an Act of Parliament to become the third oldest university in the state of Victoria. The main campus of La Trobe is located in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora; two other major campuses are...
, has written on the postmodern literary themes
Postmodern literature
The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact...
of Dick's early short stories, analyzing stories in which "breakdown and ignorance" are the result of social upheaval. Palmer proposed that Dick often created post-apocalyptic scenarios of ruined worlds which held high tech gadgets in an attempt to present a view of postmodern materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
. Common to many of Dick's short stories were settings in which the outgrowth of modernity is a world where that which is natural is in ruin, and what is artificial is reshaped through science into a fantastically high tech form. Palmer presented "The Last of the Masters" as an example of this, as well as "The Variable Man
The Variable Man
The Variable Man is a novella written and sold by Philip K. Dick before he had an agent. It was first published in Space Science Fiction , Vol. 2 No. 2, July 1953 and Space Science Fiction, September 1953 with the US publication illustrated by Alex Ebel...
" and The Penultimate Truth
The Penultimate Truth
The Penultimate Truth is a 1964 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The story is set in a future where the bulk of humanity is kept in large underground shelters. The people are told that World War III is being fought above them, when in reality the war ended years ago. The...
, two other post-apocalyptic works by Dick. Palmer contended that these shared themes were "...not simply the expression of dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n malaise, or of Luddism
Luddite
The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested – often by destroying mechanised looms – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life...
treacherously taking up residence in popular SF... It points to a coherent interpretation of industrialism and post-industrialism."
Suggesting that many of the philosophical and political underpinnings of the author's short stories stemmed from his views on domestic life, Palmer's focus turned to Dick's common use of sterility as a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
. In "The Gun", "Second Variety
Second Variety
"Second Variety" is an influential short story by Philip K. Dick first published in Space Science Fiction magazine, in May 1953. It is one of Dick's many stories in which nuclear war has rendered the Earth's surface an uninhabitable, gray ash pile, and the only things remaining are killer robots...
", The Penultimate Truth, and "The Last of the Masters", people and sometimes the earth itself have been driven to sterility. As Palmer noted of "The Last of the Masters", Bors can be interpreted as a symbol of infertility
Infertility
Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term...
: "It is not clear why he does not replicate himself, or educate his human servants: it is simply a given that he is sterile. The old, technologically advanced, highly organized civilization is a civilization of production, but now under Bors it can do no more than maintain itself." Following an inspection of other short stories with similar references to sterility, Palmer asserts that Dick's work presented a social and existential
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
protest. Palmer interpreted Dick's social critique to be that if the act of creation validates existence, and genuinely expresses a form of individuality, then the process of reproduction is alienating, oppressive, and retards an individual's liberty. As Palmer explains, "...this process disempowers consumers, and even technocrats, by making them dependent on a process of which they have become entirely ignorant." Existentially, Palmer interpreted Dick to further mean that reproduction violated the author's concept of what made an object unique and valuable: "A thing can't be a real thing unless it is in some sense an individual thing."
In writing a biography on the author, Brian Stableford
Brian Stableford
Brian Michael Stableford is a British science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published as by Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford...
placed several of Dick's short stories in a context that established their relationship to the author's personal hardships. "...it always seemed to him [Philip K. Dick] that his career was a catalogue of undeserved disappointments and the record of his published work a travesty of his true ambitions." The personal problems which Dick struggled throughout his life provided fuel for several of the anxiety driven themes for his short stories. In Dick's early work, Stableford highlighted recurring themes in those most popular. These included paranoid suspicions; the dangerous hostility of "seemingly innocent entities"; and "the mechanization of the environment and the computerization of political decision-making". Stories in which androids and robots are a danger to the protagonist include "Autofac
Autofac
"Autofac" is a 1955 science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick that features one of the earliest treatments of self-replicating machines. It is set some years after an apocalyptic world war has devastated Earth's civilizations, leaving only a network of hardened robot "autofacs" in operation to...
", "Colony
Colony (short story)
"Colony" is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. It was first published in Galaxy magazine, June 1953. The plot centers on an expedition to an uncharted planet, on which the dominant, predatory life form is capable of precise mimicry of human technology.-About the story:Accompanying the...
", and Vulcan's Hammer
Vulcan's Hammer
Vulcan's Hammer is a 1960 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick.- Plot introduction:In 2029 CE, the Earth is run by the Unity organisation after a devastating world war...
. However, "The Last of the Masters", Stableford contends, was an exception to Dick's common dystopic portrayals of technology, given Stableford's interpretation of Bors as an altruist, who was "benign" in its role.
Political interpretations
In his 1980 commentary, Philip K. Dick pointed out the moral ambiguity of the story, laying out its political implications: "Should we have a leader or should we think for ourselves? Obviously the latter, in principle. But – sometimes there lies a gulf between what is theoretically right and that which is practical." This quote became part of a larger political analysis of Dick's work in How Much Does Chaos Scare You? by Aaron Barlow, Assistant Professor of English at Kutztown University of PennsylvaniaKutztown University of Pennsylvania
Kutztown University of Pennsylvania , is an American public university located in rural Kutztown, Berks County, Pennsylvania and is one of fourteen schools that comprise the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary...
. In analyzing Dick's short fiction, Barlow presented their themes against the backdrop of post-September 11, 2001 America. In particular, Barlow compared many of the philosophical underpinnings of Neoconservatism
Neoconservatism
Neoconservatism in the United States is a branch of American conservatism. Since 2001, neoconservatism has been associated with democracy promotion, that is with assisting movements for democracy, in some cases by economic sanctions or military action....
, and its rise to prominence during the George W. Bush administration, to the philosophy of Philip K. Dick. "To [Dick]," writes Barlow, "the elites were both alien and dangerous. To him, the focus of vision and of political debate should never be on the rulers, but on the little person, the shopkeeper, the mechanic." In his dissection of Dick's work, Barlow compared several stories in which normal humans lose some form of liberty in their society to an elite group. Examples presented include "Autofac", "Null-O
Null-O
"Null-O" is a 1958 science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. This rather brief story examines the concept of totally unempathic and 'logical' humans in an obvious parody of the plot and concepts of The Players of Null-A by A. E. van Vogt. These beings view individual collections of matter, i.e...
", and "Some Kinds of Life". From these stories, Barlow drew three themes important to Dick's anti-government writings: first, that humanity is often doomed by institutions of power created by the humans themselves; second, that paranoia is a natural aspect of governance, as "[n]o elite can ever completely trust the people it governs," and this distrust leaves a governed people in perpetual danger; and third, that the belief that individuality must be sacrificed—either for the sake of social stability or survival—is a constant threat. "To Dick," Barlow adds, "there are few attitudes more dangerous than this." Each of these themes would be revisited in "The Last of the Masters".
Continuing his analysis, Barlow addressed "The Last of the Masters", contrasting it with an earlier work by Dick, "The Defenders
The Defenders (short story)
"The Defenders" is a 1953 science fiction short story by American author Philip K. Dick, and the basis for Dick's 1964 novel The Penultimate Truth. It is one of several of his short stories to be expanded into a novel....
". In "The Defenders", humanity has been duped by a noble lie
Noble lie
In politics a noble lie is a myth or untruth, often, but not invariably, of a religious nature, knowingly told by an elite to maintain social harmony. The noble lie is a concept originated by Plato as described in the Republic.-Plato's Republic:...
—provided by their robot soldiers—into believing in a war which is not actually taking place. In the latter story, Barlow asserts that Dick surprisingly agreed with such neoconservative theorists as Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss was a political philosopher and classicist who specialized in classical political philosophy. He was born in Germany to Jewish parents and later emigrated to the United States...
in the efficacy of the deception. "Here, the [robots] have saved mankind... The 'noble lie' has served its purpose." However, Barlow concedes, "[b]ut this is an extremely early story and Dick had not yet clarified his own world view..." Comparing this story to "The Last of the Masters", Barlow took note of Dick's commentary from The Golden Man collection ("...sometimes there lies a gulf between what is theoretically right and that which is practical.") and concluded that the story represented Dick's understanding of "the problems at the other extreme..." in politics. Where most of Dick's stories presented government in skeptical terms to warn the reader of potential abuse, "The Last of the Master" presented an argument for the utility of government.
Barlow dissected the Anarchist League and "the contradictory nature of their organization" which patrolled a "poor and dirty" world, and juxtaposed this with the "opulent organization of the (state)". In particular, he highlighted dialogue by the robot master, Bors, as illustrating the importance of his leadership to the success of the micro-state. In the story, a conversation with a mechanic leads the robot to state, "You know I'm the only one who can keep all this together. I'm the only one who knows how to maintain a planned society, not a disorderly chaos! If it weren't for me, all this would collapse, and you'd have dust and ruins and weeds. The whole outside would come rushing in to take over!" Barlow concluded that while the story ended in triumph for the anarchists, the story did not go so far as to validate their society. "Dick does not vindicate them," writes Barlow, "keeping it clear that the robot had certainly accomplished something in that valley, though it had eventually gone too far."
Spiritual allegory
In a commentary made for the 1980 anthology, The Golden Man, Philip K. Dick briefly touched on several themes of the story, including the Christian allegory of the "suffering servantServant songs
The Servant songs are songs in the Book of Isaiah. They were first identified by Bernhard Duhm in his 1892 commentary on Isaiah. The songs are four poems written about a certain "servant of YHWH." God calls the servant to lead the nations, but the servant is horribly abused...
", manifested in the character of Bors. This was touched upon in the Dick biography Divine Invasions, by memoirist and biographer Lawrence Sutin
Lawrence Sutin
Lawrence Sutin is an author and professor. Sutin is a full professor in the MFA and MLS programs at the Hamline University Graduate School of Liberal Studies in St. Paul, Minnesota. Sutin has written biographies of occultist Aleister Crowley and science fiction author Philip K. Dick, entitled...
. Drawing on Dick's commentary, Sutin sees Bors as part of a religious pattern in Dick's stories as a "Christ-like robot", and likens the robot to characters in other stories by Dick who suffer from illness.
See also
Footnotes
. The 2010 circular by the United States Copyright Office provides an explanation for the necessity for copyright renewal: "Copyrights whose first 28-year term of copyright was secured between January 1, 1950, and December 31, 1963, including works protected in their first term under the Universal Copyright Convention, still had to be renewed within strict time limits in order to receive the maximum statutory duration. U.S. Adherence to the Berne ConventionBerne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, is an international agreement governing copyright, which was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland in 1886.- Content :...
did not alter this requirement. Renewal registration had to be made within a year period beginning on December 31 of the 27th year of the copyright and running through December 31 of the following year. [...] However, if renewal registration was not made within the statutory time limits, these copyrights expired at the end of their first terms and protection was lost permanently."
. To reference an online listing of Orbit Science Fiction No.5's Registration Number, B00000497234, it is necessary to follow links and search Copyright Catalog for B00000497234 by Registration Number. A direct link to the search result page or search page may cause an immediate Time Out.
The incorrect renewal registration number for "The Last of the Masters", RE0000190631, can be viewed at the Public Copyright Catalog database:
The incorrect publication date for "The Last of the Masters" has been included in the following collections: Read by William Hughes. (cassette/CD/MP3) Read by William Hughes. (iTunes)
External links
- Anarchism and science fiction, containing an assessment of the story from an anarchist perspective