The Cosmic Puppets
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The Cosmic Puppets a 1957 novel by science fiction author Philip K. Dick.is perhaps Dick's first attempt at a sci-fi/fantasy novel.
It also works as a "small town" novel in the popular sense. In it a small town is haunted by ghosts of recently departed citizens, and finds itself as well in the crossfire of a battle between the twin but diametrically opposed demigods of Zurvanism(a Zoroastrian sect), Ahriman and Ormazd. This book seems to be a young author's attempt to deal with the forces that create a social reality and define an individual's place within it; but it quickly gives in to the strictures of pulp fiction. Still, it is marked by the sensitive and telling dialogue which is a hallmark of Dick's later works. It lacks other familiar features of Dick's work however, unless these are there in embryonic form, and the plot nearly achieves Dickian levels of complexity.
