Dayworld

What do you get when you take a mystery and psychological thriller and wrap it in an ooey gooey science fiction back drop? Why you get Philip Jose Farmers wonderful novel Dayworld. Set several centuries in the future, the world government has found an answer to the overpopulation problem. Each person lives only 1 day in 7. Monday people live only from midnight to midnight Monday. The rest of the time they are "Stoned" a process that stops all functions and turns the body to a stone like material that cannot be damaged. A person can be stoned indefinitely with no ill effects.

What arises are 7 distinct societies overseen by a central government. Monday's society is not the same as Friday's and so on. Each job is done by seven different people. Poverty and want have been eliminated. The government seems to have evolved into a form of benevolent socialist state. Among this day world is a secret society called the "Immers." The society was founded by a scientist called Immerman who had found a serum for eternal life. Its mission was to change the government by infiltrating it in various aspects while keeping the secret of immortality restricted to the people the society judged sound enough to handle the burden of eternal life. Because this society is found in all days of the week some Immers are called "Day Breakers", people who take on a new aspect for each day of the week so they can pass messages throughout the week. Jeff Caird is such a man.

Because Jeff is forced to live as a different person each day of the week, what develops is a sort of conscious dissociative state or to use the layman's term, a "split personality." Jeff Caird doesn't just pretend to be "Bob Tingle" on Wednesday, but the Bob Tingle personality takes over the body, although at some level both "Jeff" and "Bob" are aware of each other.

All this creates one of the most unusual and engrossing sci-fi novels I have ever read. It was amazing to me to watch the psychological struggles Jeff Caird experienced when the order of his seven separate lives get thrown into chaos by events out of his control. The event that destroys Caird carefully structured lives, is the escape of a fellow "Immer" named Castor who has gone insane and believes he is God and Jeff, who was instrumental in his original capture and subsequent incarceration, is the devil and must be destroyed. Castor has started to Day Break and is hunting Caird down in all his various personae's, thus Castor is endangering Jeff's physical being and all his secret lives. Although some reviewers have complained that the various characters were not well developed because the reader is only introduced to them for one day each, I did not feel that was the case.

The novel was full of action and chase scenes, but was full of psychological drama as well. Jeff Caird was not only forced to fight for his physical life, but was also having an internal battle with all the other personalities. I can honestly say I have never read a novel quite like this one.

On a side note: I have to wonder why this novel has never been made into a movie. It seems like this novel would be full of cinematic gold. It may be just as well, as I have seen too many excellent novels turned to garbage by the industrial movie complex.

I am giving Dayworld by Philip Jose Farmer a strong 5 stars, for originality if for nothing else.