Dayworld

Author: Philip Jose Farmer

Philip Jose Farmer's career was revitalised by his engagement with the new wave. The taboo-defying fiction that he had already written in works like The Lovers (1952) suddenly became relevant, opening up new possibilities. These he explored in a number of short stories which played inventively with archetypal new wave themes such as inner space, fragmentation and dismay at the current state of the world. One such story was "The Sliced-Crosswise Only-on-Tuesday World" (1971) which imagined a world so overcrowded that people were allowed to live for only one day of the week. In 1985, he used that story as the basis for his novel Dayworld, the first of a trilogy. Jeff Caird defies the government by living across every day of the week, but on each day, as a new population comes to life, he must take on a new personality, and adapt himself to new fashions, new trends, different world events. Why it's on the list: It is sometimes thought that new wave is all ideas and no plot, but this is a textbook example of a typical new wave story of unreliable realities and fragmented personalities put at the service of a gripping action adventure.

Books in Dayworld Series (2)

Dayworld Rebel

Dayworld Breakup