Frozen Journey

The Science fiction icon (the spaceship) in Philip K. Dick's Frozen Journey is in satirical contrast to the USS Enterprise's omnipresent computer audio interface program for the federation Starfleet missions. Whereas Mrs. Roddenberry was able to efficiently replicate food, program the holodeck for adventure and fantasy escapes for the crew, notify them when in danger of a warp core breach, as well as give a minute by minute countdown until containment failure, the spaceship in Frozen Journey was not able to provide much assistance to person nine's faulty cryogenic suspension. Philip K. Dick treats the spaceship icon of science fiction (which is generally understood to represent adventure, protection, and technological advancement) irreverently in order to highlight the unreliability of technology.

It is amusing how PKD portrays the spaceship as neurotic and incompetent. For instance, when the spaceship realizes that person nine is in a faulty cryonic state, it thinks, "Shit, the ship said to itself" (386). There is decidedly an undercurrent of dread in that statement, and considering it is coming from an omnipresent computer audio interface program, makes it all the more humorous. The spaceship continues by trial and error to keep person nine sane for the next ten year voyage. Later in the text, the computer intimates, "This is a serious situation, the ship decided. The man is already showing signs of psychosis" (393). Shortly thereafter, the computer frustratingly declares: "I am not equipped to do psychiatric reconstruction of you; I am a simple mechanism, that's all" (393). Here Philip K. Dick purposely creates a banal, albeit somewhat sordid, view of how technology is incorporated into our lives, yet is incapable of genuine influence (such as when the spaceship moaned within its sentient works (397). In making the interstellar ship emote limitations, Philip K. Dick sends a powerful premise: whether time traveling, experimenting with cryonics, or some such future advancement in technology--human nature remains unchanged.

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Dick, Philip K. Frozen Journey, 1980.