The Zap Gun

Scaldingly sarcastic yet enduringly empathetic, The Zap Gun is Dick’s remarkable novel depicting the insanity of the arms race. Lars Powderdry and Lilo Topchev are counterpart weapons fashion designers for a world divided into two factions–Wes-bloc and Peep-East. Since the Plowshare Protocols of 2002, their job has been to invent elaborate weapons that only seem massively lethal. But when alien satellites hostile to both sides appear in the sky, the two are brought together in the dire hope that they can create a weapon to save the world, a task made all the more difficult by Lars falling in love with Lilo even as he knows she’s trying to kill him. Scalding sarcastic yet enduringly empathetic, "The Zap Gun"is Dick's remarkable novel depicting the insanity of the arms race. Lars Powderdry and Lilo Topchev are counterpart weapons fashion designers for a world divided into two factions - Wes-bloc and Peep-East. Since the Plowshare Protocols of 2002, their job has been to invent elaborate weapons that only seem massively lethal. But when alien satellites hostile to both sides appear in the sky, the two are brought together in the dire hope that they can create a weapon to save the world, a task made all the more difficult by Lars falling in love with Lilo even as he knows she's trying to kill him. The Zap Gun is a 1967 science fiction novel by American author Philip K. Dick. It was written in 1964 and first published under the title Project Plowshare as a serial in the November 1965 and January 1966 issues of Worlds of Tomorrow magazine.[1]