The Cosmic Puppets

The story opens like an episode from "The Twilight Zone" with Ted Barton driving back to his home town, Millgate, with the twist that it's completly different from how it was in his childhood. The records show Barton died of scarlet fever and nobody in the town seems to know him. Gradually, the whole scheme is revealed as the site of an eternal battle between the two Zorastrian gods, Ahriman and Ormuzd, who stand in shadowy form looking down on the town and its surroundings, while their servants are embodied in children in the town. The older town is represented by ghost-like "Wanderers" who are seeking to reconstruct the real town which has been changed by Ahriman. But only Barton has the memory and ability to waive the spell of the evil forces and restore the town. It's interesting that as early as 1957, Dick was creating this kind of theological SF, though within this story it's just a backdrop to the action; there are no philsophical or religious debates. At times Dick delights in describing the gooey horror and nastiness of evil creatures like golems and spiders, and the appalling boy Peter, almost like a horror writer at full spate. "Puppets" is certainly not essential Dick, and nobody is really missing anything by ignoring it. Only for the Dick completist.