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"The SF approach: an awareness that things could have been different, that this is one of many possible worlds, that if you came to this world from some other planet, this would be a science fiction world."
- Neal Stephenson

Book of the Kalends  
  The ever-changing book without a title; the documented history of a world.  

When Joe Fernwright arrives at the spaceport at Plowman's Planet (Sirius 5), a spiddle ("a careful, brown, large creature resembling a rat") approached him, carrying an armload of books.

The spiddle touched a tiny tape recorder mounted on its belt; the tape began to speak for the spiddle. "Fully documented history of a fascinating world," it said, in English, and then evidently repeated this in a variety of other tongues...

"Buy it," Mali said.

"You know this book? What book is it?"

"There is only one book. In this world."

"Don't people get tired of reading it?"

"It changes," Mali said. "It is written ... by a group of creatures or entities... that records everything that happens on Plowman's Planet. Everything. Great and small."

"Then it's a newspaper."

Mali halted; she turned to face him, her eyes burning with exasperation. "It is recorded first," she said. "The Kalends spin the story; they enter it into the ever-changing book without a title and it comes about, finally."

Technovelgy from Galactic Pot-Healer, by Philip K. Dick.
Published by Berkley Publishing in 1969
Additional resources -

The book of the Kalends is a great illustration of a central tenet of PKD's world; that the news is created or manifested in a way that is not clear, and that it both reflects what has happened and what may yet happen. Compare the ever-changing book without a title with homeostatic newspapers.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Galactic Pot-Healer
  More Ideas and Technology by Philip K. Dick
  Tech news articles related to Galactic Pot-Healer
  Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick

Book of the Kalends-related news articles:
  - Wikipedia Encyclopedia And Dick's Book Of The Kalends

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