First appeared in Playboy.
Reprinted in various major retrospectives by Terry Carr, Brian Attebery, Ursula K. Le Guin, Chris Hables Gray, Alice K. Turner, Jonathan Lethem.
This won a Playboy award and was up for a Locus.
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A man is cryogenically suspended for the duration of a journey across space. His chamber malfunctions so that he awakens ten years from his destination. He cannot be fully awakened or have his chamber repaired, so the ship computer dials up his memories for the man so he can dream pleasantly. But none of it goes as planned.
Discussion (with spoilers):
The man keeps turning the memories into something darker, and as the ship's computer adjusts, trying to compensate, making the dreams lighter. The new, fake if dark memories bleed into every adjustment the computer makes. He can see through the illusions the computer makes.
When he arrives, his ex-wife summoned from another planet to help him adjust, he cannot accept the true reality.
Brilliant concept--at least not one I remember seeing before (although right after writing this, a newer TV show had a similar scenario, but not as thoughtfully executed. It doesn't feel like a classic but at least as profound as the great classics, so maybe it is classic?
The story suggests that the past is preparation for whatever reality or future distorts how we view the present reality. Probably true--to an extent as we do test reality.
Terry Carr summarizes the above, more or less, and closes with "Could any computer, no matter how extensive its abilities, keep him sane?"
Is it about sanity? Maybe, kinda. But part of this summary is refuted by the story because the computer is not all powerful. In fact, it is relatively "dumb," limited in what it can do. It does see a problem, but not how to correct it. This, for me, is a critical part of the story, mentioned a few times. The computer doesn't intend to channel the person's reality--but simply to make him happier, which it fails to do.
This point in the story many not be wholly true as people (as opposed to the ship's computer) do actively try to channel people toward how they should view reality, but the basic concept is solid and thought-provoking. Perhaps it was somewhat less the case in the 70s and 80s that one might ignore the influence.
It's interesting that Dick's original title was rewritten by Playboy--probably more evocative or enticing to a reader. What's surprising is that Playboy's title is reprinted, not Dick's, despite Dick publishing his preferred title, even titled such as part of a collection. The Playboy title does suggest the man is stuck in his journey, frozen in time.
"I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" suggests more of the protagonist's state of mind, inviting the reader in to entertain the state, the feeling of making progress, of wanting to reach the destination but never arriving. It is more empathetic (his belief that he should be arriving soon even though he already has) and, hence, more tragic toward the character's failure to accept his reality. The "Frozen" unintentionally looks down on the character.
Ursula LeGuin's The Norton Book of Science Fiction has a nice tribute to Dick in the introduction, that he was finally getting his due. However, beyond adding the usual Dick-plays-with-reality, it offers no insight into this particular story, and it doesn't really add much insight into any particular story except in broad strokes.
A famous, knowledgeable writer once said that the anthology chose the stories for a certain brand of politics. It may not have been, but let's entertain the notion. This will take a while since it's not high priority, but I'll touch on it.
The anthology arranges stories by year, presumably to show either progression in sensibility, changes in topical concerns, quality, etc. But presumably those were the best stories from that year. Only Carr selected this story as one the best of the year. It's numbered eight on Locus (with no other award nominations), so maybe the listing by year (in terms of quality) is misleading. However, an editor may think stories were overlooked in a given year, so that may be a factor. It could be the issues facing the public during that year. Was 1980 a year of being frozen in place, compared to any other year? But if so, why doesn't the anthology discuss issues facing the field during that time?
Finally, this could be the story most representative of the writer from 1960-1990, but then the listing as stories by year would be misleading. Moreover, a lot of important writers were excluded from this collection, which would be a major flaw for an anthology with this particular title, which sounds like it has a wide-enough-angled lens to capture the full scope. The anthology was never revised, so maybe the flaws are well known as being too limited in scope to bear its current title, lacking a number of key players who helped shape the field during this era.
The anthology does use the Playboy title over Dick's. If it were a political selection, it was the positive portrayal of the ex-wife. She was empathetically drawn. Hopefully, it is not for the wise woman/foolish man (or worse men-bad/women-good) portrayals, which would be sexist if this is a consistent pattern--limiting both genders to certain roles that can be played. Hard to say from this distance. Perhaps the editors felt they needed to counteract other portrayals, but still it's problematic if it's men-good/women-bad. Humanity has lots genes, lots of differences to limit the species to a handful of portrayals.
Feminism becomes important to the field, especially during this era, so one would expect it to be addressed, but it is certainly not the only issue, and the anthology would require a different label to be more honest to the public about the anthology's aim. But that's only the case if it were true that LeGuin's anthology is political--a hypothetical claim being entertained at present. And we'll come back to it later, fingers crossed.
Still, the story's a lovely little gem, whatever reason people selected it. Maybe some will read it as a tale about sanity, or about gender-power dynamics, tripping some triggers. That's okay. For me, it's a potent tale with a broader application for all humanity--not a select few--about a human being whose propensity to find flaws in his own life led him to a place that made it difficult to deal with his present circumstances. Surely, that is a theme that people of whatever gender can empathize with.
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