In the dystopian future Earth of 1992, jobs are so scarce they are rationed. Nick's father is lucky to work 15 hours a week.

Everyone lives in high-rise apartments. Nick's teacher has multiple classrooms and she teaches by television.

Oh, and pets are illegal. Nick and his family are hiding Horace, a pet cat. When the cat escapes, they are visited by the Anti-Pet Man, who tells them they will have to surrender the feline. Rather than do that, they immigrate to Plowman's Planet, which promises to be a paradise but which turns out to be nothing like the brochures. There's a war going on and the family quickly falls prey. Worse, the fearsome Glimmung is after Nick.

Nick & the Glimmung in no way representative of author Philip K. Dick's usual style. Written in 1966 (when 1992 could still be considered the "future") it wasn't published until 1990, then reissued by Subterranean Press (with new illustrations by Phil Parks) in 2008.

It is intended as a children's story and, for the most part, works as one. I'd recommend it for very young readers, grades 3-5, because I think this more sophisticated generation of readers will not buy the story as well as younger ones will.