In the 22nd century, the Earth is ruled by the "New Men", who have superhuman mental abilities, and the "Unusuals", who possess psionic abilities such as telepathy, telekinesis and precognition. Thors Provoni, who has gone deep into space to find help for his resistance to the ruling groups, is returning with a sentient protoplasmic alien being, a "Friend from Frolix 8" known as Morgo Rahn Wilc, to fight for the "Old Men", human beings who have none of the rulers' powers. Nick Appleton is a tire regroover - a lowly, if skilled, job; his son Bobby fails a Civil Service examination that is deliberately geared toward failing "Old Man" applicants. At the same time, Terran authorities are holding the "Under Man" activist Cordon in prison and preparing for his execution. Appleton becomes politicized, and falls for Charlotte ("Charley") Boyer, a sixteen-year-old subversive. She is involved with alcoholic Denny (in this future, alcohol prohibition has returned as a social policy). After the authorities discover that Appleton has become "subversive", they attempt to apprehend him and Charley, whom Willis Gram is also obsessed with.

Meanwhile, Thors Provoni's craft has eluded Terran fleet defenses and is rapidly nearing Earth, leading to paranoid fears among the ruling elite about the possibility of violent alien invasion. In the event, Provoni does land, but Morgo Rahn Wilc protects him from an assassination attempt. Provoni is actually a "New Man" and an "Unusual" at the same time, and, with the assistance of his alien companion, he strips all Unusuals of their psionic abilities, and all New Men of their advanced cognitive abilities, rendering the New Men intellectually disabled and capable only of childlike cognition.

The novel was written from 1968-69, and published the next year.^[1][2] The novel was written on commission for Ace Books, as Dick was short on money.^[3]

Michael Rogers interpreted the novel as being about class struggle, though described the novel as being "couched in the usual sf trappings".^[4] Charles Thorpe compared the struggle between the New and Old Men to the conflict between the Bes and Ges in another Philip K. Dick novel, The Simulacra, comparing both to the rise of newer modes of societal advancement replacing older ones in American society.^[5]

Jorge Rosa described the novel as "atypical" for that period of Dick's writings, and described the novel as a "partial reversing" of the premise of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.^[6] Darko Suvin described the plot points as happening like a "succession of rabbits out of a hat, in a quite arbitrary way".^[1] Kim Stanley Robinson described the ending of the book as a deus ex machina, but argued that the hopefulness of this ending was "ambiguous at best". He noted that the religious discussion given by the Friend in the story was the first discussion of religion in Dick's works, which would show up more often in his later works.^[7] Daniel Phi, writing in Horizons du Fantastique [fr], disliked the novel, and Jean-Pierre Andrevon described it as "banal, empty, badly constructed, like a bad van Vogt novel".^[8]

• Official PKDick website review
• Our Friends from Frolix 8 cover art gallery Archived February 6, 2012, at the Wayback Machine