Solar Lottery is a 1955 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was his first published novel and contains many of the themes present in his later work. It was also published in altered form in the UK as World of Chance. The main story is about a man named Ted Benteley who lives in a strange world, dominated by percentages and the lottery. Lotteries are used to choose the next leader as well as a new assassin, whose job is to try to kill the leader or "Quizmaster". Everybody in society has the opportunity to be selected as a leader or an assassin. Benteley unexpectedly gets chosen to be a member of the committee trying to assassinate the new Quizmaster and he must decide what he is going to do. Plot summary Solar Lottery takes place in a world dominated by logic and numbers, and loosely based on a numerical military strategy employed by US and Soviet intelligence called minimax (part of game theory). The Quizmaster, head of the world government, is chosen through a sophisticated computerized lottery. This element of randomization serves as a form of social control since nobody – in theory at least – has any advantage over anybody else in their chances becoming the next Quizmaster. Society is entertained by a televised selection process in which an assassin is also (allegedly) chosen at random. By countering and putting down threats to his life, using telepathic bodyguards, the leader gains the respect of the people. If he loses his life, a new Quizmaster, as well as another assassin, are again randomly selected. Quizmasters have held office for timespans ranging from a few minutes to several years. The average life expectancy is therefore on the order of a couple of weeks. The novel tells the story of Ted Benteley, an idealistic young worker unhappy with his position in life. Benteley attempts to get a job in the prestigious office of Quizmaster Reese Verrick. Reese has just been forced out of office, however, and Benteley gets tricked into swearing an unbreakable oath of personal fealty to the former world leader. Verrick then makes it clear that his organization's mission is to assassinate the new Quizmaster, Leon Cartwright, in the world's most anticipated "competition". To defeat the telepathic security web protecting Cartwright, Verrick and his team invent an android named Keith Pellig, into which different volunteers'