The Crack in Space is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. In the United Kingdom, it has been published under the title of the original novella, Cantata 140, published in the July 1964 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. This original title refers to the short title in English, Sleepers Awake, of J.S. Bach's Cantata BWV 140 and the novel's 'bibs', the millions sleeping in suspended animation. Both are based on the short story Prominent Author. The common elements are the Jiffi-scuttler transport device, the company, Terran Development, that manufactures it (and still exists to play a large role in the later works), and a summary of Prominent Author as an event of the past in chapter 2. The "crack in space" is a defect in Jiffi-scuttler operation that allows access to the Earth (in Prominent Author) and to parallel Earths (in the later works) at various times and locations, beyond its intended use of providing near-instant transport between specific locations on the Earth in the present. Source: Wikipedia (en)