Posted on 05/08/2013 6:43:49 AM PDT by Perdogg
I've been thinking about Philip K. Dick quite a lot in recent months.
Philip K. Dick, for those who pay no attention to such things, is the writer who, without ever expressly intending it, transformed the often shabby and degraded genre of science fiction into something resembling art.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
ping
he was/is the greatest writer of all.
I enjoyed his SciFi books and stories. Discovered him many, many years ago.
The man was a real artist, with a real artistic temperment (as opposed to the faux version all too common among the current crop of pseuds that do modern “art”). I find his work hard to read, but undeniably powerful.
Isn’t he AKA Kilgore Trout ?
No, Kilgore Trout was the literary invention of Kurt Vonnegut.
Good article.
Dick achieved a level of paranoia in the 70’s that most of us are only starting to appreciate today.
From the link;
“(See Dick’s short story, “The Mold of Yancy,” in which a presidential candidate is totally unavailable and never seen outside of his video ads, because, it turns out, he doesn’t actually exist.) “
I remember the first time I brought home a Philip K Dick novel; my mother threw a fit, wanting to know why I’d want to read a book by a whacked out druggie. I had no answer, I was just 10, and still judged much of what I was going to read by the cover. I set aside the offending book, promised I wouldn’t touch any more of his books, and then read it that night under the covers with a flashlight.
It was Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. The book didn’t have a transformative effect in my life, but it did give birth to a love of science fiction based not in space, but here on earth, and the possible futures that it might bring.
As it turns out, androids really DO dream of electric sheep.
Kilgore Trout was Vonnegut's version of Theodore Sturgeon.
The first book I ever bought for myself was a short story collection, “Golden Apples of the Sun” by Ray Bradbury. I sure could have chosen worse. It was a little red-covered paperback, and it cost me $0.75 at a Waldenbooks.
RE: Kilgore Tout / Philp K Dick
Understood about him being Vonnegut’s Character but also
Understood - Philip K Dick and Vonnegut were friends and the inspiration of the character named Kilgore Trout in Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions
And “Who is Kilgore Trout” an extension of another famous book that asks “Who is John Galt”
Am I wrong? was told this years ago. I owned a bookstore that attracted many well read people where I was given these tid bits of supposed truth
The Man in the High Castle
Ah....
Theodaor Sturgeon
So how did you find this out?
My take on that question was that androids dream of REAL sheep.
I see it on Wiwipedia - got it. Looks like it makes sense
Thanks
Funny how some people remember their first exposure to PKD.
In '68 I found a copy of Counter Clock World in a thrift store for a nickel and figured I couldn't go wrong and it resulted in my reading just about everything he ever wrote.
A slight correction to the article. I know of at least 11 of his stories that have been made into movies which, I think, is more than any author short of Stephen King.
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