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 ...
My first PKD novel.
He was a great sci-fi writer; he had great insight into human nature.
One of my favorites was “Clans of the Alphane Moon,” where inmates of a mental institution set up shop on a planet under their various mental disorders. Turns out the “normal” people who discovered them were just as nutty, but hadn’t been labeled yet.
I found EYE IN THE SKY around the same time and was hooked. Still have all my Dick paperback originals.
the author makes it seem that Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Clarke were hacks with no artistic bent.
I like Dick, Love some of his stories, but he was seriously mentally ill. if that is the artistic they speak of, then one has to question the critic.
Philip Jose Farmer was given permission to write under the Vonnegut nom di plume of Kilgore Trout.
you might want to check out “ venus on the half shell” by Trout (farmer)
it is the piece that ‘Hitchhikers Guide’ was blatantly stolen from...
hilarious....I highly recommend it....for what that is worth.
In the novel, Bob Hope was broadcasting to America over the radio. Where was he broadcasting from?
Nah, Philip K. Dick’s pseudonymous character name was Horselover Fat.
Philip K. Dick had some rough times, but during one of them there was somebody who loaned him money for his crushing tax debts and bought him a typewriter so he could support himself. The two couldn’t have been further apart politically. Dick dedicated a book of short stories to him. Fellow you may have heard of: Robert A. Heinlein.
Given your screen name, I’m going with Canada, eh?
Excellent article. Thanks for posting. Phillip K. Dick needs to be more widely read.
“his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? became the basis of Blade Runner, a film that reflected his personal vision a lot more than might be expected from Hollywood.”
It captured the vision despite taking the plot in a completely different direction. Movie tells the book’s tale to about halfway thru, then IIRC a drive takes a left turn instead of a right, ending up in an opposite ending. Nonetheless, and in rare form, it remains faithful to the spirit of the text.
On the rare occasions that I read fiction, he’s da man.
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