ping
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 ?
Good article.
Dick achieved a level of paranoia in the 70’s that most of us are only starting to appreciate today.
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.
The Man in the High Castle
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.
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 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.
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.