Phillip K Dick

[Matt]

I read my first Phillip K Dick novel this summer after talking to a friend about the (then) upcoming film 'A Scanner Darkly'. She insisted I read the book first because she was so certain Keanu Reeves was going to be terrible as Bob Arctor. I ended up reading The Man In The High Castle first, as my brother had a copy, and gave it to me after talking to him about wanting to read Scanner. Since reading both of these I've read 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' and 'Ubik' and i've loved them all.

 

anyone else a PKD fan?

[Kell]

I've never read any PKD, but I've seen a few movies based on his books: Do Androuds Dream of Electric Sheep became, of course, the wonderful Blade Runner; We Can Remember it for You Wholesale became Total Recall; Minority Report became... Minority Report (LOL!); & Second Variety became Screamers to name but a handful. I really should geet round to reading the books, because I enjoyed the films & would probably enjoy reading the originals too...

[Michelle]

Matt, I changed your thread title, simply to make searching easier in the future.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I never read A Scanner Darkly, although friends tell me that it could be Dick's best. I've read all five anthologies of the short stories, though, which I really enjoyed. At some point they get a bit samey, but I guess that's inevitable when you're writing for the SF magazine audience. You can really see the change in style as he gets older, though, getting more personal and moving further away from the traditional SF stuff.

 

I think my favourite remains The Man In The High Castle, although Do Androids Dream... is also great. All of the written stuff is better than the films - I really didn't think much of Total Recall, and I've always thought Do Androids Dream is much better than Blade Runner - but that's one of those odd ones that polarises people, those who prefer the film and those who prefer the book, although they are completely different.

 

Certainly one of my two favourite SF authors, both of whom operate(d) on the fringes of SF. The other being JG Ballard. Although very different, they both play much more with the psychological side of things than with the "ooh, look at the cool shiny new technology" or Space Opera stuff.

[thebookgarden]

Hey Matt,

 

I've been reading a few of PKD's books lately and am enjoying them immensely! The short story collections are very easy for a newcomer to get into.

Am looking forward to getting hold of a copy of a biography about his life - I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick by Emmanuel Carrere

 

Synopsis

This is an unforgettable biography of the visionary grand master of science fiction, Philip K. Dick. Emmanuel Carrere follows Dick's strange odyssey from his traumatic beginnings in 1928, when his twin sister died in infancy, to his lonely end in 1982, beset by mystical visions of swirling pink light, three-eyed invaders and messages from the Roman Empire. Drawing on interviews and both published and unpublished sources, Carrere traces Dick's multiple marriages, paranoid fantasies and dizzying encounters with the drug culture of California. As disturbing and engrossing as any novel by Philip K. Dick himself, Carrere's unconventional study interweaves life and art to reveal the maddening genius whose writing foresaw - from cloning to reality TV - a world that looks ever more like one of his inventions.