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Philip K. Dick
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Wolfgang1970
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Phillip K. Dick
Yes, Phillip K. Dick did write the story on which the movie Blade Runner was based. It is called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". He also wrote the stories upon which the movies Total Recall and Minority Report were based. It seems that screenwriters have a penchant for turning Dick's stories of just a few dozen pages or less into movies of two hours or more in length. Particularly the story upon which Total Recall was based. The liberties taken here are similar to those taken in turning Stephen King's "The Running Man" into its movie adaptation. They are almost totally different stories. I hope that helps!
Yes, Phillip K. Dick did write the story on which the movie Blade Runner was based. It is called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". He also wrote the stories upon which the movies Total Recall and Minority Report were based. It seems that screenwriters have a penchant for turning Dick's stories of just a few dozen pages or less into movies of two hours or more in length. Particularly the story upon which Total Recall was based. The liberties taken here are similar to those taken in turning Stephen King's "The Running Man" into its movie adaptation. They are almost totally different stories. I hope that helps!
HBinjection
New Member
I think "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" is a good introduction. "Ubik" and "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" are some of my other favorites. Right now, Dick is my favorite author, but I've read most of what is considered his strong work. The last few novels were stinkers, really, but as pieces of his whole life's work, each novel carries its own fascination. His work can be very autobiographical.
Shade
New Member
Ah surely the author with the name most likely to amuse schoolboys (after Fanny Burney), and one of the few science fiction writers I like to read. Most people don't read SF - they even cordon it off in the shops, towards the back, warning-marked with shiny lettering and embossed rockets - which may have something to do with the fact that most SF is rubbish. But then most fiction is rubbish too.
SF suffers from the reputation carried across from film and TV science fiction, i.e. that it is all overfed space opera with laughable pretensions to serious intent. Which most of it is. But not all. Iain M. Banks's Culture novels are well-regarded as one of the few literary examples of a successfully utopian society that isn't boring. Kurt Vonnegut has dabbled in SF to suit his satirical humanist purposes. The writings of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov are considered prophetic, albeit badly written prophecy (Douglas Adams on Asimov: "I wouldn't employ him to write junk mail").
But Dick was the real ideas man of late 20th century science fiction. He wrote a whole bunch of novels but I agree he is best remembered for masterpieces like The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, The Man in the High Castle and Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. They are fine examples of idea-based SF, where the spring for the story is a technological twist to the world we know. The important thing is that hard SF like this doesn't have aliens or spaceships in it - it's based very much in the world we know, but with a tweak to make it slightly less recognisable, the better to make the issues of our own world stand out.
I haven't read many of his books apart from these. Valis is a late work which reads as though it was written with the assistance of recreational medication (which it was): the hero's name Horselover Fat (from the meaning of Philip and the German dick meaning fat) should give you an idea of the level of self-indulgence involved. So he was not perfect.
SF suffers from the reputation carried across from film and TV science fiction, i.e. that it is all overfed space opera with laughable pretensions to serious intent. Which most of it is. But not all. Iain M. Banks's Culture novels are well-regarded as one of the few literary examples of a successfully utopian society that isn't boring. Kurt Vonnegut has dabbled in SF to suit his satirical humanist purposes. The writings of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov are considered prophetic, albeit badly written prophecy (Douglas Adams on Asimov: "I wouldn't employ him to write junk mail").
But Dick was the real ideas man of late 20th century science fiction. He wrote a whole bunch of novels but I agree he is best remembered for masterpieces like The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, The Man in the High Castle and Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. They are fine examples of idea-based SF, where the spring for the story is a technological twist to the world we know. The important thing is that hard SF like this doesn't have aliens or spaceships in it - it's based very much in the world we know, but with a tweak to make it slightly less recognisable, the better to make the issues of our own world stand out.
I haven't read many of his books apart from these. Valis is a late work which reads as though it was written with the assistance of recreational medication (which it was): the hero's name Horselover Fat (from the meaning of Philip and the German dick meaning fat) should give you an idea of the level of self-indulgence involved. So he was not perfect.
bobbyburns
New Member
I don't know about that, martin, his novels are pretty standard in length. I picked up copies of do androids dream of electric sheep? and flow my tears, the policeman said. both seem like a cross somewhere between kurt vonnegut and thomas pynchon, but then, there's something different about him too that might be part of the reason why he's so critically acclaimed. but you'll have to find that out for yourself, because I haven't read either of them all the way through.
Martin said:
Martin, his short stories are collected together in 5 books!
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick:
(stories arranged in order they were written)
- Vol. 1 - Beyond Lies the Wub
- Vol. 2 - Second Variety
- Vol. 3 - The Father-Thing
- Vol. 4 - The Days of Perky Pat
- Vol. 5 - The Little Black Box
That might be a good introduction or maybe you could read one of his novels. Ubik is said to be fantastic!!! ( or so a PKD fan friend of mine says )
I, personally, don't like him very much. But I have not read too much of him, so I can't really have not made up my mind about him yet. I want to read a couple more of his novels before I really decide on him. I will try Ubik at some point and see how I like that
Litany
Active Member
I saw a book today in Borders that was 5 novels bundled together.
Had Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, A Scanner Darkly, 5 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Martian Time Slip and Ubik. So you're getting some of the most important ones, and not just chaff.
UK Amazon linky if you want to grab the ISBN...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...596/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-4104071-5814240
Had Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, A Scanner Darkly, 5 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Martian Time Slip and Ubik. So you're getting some of the most important ones, and not just chaff.
UK Amazon linky if you want to grab the ISBN...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...596/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-4104071-5814240
loci said:i love his work....
the man in the high castle,
ubik,
a scanner darkly,
the three stigmata of palmer eldritch,
do androids dream of electric sheep (blade runner)
are a few i recommend
...are all excellent.
Also the often overlooked The Game Players of Titan--more straight ahead SF but still containing several quirky, typically PhilDickian riffs on the nature of truth and reality,
I also liked VALIS and Divine Invasion.
joderu95
New Member
I like some of his books and he has some really good short stories and some of his other stories are just really esoteric. Any lapses in concentration and you have to back up and read it over.
I liked A Maze of Death a lot and it might be one of his more conventional novels so it would probably be a good one to start with.
I also read a really interesting biography on Dick called I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey Into the Mind of Philip K. Dick. The book gives you the impression that he would have been a very hard person to be friends with. Philosophically and emotionally he was capricious at best.
I liked A Maze of Death a lot and it might be one of his more conventional novels so it would probably be a good one to start with.
I also read a really interesting biography on Dick called I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey Into the Mind of Philip K. Dick. The book gives you the impression that he would have been a very hard person to be friends with. Philosophically and emotionally he was capricious at best.
TheGoatMan1
New Member
My Favorites by the author:
1: Man in the high castle: A great story of America, if the german and japaneese won WWII
2: A Scanner Darkly: The dangers of substance D!! The ending is fantastic.
3: Flow my tears, the policeman said: Get ready for a wild ride of a story!
1: Man in the high castle: A great story of America, if the german and japaneese won WWII
2: A Scanner Darkly: The dangers of substance D!! The ending is fantastic.
3: Flow my tears, the policeman said: Get ready for a wild ride of a story!
The Doogster
New Member
Hi folks
Here's my two cents on Philip K. Dick - he was a writer with brilliant ideas who was a poor writer. Stepping into flame suit now.....
Here's my two cents on Philip K. Dick - he was a writer with brilliant ideas who was a poor writer. Stepping into flame suit now.....
domani
New Member
^ Dick did write some books which are pretty shaky, but it's unfair to judge him on those books alone. His best books contain some excellent writing - in particular A Scanner Darkly, Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Confessions of a Crap Artist and Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said.
UncleReader
New Member
These are my favorites, too, with the addition of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I've never been anything less than fascinated by a book or short story by Philip K. Dick.