[Closed] Philip K Dick

Do androids dream of electric sheep would be a good start IMO

The Man in the High Castle

Or one of his collections of short stories.

A scanner darkly
ubik
do androids dream

Read do androids dream and then scanner darkly.

Unless you absolutely love them both then stop there.

Thanks all.

Not read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" but I got on well with
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldridge
Flow my Tears the Policeman Said.

I'd avoid "Valis" I'd say Mr Dick was off his head on drugs when he wrote it (plus the others to some extent)

If people avoided artistic output that hadn't been created with the assistance of illegal drugs, this would be a very dull world indeed. 😉

Indeed, but Valis, at least to me, was not a good example 🙂

Agreed, it's rubbish.

The short story collections are a very different thing to the novels - I definitely prefer them, though that's not to say the novels aren't good too.

Short stories are where it's at with Philip K. Dick, IMHO. He's great with ideas for stories but a bit ordinary as a writer - a lot of his novels drag pretty badly. You used to be able to get 5 volumes of his shorts - he wrote loads.

Valis is his best novel I would say - just because it's so personal and he manages to articulate his own struggle with mental illness in the story (through Horselover Fat).

There's a decent biography of him - Divine Invasions, that's worth a read.

Hasn't he had more films made of his books than any other SF author?

Just watch Blade Runner, and marvel at the way the original story was turned into such a cracking film.

CountZero - Member

Hasn't he had more films made of his books than any other SF author?

Mmm sorta- he was a great ideas man, so Hollywood takes his concepts and makes (IMO) better things out of them. I enjoyed Deus Irae for the same reasons- Dick says "I've got a cool idea" and Zelazny says "Nice one- I'll take it from here, because I can actually write".

YMMV 😉 I quite liked A Scanner Darkly, though, it fell apart a bit but was interesting enough to hold it up. Man in the High Castle is one of the icons but I couldn't find anything to recommend it, apart from the clever i-ching stuff maybe. Maybe it was a more exciting idea when it came out.

I started with [i]We can remember it for you wholesale (the collection)[/i] gave a good range of the type of stories he writes, (title story was the basis for Total Recall)
Then from that moved onto the others - Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep, UBIK, Man in the High castle, Scanner Darkly etc.

Really liked UBIK.

Hollywood takes his concepts and makes (IMO) better things out of them.

I don't see it as a better/worse situation, PKD had irresolvable issues with belief, drugs, paranoia, authority and reality. Very few of his stories come together in a neat Hollywood sci-fi conclusion, and the interesting situations that directors like to borrow, such as chasing rogue androids, tend to miss the point of the books, which present variations on the theme of despair at the individual's inability to prove reality as real or complete. As well as his books and short stories I'd recommend reading Carrère's biography, [i]I am alive and you are dead[/i] (but this does include plot spoilers for most of PKD's main books).

A maze of death
would be a gentle introduction
then try
Ubik , Flow my tears the policeman said and the fantastic ,Now wait for last year(my favourite)
Valis is brilliant IMHO but it's a biography rather than a novel.
As has been said his great ideas don't always pan out fully into great novels,mind you look how much he did write!

Don't think anyones mentioned Galactic Pot Healer yet, comedy and despair in equal amounts.

Blade Runner remains my favourite film of all time.

I could never get on with Philip K Dick but give Robert A. Heinlein a go really like some of his stuff.

I enjoyed Deus Irae for the same reasons- Dick says "I've got a cool idea" and Zelazny says "Nice one- I'll take it from here, because I can actually write".

Ha! Zelazney is probably my favourite all-time writer, he's so [i]lyrical[/i], almost, dare I say it, poetic. Two of his books,
[i]Today We Choose Faces[/i], and [i]Time Out Of Mind[/i], I've re-read more than any other book, my paperbacks date from 1972, and I've now found ebook copies of those, and everything else that Zelazney wrote.
I have tried reading PKD, but really struggled to get into them.
Perhaps I ought to give them another chance, it's been years, and that can certainly change perspective, so I might find them easier going now.
[edit] oops, [i]World Out Of Time[/i] is Niven, not Zelazney, I've read both authors so many times I get muddled up between their books.