There may be a lot of people that outside of his high profile film and TV adaptations know little of what Phillip K. Dick was all about. I couldn’t say it better than his introductory paragraph on Wikipedia. So, here it is in full…
Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American writer known for his work in science fiction. He wrote 44 published novels and approximately 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. His fiction explored varied philosophical and social themes, and featured recurrent elements such as alternate realities, simulacra, monopolistic corporations, drug abuse, authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness. His work was concerned with questions surrounding the nature of reality, perception, human nature, and identity.
I saw Blade Runner the movie for the first time aged about 10, in 1983. Until then, science fiction was restricted to Star Wars and Star Trek for me, but this story opened up my young mind to the darker and more complex themes possible in the genre. I went on to read and mostly not understand the novel it was based on, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It haunted me for years! It wasn’t until my twenties that I was mature enough to go back to Phillip K. Dick as a writer, absorbing his incredible wealth of short stories, and then eventually a selection of his novels, including Ubik, Martian Time-Slip and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich. To say they changed my life as a reader is an understatement.
I went on to explore all of the great writers and novels of the golden age of sci-fi writing, back to H.G. Wells, then Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, with all points inbetween. I knew I had found the genre of my heart, and to this day I hold up the very best sci-fi works alongside the greatest fiction books ever written. A lot of Dick’s output is considered niche, weird and drug fuelled nonsense, but this is far from true. No other writer I can think of was ever so original and brave in seeking out alternate realities and social parables that resonate through all ages. Yes, it is often difficult to raise your mindset to match his, so vigorous and febrile as it often is. But if you can find the thread that allows you to engage, nothing is as satisfying, and rich in consciousness. Plus they are nearly always damn good stories.
I could eulogise forever about why I love him so much as a writer – he is so very human, caring and openly paranoid about the way we live; but also fearless in his convictions, even when they become very strange indeed. For someone whose imagination was so rampant and random, however, he always managed to use the conventions of good writing as his base. He was experimental in ideas and structure, but never alienated his audience with obscure style and obtuse language. He was simply a great writer that was not limited by what the rest of the world thought a story should be.
A top 5 is as hard as it ever is, so I have focused on the 5 books that mean the most to me personally. I don’t claim these are his best books or most accessible either. Just my favourites…
Phillp K. Dick top 5:
1. A Scanner Darkly (1973)
2. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich (1964)
3. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1966)
4. The Man in the High Castle (1961)
5. VALIS (1978)
Thanks for checking out my latest Hall of Fame entry. If you have any comments or would like to mention your favourite work of PKD, then please do so below. There will be a new inductee into the Hall of Fame next Monday.
The Wasteland 