Philip K Dick

Pherekydes

Has anyone read anything of his?

Just watching Total Recall last night made me think what an imagination he has. Paycheck was good, too. And Minority Report. And Blade Runner.

And these were written back in the 50's and 60's. That's the 1950's and 1960's.

Gone West

yep, I read that androids are electric sheep (I think) book, that was later turned into a film, was pretty good.

Kevin_rc_ie

another movie based on his book is IMPOSTER, BBC1, 23:35

I read Do androids dream of electric sheep, preferred it to blade runner.

Pherekydes

Kevin_rc_ie wrote:

another movie based on his book is IMPOSTER, BBC1, 23:35

I read Do androids dream of electric sheep, preferred it to blade runner.

Wasn't "androids..." made into Blade Runner?

Thanks for the tip (Impostor). Starts now, so I'm off...

TTFN

Kevin_rc_ie

yeah.

i said i liked the book and preferred it to the film. .................duh

simu

He's written a lot of cool stuff but Man in the High Castle is the best of his I've read.

Buck Owens

has anyone here read A Scanner Darkly? there a Film being made and the plot sounds interesting.

simu

Buck Owens wrote:

has anyone here read A Scanner Darkly? there a Film being made and the plot sounds interesting.

Yes, that's also quite good - recommended reading!

Pherekydes

Kevin_rc_ie wrote:

yeah.

i said i liked the book and preferred it to the film. .................duh

Here's your quote:

I read Do androids dream of electric sheep, preferred it to blade runner.

Apologies if I took you up wrong.

Earthhorse

His short stories are far superior to his novels in my opinion. There are five collections in total and they tend to get better as you go along.

Total Recall and Screamers (based on Second Variety) are the only films that do his work justice. The rest tend to ignore the philosophical musings that made his work unique.

Trojan

For anyone interested in Imposter see this review/analysis of the story & film versions (warning: entire plot is given away, including endings).

Earthhorse

Actually my original post should have excluded Imposter, as I haven't seen the film.

Short story is great. Really memorable.

Cheez

yea heard man in the high castles good and Ubik and The three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich but i've only read A scanner Darkly so far and the film seems like its gonna be good. Can't wait to get reading those books i've already mentioned. He died poor just before Blade Runner came out which would have made him a a bit. A heart atteck aged fifty-something. /end intresting facts

Johnny Storm

Philip K Dick is possibly the best science fiction writer ever, IMHO. Much of what he wrote transcended science fiction while at the same time spinning off as many excellent science fiction ideas per page as most ordinary SF writers come up with in a whole book.

If you are interested in PKD you should read his books. The films based on his work generally have little to do with what he wrote. Bladerunner is perhaps the closest IMHO. PKD did see the city scenes from Bladerunner before he died and was very pleased with them. Previous poster is correct that Hollywoodised versions of Phils work ignore the philosphical underpinnings of his work in favour of Arnie (LOL) and fight scenes (double-LOL). It'll be interesting to see how "A Scanner Darkly" turns out.

Laurence Sutin has written an excellent bio of PKD called "The divine invasion".

Man in the High Castle is his "best" written book (ie he rewrote it extensively and really crafted it) and is very good but lacks the whacky ideas of some of his others. (Cant believe I just said that !)

I would recommend (much the same as already mentioned by previous posters) in no particular order:

Man in the High Castle,
UBIK, (If I had to pick just one - possibly his best)
3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich,
A scanner darkly (very dark, semi-autobiographical, anti-drug)
Clans of the Alphane moon (not popular but IMHO his funniest)
Androids dream... ("Bladerunner")
Flow my tears, the police man said.
Martian Time Slip.

His early short stories were very enjoyable too.

If you consider science fiction to be the literature of ideas, I don't think you will be disappointed in any of PKDs books

dearg_doom

If ye like Dick*, you should read some of Isaac Asimov's work.

I think he had a cool take on the world.





* O_o matron!