on Philip K. Dick
Novels by, Short Stories by, Things Inspired by, Movies Based on the Works of, and so forth
PKD Inspired Thoughts
The Prolific and Regularly Misquoted PKD. My general take on what it means to start "getting into" PKD. I also talk about some of his general themes.
Animals and the Looming Apocalypse, A Brief Essay on How Non-Human Life Features in the Novels of Children of Men and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Can Man in the High Castle Be Updated? You know, if they made a movie about it or something... (17 Nov 2009). As a mental exercise, as much as anything, I discuss the parts of Man in the High Castle and how they might, or might not, be updated if a movie was made. Whom am I kidding? They would totally hose it.
In response to Niko's "The Impossibility of the Posthuman Event" (17 Dec 2009). My friend Niko pondered on the impossibility of the posthuman event. I'm not sure about the impossibility of the event itself, but I do discuss some barriers to us ever knowing it.
Runworld
This is my RPG world I am going to be working for my game Untold which uses what would be "Dickian" concepts in both characters and plot lines and themes. You can see more information on it, and the base system, as I get it out there on my RPG page.
My Favorite Dick
- Books
(Note, not a bad list for my "most recommended novels, either")
- A Scanner Darkly
- Ubik
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- Now Wait for Last Year
- Valis
- Martian Time Slip
- Clans of the Alphane Moon
- Galactic Pot Healer
- Short Stories
- "Minority Report"
- "Golden Man"
- "Auto-Fac"
- Movies
- Blade Runner
- Scanner Darkly
- Total Recall
- Minority Report
- Screamers
PKD Day
I propose that we start celebrating PKD day on December 16th through the watching of movies, being paranoid about stuff, telling microwaves that they can never truly human, and by being every day men who don't mind a good smoke, a good beer and overcoming problems of a most metaphysical nature.
Who's with me?
Much Better PKD Sites Than My Own
It would be a disservice of me not to direct you to http://www.philipkdick.com. There are all sorts of neat resources for you there.
I also need to point out Total Dick Head, a good blog for random PKD reference sightings (most of them sort of reference stereotypes assigned to Dick that aren't exactly cricket) and other Phil Dick related discussions.
And while I am on the subject, you can also get some good information while checking out the Wikipedia article on the writer's life and works.
A Dissenter's Opinion
Just to let you get a taste of those that do not like PKD, I have inluced a link to a piece by Dan Schneider on The Selected Short Stories of Philip K Dick. He doesn't like Dick, and he will tell you why.
Warning, though, despite talking about Dick's writings as a whole, he has apparently read very little. He only makes any reference to the one collection of short stories that I myself found lacking. He also really likes Kafka and is apparently mostly out to say that Dick is no Kafka(I have never heard enough people, anyone besides Dan Schneider really, say that Dick is like or better than Kafka to make me think that you have to write an ugly review about the issue).
Ok, I admit it. I mostly linked to his review because its near sightedness in trying to sum up the entirety of PKD's legacy through one mediocre collection of short stories. This is actually kind of par-for-the-course with a lot of conversations I have had about PKD with friends who have read about 30 or 40 pages of material and talk about "what he was really trying to say".
"The hidden is greater than the seen."
