Philip K. Dick android missing head in metro, by NikiSublime
Philip K. Dick. Greatest among the great. Biggest imagination ever, although he often drew upon his own life experiences and addressed the nature of drug abuse, paranoia and schizophrenia. Tormented writter often called "american Borges", obviously intended as a flattery. 44 published novels and 121 short stories, impossible to say which is the best: nevertheless those are the ones listed among Top 100 Sci-fi books in Sci-Fi Lists:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Filmed as Blade Runner, this PKD classic has lost none of its appeal over the years. Bounty hunter Rick Deckard tracks down renegade 'replicants' - almost-faultlessly lifelike androids created to fill the void left by the devastating World War. As usual, Dick keeps us guessing - and the hunter becomes the hunted. Must read novel. Let's see some covers:
The Man in the High Castle.
In 1962 the few surviving Jews live in fear and slavery is legal - all because America lost World War II. The story of The Man in the High Castle is about daily life under totalitarian Fascist imperialism. The victorious Axis Powers — Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany — are conducting intrigues against each other in North America, specifically in the former U.S., which surrendered to them once they had conquered Eurasia and destroyed the populaces of Africa.
Despite his visions and general craziness, Dick married five times, I don't know what that says exactly about him :-P
His first wife was Jeanette Marlin. During May 1948, Dick married her, divorcing six months later; he never saw her again. I haven't found any photo of her.
 |
| 3rd: April 1, 1959 - 1965 Anne Williams Rubinstein. Child Laura Archer born February 25, 1960 |
 |
| 4th: July 6, 1966 - 1972 Nancy Hackett. Child: Isa, born March 15,1967 |
 |
| 5th: April 18, 1973, to Leslie (Tessa) Busby – divorced 1977 child: Christopher Kenneth, born July 25, 1973 |
Curious facts of Dick's life:
Everything began in Chicago, on the 16th of December, 1928. Philip Kindred and Jane Kindred Dick cried and wept for the first time in their lives. Jane died after 41 days, because of the carelessness of their mother, Dorothy Grant Kindred (who didn't take her to the hospital at the proper time, a money matter). Since then, Phil had a unconscious culpability complex and we can understand perhaps a bit more why he felt anger toward his parents. Moreover, Jane would be found in many phildickian writings later on. Phil's dad, Joseph Edgar Dick, had a nice job indeed: cutting the throats of pigs as an employee of the government. His mother censored official texts of the government's spokesmen. Here again, what feelings went through the young Dick about his parents? Censorship is one of the
most important features in Philip K. Dick's writings: distinguishing truth from falsehood, the real from the imagined.
To learn more: you can find a fascinating interview with Tessa, Chris and Ranea Dick here
To be continued (because he wrote all this wonderful novels):
 | Solar Lottery 1955 |
 | The World Jones Made 1956 |
 | The Man Who Japed 1956 |
 | Eye in the Sky 1957 |
 | The Cosmic Puppets 1957 |
 | Time Out of Joint 1959 |
 | Dr. Futurity 1960 |
 | Vulcan's Hammer 1960 |
 | The Man in the High Castle 1962 1963 Hugo Award Winner for Best Science Fiction Novel |
 | The Game-Players of Titan 1963 |
 | The Penultimate Truth 1964 |
 | Martian Time-Slip 1964 |
 | The Simulacra 1964 |
 | Clans of the Alphane Moon 1964 |
 | The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch 1965 |
 | Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along after the Bomb 1965 |
 | Now Wait for Last Year 1966 |
 | The Crack in Space 1966 |
 | The Unteleported Man 1966 |
 | The Zap Gun 1967 |
 | Counter-Clock World 1967 |
 | The Ganymede Takeover (with Ray Nelson) 1967 |
 | Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1968 Adapted for the motion picture, "Blade Runner." |
 | Galactic Pot-Healer 1969 |
 | Ubik 1969 |
 | A Maze of Death 1970 |
 | Our Friends from Frolix 8 1970 |
 | We Can Build You 1972 |
 | Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said 1974 1974 John W Campbell Memorial Award Winner |
 | Confessions of a Crap Artist 1975 |
 | Deus Irae (with Roger Zelazny) 1976 |
 | A Scanner Darkly 1977 |
 | VALIS 1981 |
 | The Divine Invasion 1981 |
 | The Transmigration of Timothy Archer 1982 |
 | The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike 1984 |
 | Radio Free Albemuth 1985 |
 | Puttering About in a Small Land 1985 |
 | In Milton Lumky Territory 1985 |
 | Humpty Dumpty in Oakland 1986 |
 | Mary and the Giant 1987 |
 | The Broken Bubble 1988 |
 | Nick and the Glimmung (a children's novel) 1988 |
 | Gather Yourselves Together Written in 1950 (Published in 1994) |
 | Lies, Inc. 1964 (Published 2004) |
 | Voices From the Street Written 1953 (Published 2007) |
Mad as a hatter, and that's why I've never been able to stand Valis, for instance although I'm a great fan of Martian Time-slip notwithstanding the big slice of schizophrenia in it.
ReplyDeleteHey, people, I'm back in town! And I find u writting about my favourite sci-fi novelist ever. What can I say when everything has been said before and much better: original and thought provoking, innovative, provocative. Ok, he was king of crazy but, believe me, crazy people are not funny as a rule and he actually was amusing. Too amphetamines to relieve asthma since to young, perhaps, drove him paranoic and unsteady, and I do not think psychiatric treatments available at the time were soft.
ReplyDeleteKisses, Ron. Besos chica :)