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= Philip_K._Dick =
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Introduction
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Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 - March 2, 1982) was an
American science fiction writer and novelist. He wrote 44 novels and
about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction
magazines during his lifetime. His fiction explored varied
philosophical and social questions such as the nature of reality,
perception, human nature, and identity, and commonly featured
characters struggling against elements such as alternate realities,
illusory environments, monopolistic corporations, drug abuse,
authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness. He is
considered one of the most important figures in 20th-century science
fiction.
Born in Chicago, Dick moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his
family at a young age. He began publishing science fiction stories in
1952, at age 23. He found little commercial success until his
alternative history novel 'The Man in the High Castle' (1962) earned
him acclaim, including a Hugo Award for Best Novel, when he was 33. He
followed with science fiction novels such as 'Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep?' (1968) and 'Ubik' (1969). His 1974 novel 'Flow My
Tears, the Policeman Said' won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for
Best Science Fiction Novel.
Following years of drug abuse and a series of mystical experiences in
1974, Dick's work engaged more explicitly with issues of theology,
metaphysics, and the nature of reality, as in novels 'A Scanner
Darkly' (1977), 'VALIS' (1981), and 'The Transmigration of Timothy
Archer' (1982). A collection of his speculative nonfiction writing on
these themes was published posthumously as 'The Exegesis of Philip K.
Dick' (2011). He died in 1982 in Santa Ana, California, at the age of
53, due to complications from a stroke. Following his death, he became
"widely regarded as a master of imaginative, paranoid fiction in the
vein of Franz Kafka and Thomas Pynchon".
Dick's posthumous influence has been widespread, extending beyond
literary circles into Hollywood filmmaking. Popular films based on his
works include 'Blade Runner' (1982), 'Total Recall' (adapted twice: in
1990 and in 2012), 'Screamers' (1995), 'Minority Report' (2002), 'A
Scanner Darkly' (2006), 'The Adjustment Bureau' (2011), and 'Radio
Free Albemuth' (2010). Beginning in 2015, Amazon Prime Video produced
the multi-season television adaptation 'The Man in the High Castle',
based on Dick's 1962 novel; and in 2017 Channel 4 produced the
anthology series 'Electric Dreams', based on various Dick stories.
In 2005, 'Time' named 'Ubik' (1969) one of the hundred greatest
English-language novels published since 1923. In 2007, Dick became the
first science fiction writer included in The Library of America
series.
Early life
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Dick and his twin sister, Jane Charlotte Dick, were born six weeks
prematurely on December 16, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, to Dorothy
(née Kindred; 1900-1978) and Joseph Edgar Dick (1899-1985), who worked
for the United States Department of Agriculture. His paternal
grandparents were Irish. Jane's death on January 26, 1929, six weeks
after their birth, profoundly affected Philip's life, leading to the
recurrent motif of the "phantom twin" in his books.
Dick's family later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. When he was
five, his father was transferred to Reno, Nevada, and when Dorothy
refused to move, she and Joseph divorced. Both fought for custody of
Philip, who was awarded to Dorothy. Determined to raise Philip alone,
she took a job in Washington, D.C., and moved there with her son.
Philip was enrolled at John Eaton Elementary School (1936-1938),
completing the second through fourth grades. His lowest grade was a
"C" in Written Composition, although a teacher said he "shows interest
and ability in story telling". He was educated in Quaker schools. In
June 1938, Dorothy and Philip returned to California, and it was
around this time that he became interested in science fiction. Dick
stated that he read his first science fiction magazine, 'Stirring
Science Stories,' in 1940.
Dick attended Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California. He and
fellow science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin were members of the
class of 1947 but did not know each other at the time. He claimed to
have hosted a classical music program on KSMO Radio in 1947. From 1948
to 1952, he worked at Art Music Company, a record store on Telegraph
Avenue.
He attended the University of California, Berkeley from September 1949
to November 11, 1949, ultimately receiving an honorable dismissal
dated January 1, 1950. He did not declare a major and took classes in
history, psychology, philosophy, and zoology. Dick dropped out because
of ongoing anxiety problems, according to his third wife Anne's
memoir. She also says he disliked the mandatory ROTC training. At
Berkeley, he befriended poet Robert Duncan and poet and linguist Jack
Spicer, who gave Dick ideas for a Martian language.
Through his studies in philosophy, he believed that existence is based
on internal human perception, which does not necessarily correspond to
external reality. He described himself as "an acosmic panentheist",
which he explained as meaning that "I don't believe that the universe
exists. I believe that the only thing that exists is God and he is
more than the universe. The universe is an extension of God into space
and time. That's the premise I start from in my work, that so-called
'reality' is a mass delusion that we've all been required to believe
for reasons totally obscure". After reading the works of Plato and
pondering the possibilities of metaphysical realms, he came to the
conclusion that, in a certain sense, the world is not entirely real
and there is no way to confirm whether it is truly there. That
question was a theme in many of his novels.
Early writing
===============
Dick sold his first story, "Roog"--about "a dog who imagined that the
garbagemen who came every Friday morning were stealing valuable food
which the family had carefully stored away in a safe metal
container"--in 1951, when he was 22. From then on he wrote full-time.
During 1952, his first speculative fiction publications appeared in
July and September numbers of 'Planet Stories', edited by Jack
O'Sullivan, and in 'If' and 'The Magazine of Fantasy and Science
Fiction' that year. His debut novel, 'Solar Lottery', was published in
1955 as half of Ace Double #D-103 alongside 'The Big Jump' by Leigh
Brackett. The 1950s were a difficult and impoverished time for Dick,
who once lamented, "We couldn't even pay the late fees on a library
book." He published almost exclusively within the science fiction
genre but dreamed of a career in mainstream fiction. During the 1950s,
he produced a series of non-genre, relatively conventional novels.
In 1960, Dick wrote that he was willing to "take twenty to thirty
years to succeed as a literary writer". The dream of mainstream
success formally died in January 1963 when the Scott Meredith Literary
Agency returned all of his unsold mainstream novels. Only one of them,
'Confessions of a Crap Artist', was published during Dick's lifetime,
in 1975 by Paul Williams' Entwhistle Books.
In 1963 Dick won the Hugo Award for 'The Man in the High Castle'.
Although he was hailed as a genius in the science fiction world, the
mainstream literary world was unappreciative, and he could publish
books only through low-paying science fiction publishers such as Ace.
He said in a 1977 interview that were it not for interest by a French
publishing company in the mid-1960s, which decided to publish all of
his catalog to date, he would not have been able to continue as a
writer. But even in his later years, he continued to have financial
troubles. In the introduction to the 1980 short story collection, 'The
Golden Man', he wrote:
Flight to Canada, mental health and suicide attempt
=====================================================
In 1971, Dick's marriage to Nancy Hackett broke down, and she moved
out of their house in Santa Venetia, California. He had abused
amphetamine for much of the previous decade, stemming in part from his
need to maintain a prolific writing regimen due to the financial
exigencies of the science fiction field. He allowed other drug users
to move into the house. Following the release of 21 novels between
1960 and 1970, these developments were exacerbated by unprecedented
periods of writer's block, with Dick ultimately failing to publish new
fiction until 1974.
One day, in November 1971, Dick returned to his home to discover it
had been burglarized, with his safe blown open and personal papers
missing. The police could not determine the culprit, and even
suspected Dick of having done it himself. Shortly thereafter, he was
invited to be guest of honor at the Vancouver Science Fiction
Convention in February 1972. Within a day of arriving at the
conference and giving his speech, 'The Android and the Human', he
informed people that he had fallen in love with a woman named Janis
whom he had met there and announced that he would be remaining in
Vancouver. A conference attendee, Michael Walsh, movie critic for the
local newspaper 'The Province', invited Dick to stay in his home, but
asked him to leave two weeks later due to his erratic behavior. Janis
then ended their relationship and moved away. On March 23, 1972, Dick
attempted suicide by taking an overdose of the sedative potassium
bromide. Subsequently, after deciding to seek help, Dick became a
participant in X-Kalay (a Canadian Synanon-type recovery program), and
was well enough by April to return to California. In October 1972,
Dick wrote a letter to the FBI about science fiction writer Thomas
Disch. Dick said he had been approached by a covert Anti-American
organization which attempted to recruit him. Dick said he recognized
their ideology in a book Disch wrote.
On relocating to Orange County, California at the behest of California
State University, Fullerton professor Willis McNelly (who initiated a
correspondence with Dick during his X-Kalay stint), he donated
manuscripts, papers and other materials to the university's Special
Collections Library, where they are in the Philip K. Dick Science
Fiction Collection in the Pollak Library. During this period, Dick
befriended a circle of Fullerton State students that included several
aspiring science fiction writers, including K. W. Jeter, James
Blaylock and Tim Powers. Jeter would later continue Dick's Bladerunner
series with three sequels.
Dick returned to the events of these months while writing his novel 'A
Scanner Darkly' (1977), which contains fictionalized depictions of the
burglary of his home, his time using amphetamines and living with
addicts, and his experiences of X-Kalay (portrayed in the novel as
"New-Path"). A factual account of his recovery program participation
was portrayed in his posthumously released book 'The Dark Haired
Girl', a collection of letters and journals from the period.
Paranormal experiences
========================
On February 20, 1974, while recovering from the effects of sodium
pentothal administered for the extraction of an impacted wisdom tooth,
Dick received a home delivery of Darvon from a young woman. When he
opened the door, he was struck by the dark-haired girl's beauty, and
was especially drawn to her golden necklace. He asked her about its
curious fish-shaped design. As she was leaving, she replied: "This is
a sign used by the early Christians." Dick called the symbol the
"vesicle pisces". This name seems to have been based on his conflation
of two related symbols, the Christian ichthys symbol (two intersecting
arcs delineating a fish in profile), which the woman was wearing, and
the vesica piscis.
Dick recounted that as the sun glinted off the gold pendant, the
reflection caused the generation of a "pink beam" of light that
mesmerized him. He came to believe the beam imparted wisdom and
clairvoyance, and also believed it to be intelligent. On one occasion,
he was startled by a separate recurrence of the pink beam, which
imparted the information that his infant son was ill. The Dicks rushed
the child to the hospital, where the illness was confirmed by
professional diagnosis.
After the woman's departure, Dick began experiencing strange
hallucinations. Although initially attributing them to side effects
from medication, he considered this explanation implausible after
weeks of continued hallucination. He told Charles Platt: "I
experienced an invasion of my mind by a transcendentally rational
mind, as if I had been insane all my life and suddenly I had become
sane."
Throughout February and March 1974, Dick experienced a series of
hallucinations which he referred to as "2-3-74", shorthand for
February-March 1974. Aside from the "pink beam", he described the
initial hallucinations as geometric patterns, and, occasionally, brief
pictures of Jesus and ancient Rome. As the hallucinations increased in
duration and frequency, Dick claimed he began to live two parallel
lives--one as himself, "Philip K. Dick", and one as "Thomas", a
Christian persecuted by Romans in the first century AD. He referred to
the "transcendentally rational mind" as "Zebra", "God" and "VALIS" (an
acronym for 'Vast Active Living Intelligence System'). He wrote about
the experiences, first in the semi-autobiographical novel 'Radio Free
Albemuth', then in 'VALIS', 'The Divine Invasion', 'The Transmigration
of Timothy Archer' and the unfinished 'The Owl in Daylight' (the VALIS
trilogy).
In 1974, Dick wrote a letter to the FBI, accusing various people,
including University of California, San Diego professor Fredric
Jameson, of being foreign agents of Warsaw Pact powers. He also wrote
that Stanisław Lem was probably a false name used by a composite
committee operating on orders of the Communist party to gain control
over public opinion.
At one point, Dick felt he had been taken over by the spirit of the
prophet Elijah. He believed that an episode in his novel 'Flow My
Tears, the Policeman Said' was a detailed retelling of a biblical
story from the Book of Acts, which he had never read. He documented
and discussed his experiences and faith in a private journal he called
his "exegesis", portions of which were later published as 'The
Exegesis of Philip K. Dick'. The last novel he wrote was 'The
Transmigration of Timothy Archer'; it was published shortly after his
death in 1982.
Personal life
======================================================================
Dick was married five times:
* Jeanette Marlin (May to November 1948)
* Kleo Apostolides (June 14, 1950, to 1959)
* Anne Williams Rubinstein (April 1, 1959, to October 1965)
* Nancy Hackett (July 6, 1966, to 1972)
* Leslie "Tessa" Busby (April 18, 1973, to 1977)
Dick had three children, Laura Archer Dick (born February 25, 1960, to
Dick and his third wife, Anne Williams Rubenstein), Isolde Freya Dick
(now Isa Dick Hackett) (born March 15, 1967, to Dick and his fourth
wife, Nancy Hackett), and Christopher Kenneth Dick (born July 25,
1973, to Dick and his fifth wife, Leslie "Tessa" Busby).
In 1955, Dick and his second wife, Kleo Apostolides, received a visit
from the FBI, which they believed to be the result of Kleo's socialist
views and left-wing activities.
He physically fought with Anne Williams Rubinstein, his third wife.
Dick wrote to a friend that he and Anne had "dreadful violent
fights...slamming each other around, smashing every object in the
house." In 1963, Dick told his neighbors that his wife was attempting
to kill him and had her involuntarily committed to a psychiatric
institution for two weeks. After filing for divorce in 1964, Dick
moved to Oakland to live with a fan, author and editor Grania Davis.
Shortly after, he attempted suicide by driving off the road while she
was a passenger.
Politics
==========
Early in life, Dick attended Communist Party USA meetings but later
shifted more towards anti-communism and libertarianism as time passed.
In an interview, Dick once described himself as a "religious
anarchist". Dick generally tried to stay out of the political scene
because of high societal turmoil from the Vietnam War. Still, he
showed some anti-Vietnam War and anti-governmental sentiments. In
1968, he joined the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest", an anti-war
pledge to pay no U.S. federal income tax, which resulted in the
confiscation of his car by the IRS.
Dick was a critic of the U.S. federal government, regarding it to be
just as "bad as the Soviet Union", and cheered on "a great
decentralization of the government". Dick's politics occasionally
influenced his literature. Dick's 1967 short story "Faith of Our
Fathers" is critical of communism. Dick's 1968 novel 'Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep?' condemns the eugenics movement. In 1974, as
a response to the 'Roe v. Wade' decision, Dick published "The
Pre-persons", a satirical anti-abortion and anti-Malthusianism short
story. Following the story's publication, Dick stated that he received
death threats from feminists.
Death
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On February 17, 1982, after completing an interview, Dick contacted
his therapist, complaining of failing eyesight, and was advised to go
to a hospital immediately, but did not. The following day, he was
found unconscious on the floor of his Santa Ana, California, home,
having suffered a stroke. On February 25, 1982, Dick suffered another
stroke in the hospital, which led to brain death. Five days later, on
March 2, 1982, he was disconnected from life support.
After his death, Dick's father, Joseph, took his son's ashes to
Riverside Cemetery in Fort Morgan, Colorado (section K, block 1, lot
56), where they were buried next to his twin sister Jane, who died in
infancy. Her tombstone had been inscribed with both of their names at
the time of her death, 53 years earlier. Philip died four months
before the release of 'Blade Runner', the film based on his novel 'Do
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'
Themes
========
Dick's stories typically focus on the fragile nature of what is real
and the construction of personal identity. His stories often become
surreal fantasies, as the main characters slowly discover that their
everyday world is actually an illusion assembled by powerful external
entities, such as the suspended animation in 'Ubik', vast political
conspiracies or the vicissitudes of an unreliable narrator. "All of
his work starts with the basic assumption that there cannot be one,
single, objective reality", writes science fiction author Charles
Platt. "Everything is a matter of perception. The ground is liable to
shift under your feet. A protagonist may find himself living out
another person's dream, or he may enter a drug-induced state that
actually makes better sense than the real world, or he may cross into
a different universe completely."
Alternate universes and simulacra are common plot devices, with
fictional worlds inhabited by common, working people, rather than
galactic elites. "There are no heroes in Dick's books", Ursula K. Le
Guin wrote, "but there are heroics. One is reminded of Dickens: what
counts is the honesty, constancy, kindness and patience of ordinary
people." Dick made no secret that much of his thinking and work was
heavily influenced by the writings of Carl Jung. The Jungian
constructs and models that most concerned Dick seem to be the
archetypes of the collective unconscious, group
projection/hallucination, synchronicities, and personality theory.
Many of Dick's protagonists overtly analyze reality and their
perceptions in Jungian terms (see 'Lies, Inc.').
Dick identified one major theme of his work as the question, "What
constitutes the authentic human being?" In works such as 'Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep?', beings can appear totally human in every
respect while lacking soul or compassion, while completely alien
beings such as Glimmung in 'Galactic Pot-Healer' may be more humane
and complex than their human peers. Understood correctly, said Dick,
the term "human being" applies "not to origin or to any ontology but
to a way of being in the world." This authentic way of being manifests
itself in compassion that recognizes the oneness of all life. "In
Dick's vision, the moral imperative calls on us to care for all
sentient beings, human or nonhuman, natural or artificial, regardless
of their place in the order of things. And Dick makes clear that this
imperative is grounded in empathy, not reason, whatever subsequent
role reason may play." The figure of the android depicts those who are
deficient in empathy, who are alienated from others and are becoming
more mechanical (emotionless) in their behaviour. "In general, then,
it can be said that for Dick robots represent machines that are
becoming more like humans, while androids represent humans that are
becoming more like machines."
Mental illness was a constant interest of Dick's, and themes of mental
illness permeate his work. The character Jack Bohlen in the 1964 novel
'Martian Time-Slip' is an "ex-schizophrenic". The novel 'Clans of the
Alphane Moon' centers on an entire society made up of descendants of
lunatic asylum inmates. In 1965, he wrote the essay titled
"Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes".
Drug use (including religious, recreational, and abuse) was also a
theme in many of Dick's works, such as 'A Scanner Darkly' and 'The
Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch'. Dick himself was a drug user for
much of his life. According to a 1975 interview in 'Rolling Stone',
Dick wrote all of his books published before 1970 while on
amphetamines. "'A Scanner Darkly' (1977) was the first complete novel
I had written without speed", said Dick in the interview. He also
experimented briefly with psychedelics, but wrote 'The Three Stigmata
of Palmer Eldritch' (1965), which 'Rolling Stone' dubs "the classic
LSD novel of all time", before he had ever tried them. Despite his
heavy amphetamine use, however, Dick later said that doctors told him
the amphetamines never actually affected him, that his liver had
processed them before they reached his brain.
Summing up all these themes in 'Understanding Philip K. Dick', Eric
Carl Link discussed eight themes or "ideas and motifs": Epistemology
and the Nature of Reality, Know Thyself, The Android and the Human,
Entropy and Pot Healing, The Theodicy Problem, Warfare and Power
Politics, The Evolved Human, and "Technology, Media, Drugs and
Madness".
Pen names
===========
Dick had two professional stories published under the pen names
Richard Phillipps and Jack Dowland. "Some Kinds of Life" was published
in October 1953 in 'Fantastic Universe' under byline Richard
Phillipps, apparently because the magazine had a policy against
publishing multiple stories by the same author in the same issue;
"Planet for Transients" was published in the same issue under his own
name.
The short story "Orpheus with Clay Feet" was published under the pen
name Jack Dowland. The protagonist desires to be the muse for
fictional author Jack Dowland, considered the greatest science fiction
author of the 20th century. In the story, Dowland publishes a short
story titled "Orpheus with Clay Feet" under the pen name Philip K.
Dick.
The surname Dowland refers to Renaissance composer John Dowland, who
is featured in several works. The title 'Flow My Tears, the Policeman
Said' directly refers to Dowland's best-known composition, "Flow, my
tears". In the novel 'The Divine Invasion', the character Linda Fox,
created specifically with Linda Ronstadt in mind, is an
intergalactically famous singer whose entire body of work consists of
recordings of John Dowland compositions.
Selected works
================
'The Man in the High Castle' (1962) is set in an alternative history
in which the United States is ruled by the victorious Axis powers. It
is the only Dick novel to win a Hugo Award. In 2015 this was adapted
into a television series by Amazon Studios.
'The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch' (1965) utilizes an array of
science fiction concepts and features several layers of reality and
unreality. It is also one of Dick's first works to explore religious
themes. The novel takes place in the 21st century, when, under UN
authority, mankind has colonized the Solar System's every habitable
planet and moon. Life is physically daunting and psychologically
monotonous for most colonists, so the UN must draft people to go to
the colonies. Most entertain themselves using "Perky Pat" dolls and
accessories manufactured by Earth-based "P.P. Layouts". The company
also secretly creates "Can-D", an illegal but widely available
hallucinogenic drug allowing the user to "translate" into Perky Pat
(if the drug user is a woman) or Pat's boyfriend, Walt (if the drug
user is a man). This recreational use of Can-D allows colonists to
experience a few minutes of an idealized life on Earth by
participating in a collective hallucination.
'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' (1968) is the story of a bounty
hunter policing the local android population. It occurs on a dying,
poisoned Earth de-populated of almost all animals and all "successful"
humans; the only remaining inhabitants of the planet are people with
no prospects off-world. The 1968 novel is the literary source of the
film 'Blade Runner' (1982). It is both a conflation and an
intensification of the pivotally Dickian question: "What is real, what
is fake? What crucial factor defines humanity as distinctly 'alive',
versus those merely alive only in their outward appearance?"
'Ubik' (1969) employs extensive psychic telepathy and a suspended
state after death in creating a state of eroding reality. A group of
psychics is sent to investigate a rival organisation, but several of
them are apparently killed by a saboteur's bomb. Much of the following
novel flicks between different equally plausible realities and the
"real" reality, a state of half-life and psychically manipulated
realities. In 2005, 'Time' magazine listed it among the "All-TIME 100
Greatest Novels" published since 1923.
'Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said' (1974) concerns Jason Taverner, a
television star living in a dystopian near-future police state. After
being attacked by an angry ex-girlfriend, Taverner awakens in a dingy
Los Angeles hotel room. He still has his money in his wallet, but his
identification cards are missing. This is no minor inconvenience, as
security checkpoints (staffed by "pols" and "nats", the police and
National Guard) are set up throughout the city to stop and arrest
anyone without valid ID. Jason at first thinks that he was robbed, but
soon discovers that his entire identity has been erased. There is no
record of him in any official database, and even his closest
associates do not recognize or remember him. For the first time in
many years, Jason has no fame or reputation to rely on. He has only
his innate charm and social graces to help him as he tries to find out
what happened to his past while avoiding the attention of the pols.
The novel was Dick's first published novel after years of silence,
during which time his critical reputation had grown, and this novel
was awarded the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science
Fiction Novel. It is the only Philip K. Dick novel nominated for both
a Hugo and a Nebula Award.
In an essay written two years before his death, Dick described how he
learned from his Episcopal priest that an important scene in 'Flow My
Tears, the Policeman Said' - involving its other main character, the
eponymous Police General Felix Buckman, was very similar to a scene in
'Acts of the Apostles', a book of the New Testament. Film director
Richard Linklater discusses this novel in his film 'Waking Life',
which begins with a scene reminiscent of another Dick novel, 'Time Out
of Joint'.
'A Scanner Darkly' (1977) is a bleak mixture of science fiction and
police procedural novels; in its story, an undercover narcotics police
detective begins to lose touch with reality after falling victim to
Substance D, the same permanently mind-altering drug he was enlisted
to help fight. Substance D is instantly addictive, beginning with a
pleasant euphoria which is quickly replaced with increasing confusion,
hallucinations and eventually total psychosis. In this novel, as with
all Dick novels, there is an underlying thread of paranoia and
dissociation with multiple realities perceived simultaneously. It was
adapted to film by Richard Linklater.
'The Philip K. Dick Reader' is an introduction to the variety of
Dick's short fiction.
'VALIS' (1980) is perhaps Dick's most postmodern and autobiographical
novel, examining his own unexplained experiences. It may also be his
most academically studied work, and was adapted as an opera by Tod
Machover. Later works like the VALIS trilogy were heavily
autobiographical, many with "two-three-seventy-four" (2-3-74)
references and influences. The word VALIS is the acronym for 'Vast
Active Living Intelligence System'. Later, Dick theorized that VALIS
was both a "reality generator" and a means of extraterrestrial
communication. A fourth VALIS manuscript, 'Radio Free Albemuth',
although composed in 1976, was posthumously published in 1985. This
work is described by the publisher (Arbor House) as "an introduction
and key to his magnificent VALIS trilogy".
Regardless of the feeling that he was somehow experiencing a divine
communication, Dick was never fully able to rationalize the events.
For the rest of his life, he struggled to comprehend what was
occurring, questioning his own sanity and perception of reality. He
transcribed what thoughts he could into an eight-thousand-page,
one-million-word journal dubbed the 'Exegesis'. From 1974 until his
death in 1982, Dick spent many nights writing in this journal. A
recurring theme in 'Exegesis' is Dick's hypothesis that history had
been stopped in the first century AD, and that "the Empire never
ended". He saw Rome as the pinnacle of materialism and despotism,
which, after forcing the Gnostics underground, had kept the population
of Earth enslaved to worldly possessions. Dick believed that VALIS had
communicated with him, and anonymously others, to induce the
impeachment of U.S. President Richard Nixon, whom Dick believed to be
the current Emperor of Rome incarnate.
In a 1968 essay titled "Self Portrait", collected in the 1995 book
'The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick', Dick reflects on his work
and lists which books he feels "might escape World War Three": 'Eye in
the Sky', 'The Man in the High Castle', 'Martian Time-Slip', 'Dr.
Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb', 'The Zap Gun', 'The
Penultimate Truth', 'The Simulacra', 'The Three Stigmata of Palmer
Eldritch' (which he refers to as "the most vital of them all"), 'Do
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?', and 'Ubik'. In a 1976 interview,
Dick cited 'A Scanner Darkly' as his best work, feeling that he "had
finally written a true masterpiece, after 25 years of writing".
Films
=======
Several of Dick's stories have been made into films. Dick himself
wrote a screenplay for an intended film adaptation of 'Ubik' in 1974,
but the film was never made. Many film adaptations have not used
Dick's original titles. When asked why this was, Dick's ex-wife Tessa
said, "Actually, the books rarely carry Phil's original titles, as the
editors usually wrote new titles after reading his manuscripts. Phil
often commented that he couldn't write good titles. If he could, he
would have been an advertising writer instead of a novelist." Films
based on Dick's writing had accumulated a total revenue of over US$1
billion by 2009.
*'Blade Runner' (1982), based on Dick's 1968 novel 'Do Androids Dream
of Electric Sheep?', directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison
Ford, Sean Young and Rutger Hauer. A screenplay had been in the works
for years before Scott took the helm, with Dick being extremely
critical of all versions. Dick was still apprehensive about how his
story would be adapted for the film when the project was finally put
into motion. Among other things, he refused to do a novelization of
the film. But when Dick was given an opportunity to watch a few
sequences portraying the film's imagined Los Angeles of 2019, he was
amazed that the environment was "exactly as how I'd imagined
it!"--even though Ridley Scott has mentioned he had never even read
the source material. Following the screening, Dick and Scott had a
frank but cordial discussion of 'Blade Runner's' themes and
characters, and although they had wildly differing views, Dick fully
backed the film from then on, stating that his "life and creative work
are justified and completed by 'Blade Runner'". Dick died from a
stroke less than four months before the release of the film.
*'Total Recall' (1990), based on the short story "We Can Remember It
for You Wholesale", directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
* 'Confessions d'un Barjo' (1992), titled 'Barjo' in its
English-language release, a French film based on the
non-science-fiction novel 'Confessions of a Crap Artist'.
* 'Screamers' (1995), based on the short story "Second Variety",
directed by Christian Duguay and starring Peter Weller. The location
was altered from a war-devastated Earth to a distant planet. A sequel,
titled 'Screamers: The Hunting', was released straight to DVD in 2009.
* 'Minority Report' (2002), based on the short story "The Minority
Report", directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise.
* 'Impostor' (2002), based on the 1953 story "Impostor", directed by
Gary Fleder and starring Gary Sinise, Vincent D'Onofrio and Madeleine
Stowe. The story was also adapted in 1962 for the British television
anthology series 'Out of This World'.
* 'Paycheck' (2003), directed by John Woo and starring Ben Affleck,
based on Dick's short story of the same name.
* 'A Scanner Darkly' (2006), directed by Richard Linklater and
starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and Robert Downey Jr., based on
Dick's novel of the same name. The film was produced using the process
of rotoscoping: it was first shot in live-action and then the live
footage was animated over.
* 'Next' (2007), directed by Lee Tamahori and starring Nicolas Cage,
loosely based on the short story "The Golden Man".
* 'Radio Free Albemuth' (2010), directed by John Alan Simon loosely
based on the novel 'Radio Free Albemuth'.
* 'The Adjustment Bureau' (2011), directed by George Nolfi and
starring Matt Damon, loosely based on the short story "Adjustment
Team".
* 'Total Recall' (2012), directed by Len Wiseman and starring Colin
Farrell, second film adaptation of the short story "We Can Remember It
for You Wholesale".
Future films based on Dick's writing include a film adaptation of
'Ubik' which, according to Dick's daughter, Isa Dick Hackett, is in
advanced negotiation. Ubik was set to be made into a film by Michel
Gondry. In 2014, however, Gondry told French outlet Telerama (via Jeux
Actu), that he was no longer working on the project. In November 2021,
it was announced that Francis Lawrence will direct a film adaptation
of 'Vulcan's Hammer', with Lawrence's about:blank production company,
alongside New Republic Pictures and Electric Shepherd Productions,
producing.
An animated adaptation of 'The King of the Elves' from Walt Disney
Animation Studios was in production and was set to be released in the
spring of 2016 but it was cancelled following multiple creative
problems.
The 'Terminator' series prominently features the theme of humanoid
assassination machines first portrayed in 'Second Variety'. The
Halcyon Company, known for developing the 'Terminator' franchise,
acquired right of first refusal to film adaptations of the works of
Philip K. Dick in 2007. In May 2009, they announced plans for an
adaptation of 'Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said'.
Television
============
It was reported in 2010 that Ridley Scott would produce an adaptation
of 'The Man in the High Castle' for the BBC, in the form of a
miniseries. A pilot episode was released on Amazon Prime Video in
January 2015 and season 1 was fully released in ten episodes of about
60 minutes each on November 20, 2015. Premiering in January 2015, the
pilot was Amazon's "most-watched since the original series development
program began." The next month Amazon ordered episodes to fill out a
ten-episode season, which was released in November, to positive
reviews. A second season of ten episodes premiered in December 2016,
and a third season was released on October 5, 2018. The fourth and
final season premiered on November 15, 2019.
In late 2015, Fox aired 'Minority Report', a television series sequel
adaptation to the 2002 film of the same name based on Dick's short
story "The Minority Report" (1956). The show was cancelled after one
10-episode season.
In May 2016, it was announced that a 10-part anthology series was in
the works. Titled 'Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams', the series was
distributed by Sony Pictures Television and premiered on Channel 4 in
the United Kingdom and Amazon Prime Video in the United States. It was
written by executive producers Ronald D. Moore and Michael Dinner,
with executive input from Dick's daughter Isa Dick Hackett, and stars
Bryan Cranston, also an executive producer.
Stage and radio
=================
Four of Dick's works have been adapted for the stage.
One was the opera 'VALIS', composed and with libretto by Tod Machover,
which premiered at the Pompidou Center in Paris on December 1, 1987,
with a French libretto. It was subsequently revised and readapted into
English, and was recorded and released on CD (Bridge Records BCD9007)
in 1988.
Another was 'Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said', adapted by Linda
Hartinian and produced by the New York-based avant-garde company Mabou
Mines. It premiered in Boston at the Boston Shakespeare Theatre (June
18-30, 1985) and was subsequently staged in New York and Chicago.
Productions of 'Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said' were also staged by
the Evidence Room in Los Angeles in 1999 and by the Fifth Column
Theatre Company at the Oval House Theatre in London in the same year.
A play based on 'Radio Free Albemuth' also had a brief run in the
1980s.
In November 2010, a production of 'Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep?', adapted by Edward Einhorn, premiered at the 3LD Art and
Technology Center in Manhattan.
A radio drama adaptation of Dick's short story "Mr. Spaceship" was
aired by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yleisradio) in 1996 under
the name 'Menolippu Paratiisiin'. Radio dramatizations of Dick's short
stories 'Colony' and 'The Defenders' were aired by NBC in 1956 as part
of the series 'X Minus One'.
In January 2006, a theatre adaptation of 'The Three Stigmata of Palmer
Eldritch' (English for ) premiered in Stary Teatr in Kraków, with an
extensive use of lights and laser choreography.
In June 2014, the BBC broadcast a two-part adaptation of 'Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep?' on BBC Radio 4, starring James Purefoy as
Rick Deckard.
Comics
========
Marvel Comics adapted Dick's short story "The Electric Ant" as a
limited series which was released in 2009. The comic was produced by
writer David Mack ('Daredevil') and artist Pascal Alixe ('Ultimate
X-Men'), with covers provided by artist Paul Pope. "The Electric Ant"
had earlier been loosely adapted by Frank Miller and Geof Darrow in
their 3-issue mini-series 'Hard Boiled' published by Dark Horse Comics
in 1990-1992.
In 2009, BOOM! Studios started publishing a 24-issue miniseries comic
book adaptation of 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' 'Blade
Runner', the 1982 film adapted from 'Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep?', had previously been adapted to comics as 'A Marvel Comics
Super Special: Blade Runner'.
In 2011, Dynamite Entertainment published a four-issue miniseries
'Total Recall', a sequel to the 1990 film 'Total Recall', inspired by
Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale".
In 1990, DC Comics published the official adaptation of the original
film as a 'DC Movie Special: Total Recall'.
Alternative formats
=====================
In response to a 1975 request from the National Library for the Blind
for permission to make use of 'The Man in the High Castle', Dick
responded, "I also grant you a general permission to transcribe any of
my former, present or future work, so indeed you can add my name to
your 'general permission' list." Some of his books and stories are
available in braille and other specialized formats through the NLS.
As of December 2012, thirteen of Philip K. Dick's early works in the
public domain in the United States are available in ebook form from
Project Gutenberg. As of December 2019, Wikisource has three of Philip
K. Dick's early works in the public domain in the United States
available in ebook form which is not from Project Gutenberg.
Influence and legacy
======================================================================
Lawrence Sutin wrote a 1989 biography of Dick, titled 'Divine
Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick'.
In 1993, French writer Emmanuel Carrère published 'I Am Alive and You
Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick' (), which the
author describes in his preface in this way: The book you hold in your
hands is a very peculiar book. I have tried to depict the life of
Philip K. Dick from the inside, in other words, with the same freedom
and empathy - indeed with the same truth - with which he depicted his
own characters. The book omits fact checking, sourcing, notes and
index. It can be considered a non-fiction novel about his life.
Dick has influenced many writers, including Jonathan Lethem and Ursula
K. Le Guin. The prominent literary critic Fredric Jameson proclaimed
Dick the "Shakespeare of Science Fiction", and praised his work as
"one of the most powerful expressions of the society of spectacle and
pseudo-event". The author Roberto Bolaño also praised Dick, describing
him as "Thoreau plus the death of the American dream". Dick has also
influenced filmmakers, his work being compared to films such as the
Wachowskis' 'The Matrix', David Cronenberg's 'Videodrome', 'eXistenZ',
and 'Spider', Spike Jonze's 'Being John Malkovich', 'Adaptation',
Michel Gondry's 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', Alex Proyas's
'Dark City', Peter Weir's 'The Truman Show', Andrew Niccol's
'Gattaca', 'In Time', Terry Gilliam's '12 Monkeys', Alejandro
Amenábar's 'Open Your Eyes', David Fincher's 'Fight Club', Cameron
Crowe's 'Vanilla Sky', Darren Aronofsky's 'Pi', Richard Kelly's
'Donnie Darko' and 'Southland Tales', Rian Johnson's 'Looper', Duncan
Jones' 'Source Code', Christopher Nolan's 'Memento' and 'Inception,'
and Owen Dennis' 'Infinity Train'.
The Philip K. Dick Society was an organization dedicated to promoting
the literary works of Dick and was led by Dick's longtime friend and
music journalist Paul Williams. Williams also served as Dick's
literary executor for several years after Dick's death and wrote one
of the first biographies of Dick, entitled 'Only Apparently Real: The
World of Philip K. Dick'.
The Philip K. Dick estate owns and operates the production company
Electric Shepherd Productions, which has produced the film 'The
Adjustment Bureau' (2011), the TV series 'The Man in the High Castle'
and also a Marvel Comics 5-issue adaptation of 'Electric Ant'.
Dick was recreated by his fans in the form of a simulacrum or
remote-controlled android designed in his likeness. Such simulacra had
been themes of many of Dick's works. The Philip K. Dick simulacrum was
included on a discussion panel in a San Diego Comic Con presentation
about the film adaptation of the novel, 'A Scanner Darkly'. In
February 2006, an America West Airlines employee misplaced the
android's head, and it has not yet been found. In January 2011, it was
announced that Hanson Robotics had built a replacement.
Film
======
* BBC2 released in 1994 a biographical documentary as part of its
'Arena' arts series called 'Philip K. Dick: A Day in the Afterlife'.
* 'The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick' was a documentary film
produced in 2001.
* 'The Penultimate Truth About Philip K. Dick' was another
biographical documentary film produced in 2007.
* The 1987 film 'The Trouble with Dick', in which Tom Villard plays a
character named "Dick Kendred" (cf. Philip Kindred Dick), who is a
science fiction author
* The dialogue of Nikos Nikolaidis' 1987 film 'Morning Patrol'
contains excerpts taken from published works authored by Philip K.
Dick.
* The Spanish feature film 'Proxima' (2007) by Carlos Atanes, where
the character 'Felix Cadecq' is based on Dick
* A 2008 film titled 'Your Name Here', by Matthew Wilder, features
Bill Pullman as science fiction author William J. Frick, a character
based on Dick
* The 2010 science fiction film '15 Till Midnight' cites Dick's
influence with an "acknowledgment to the works of" credit.
* The 'Prophets of Science Fiction' episode, Philip K Dick. 2011
Documentary
In fiction
============
* Michael Bishop's 'The Secret Ascension' (1987; published as 'Philip
K. Dick Is Dead, Alas'), which is set in an alternative universe where
his non-genre work is published but his science fiction is banned by a
totalitarian United States in thrall to a demonically possessed
Richard Nixon.
* The short story "The Transmigration of Philip K" (1984) by Michael
Swanwick (in the 1991 collection 'Gravity's Angels')
* In Ursula K. Le Guin's 1971 novel 'The Lathe of Heaven', whose
characters alter reality through their dreams. Two made-for-TV films
based on the novel have been made: 'The Lathe of Heaven' (1980) and
'Lathe of Heaven' (2002)
* In Thomas M. Disch's 'The Word of God' (2008)
* The comics magazine 'Weirdo' published "The Religious Experience of
Philip K. Dick" by cartoonist Robert Crumb in 1986. Though this is
not an adaptation of a specific book or story by Dick, it incorporates
elements of Dick's experience which he related in short stories,
novels, essays, and the 'Exegesis'. The story parodies the form of a
Chick tract, a type of evangelical comic, many of which relate the
story of an epiphany leading to a conversion to fundamentalist
Christianity.
* In the 1976 alternate history novel 'The Alteration' by Kingsley
Amis, one of the novels-within-a-novel depicted is 'The Man in the
High Castle' (mirroring 'The Grasshopper Lies Heavy' in the real-life
novel), still written by Philip K. Dick. Instead of the novel being
set in 1962 in an alternate universe where the Axis Powers won the
Second World War and named for Hawthorne Abendsen, the author of its
novel-within-a-novel, it depicts an alternate universe where the
Protestant Reformation occurred (events including the continuation of
Henry VIII's Schismatic policies by his son, Henry IX, and the
creation of an independent North America in 1848), with one character
speculating that the titular character was a wizard.
* The short film trilogy 'Code 7' written and directed by Nacho
Vigalondo starts with the line "Philip K. Dick presents". The story
also contains some other references to Philip K. Dick's body of work.
* In the 2022 web anime 'Cyberpunk: Edgerunners', the character,
Rebecca, has the words "PK DICK" tattooed on her right thigh.
Music
=======
* "Flow My Tears" is the name of an instrumental by bassist Stuart
Hamm, inspired by Dick's novel of the same name. The track is found on
his album 'Radio Free Albemuth', also named after a Dick novel.
* "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said" and other seminal Ph. K. Dick
novels inspired the electronic music concept album "'The Dowland
Shores of Philip K. Dick's Universe'" by Levent
* American rapper and producer El-P is a fan of Dick and other science
fiction. Many of Dick's themes, such as paranoia and questions about
the nature of reality, feature in El-P's work. A song on the 2002
album 'Fantastic Damage' is titled "T.O.J." and the chorus makes
reference to the Dick work 'Time Out of Joint'.
* English singer Hugh Cornwell included an instrumental called "Philip
K. Ridiculous" on his 2008 album "Hooverdam".
* Sister, a Sonic Youth album, "was in part inspired by the life and
works of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick".
*Blind Guardian's song "Time What is Time" from the 1992 album
"Somewhere Far Beyond" is loosely based on the book "Do Androids Dream
of Electric Sheep?".
*American band Clutch's song, "X-Ray Visions" features images of Dick
in their official music video. Additionally, Neil Fallon said
"[Dick's] general philosophy and questions have always crept into my
lyrics, because I share an interest in it. On Earth Rocker, 'Crucial
Velocity' was definitely a Philip K. Dick song for me. On this record,
'X-Ray Visions' certainly is."
Radio
=======
* In June 2014, BBC Radio 4 broadcast 'The Two Georges' by Stephen
Keyworth, inspired by the FBI's investigation of Phil and his wife
Kleo in 1955, and the subsequent friendship that developed between
Phil and FBI Agent Scruggs.
Theater
=========
* A 2005 play, '800 Words: the Transmigration of Philip K. Dick' by
Victoria Stewart, which re-imagines Dick's final days.
Contemporary philosophy
=========================
Postmodernists such as Jean Baudrillard and Laurence Rickels have
commented on Dick's writing's foreshadowing of postmodernity. Jean
Baudrillard offers this interpretation:
"It is hyperreal. It is a universe of simulation, which is something
altogether different. And this is so not because Dick speaks
specifically of simulacra. SF has always done so, but it has always
played upon the double, on artificial replication or imaginary
duplication, whereas here the double has disappeared. There is no more
double; one is always already in the other world, an other world which
is not another, without mirrors or projection or utopias as means for
reflection. The simulation is impassable, unsurpassable, checkmated,
without exteriority. We can no longer move 'through the mirror' to the
other side, as we could during the golden age of transcendence."
Dick's anti-government skepticism was referred to in 'Mythmakers and
Lawbreakers', a collection of interviews about fiction by anarchist
authors. Noting his early authorship of 'The Last of the Masters', an
anarchist-themed novelette, author Margaret Killjoy expressed that
while Dick never fully sided with anarchism, his opposition to
government centralization and organized religion has influenced
anarchist interpretations of gnosticism.
Video games
=============
* The 3.0 update for the grand strategy video game 'Stellaris' is
named the "Dick" update, following the game's trend of naming updates
after science fiction authors.
*The 2016 video game 'Californium' was developed as a tribute to
Philip K. Dick and his writings to coincide with an Arte's documentary
series.
Awards and honors
======================================================================
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Dick in 2005.
During his lifetime he received numerous annual literary awards and
nominations for particular works.
* Hugo Awards
** Best Novel
*** 1963 - winner: 'The Man in the High Castle'
*** 1975 - nominee: 'Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said'
** Best Novelette
*** 1968 - nominee: 'Faith of Our Fathers'
* Nebula Awards
** Best Novel
*** 1965 - nominee: 'Dr. Bloodmoney'
*** 1965 - nominee: 'The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch'
*** 1968 - nominee: 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'
*** 1974 - nominee: 'Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said'
*** 1982 - nominee: 'The Transmigration of Timothy Archer'
* John W. Campbell Memorial Award
** Best Novel
*** 1975 - winner: 'Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said'
* British Science Fiction Association Award
** Best Novel
*** 1978 - winner: 'A Scanner Darkly'
* Graoully d'Or (Festival de Metz, France)
** 1979 - winner: 'A Scanner Darkly'
* Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis
** 1985 - winner 'VALIS'
Philip K. Dick Award
======================================================================
The Philip K. Dick Award is a science fiction award that annually
recognizes the previous year's best SF paperback original published in
the U.S. It is conferred at Norwescon, sponsored by the Philadelphia
Science Fiction Society, and since 2005 supported by the Philip K.
Dick Trust. Winning works are identified on their covers as 'Best
Original SF Paperback'. It is currently administered by, John
Silbersack, and Gordon Van Gelder.
The award was inaugurated in 1983, the year after Dick's death. It was
founded by Thomas Disch with assistance from David G. Hartwell, Paul
S. Williams, and Charles N. Brown. Past administrators include Algis
J. Budrys and David Alexander Smith.
Bibliography
======================================================================
* 'Precious Artifacts: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography, United States of
America and United Kingdom Editions, 1955 - 2012'. Compiled by Henri
Wintz and David Hyde. (Wide Books 2012). www.wide-books.com
* 'Precious Artifacts 2: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography, The Short
Stories, United States, United Kingdom and Oceania, 1952 - 2014'.
Compiled by Henri Wintz and David Hyde (Wide Books 2014).
www.wide-books.com
* 'Precious Artifacts 3: Precieuses Reliques: A Philip K. Dick
Bibliography, The French Editions, 1959-2018' (bi-lingual). Compiled
by Henri Wintz and David Hyde. (Wide Books 2019). www.wide-books.com
See also
======================================================================
* Consensus reality
* Cyberpunk
* Paranoid fiction
* Transcendental idealism
External links
======================================================================
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* [
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/philip-k-dick Ebooks by Philip K.
Dick - Standard Ebooks]
* [
http://www.scifi.darkroastedblend.com/2005/10/philip-k-dick_04.html
Dark Roasted Blend: Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Experience:
Philip K. Dick]
*
*
License
=========
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Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick
