5 ms·

Back in the 1970s I owned all of Dick's novels, and all short stories available in collections (which is quite a lot of stuff!) I'm not a book collector - I bou

Back in the 1970s I owned all of Dick's novels, and all short stories available in collections (which is quite a lot of stuff!) I'm not a book collector - I bought them because at the time he was my favourite writer. Just recently, I've started re-reading them on my Kindle. I've just finished "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", and while I enjoyed it, I have to say it wasn't as good as I remember. Next up is "A Scanner Darkly", so we shall see how things go.

B1FF_PSUVM 5y ago
Back then I used to read a lot of SF and didn't think much of P.K. Dick's writing. His stories had a tinge of paranoid fantasy about them, and felt implausible, rushed and disjointed, compared with more standard SF fare. I think this wasn't an uncommon perception. The movie guys, in spite of all the derision they get for bumbling and fumbling, were on the mark spotting a powerful source of mana, and made hay from PKD's chaff. Lem, being a genius in his own right and honed sharp by life in Soviet-watched Eastern Europe, was able to disregard the "shoddiness of the props" and get to the potency of the spell.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "His stories had a tinge of paranoid fantasy about them, and felt implausible, rushed and disjointed, compared with more standard SF fare." They're a lot more comprehensible and relatable if you've ever had a bad trip on psychedelics.
- elbasti 5y ago
  One of my favourite anecdotes about Lem+Dick is that while Lem held PKD in high regard, PKD thought Lem didn't exist.[0]. He was convinced, in paranoid-Dickian-realityisweird fashion that Lem was actually a committee of people, and a Soviet hoax, not an individual. 0: https://culture.pl/en/article/philip-k-dick-stanislaw-lem-is-a-communist-committee https://culture.pl/en/article/philip-k-dick-stanislaw-lem-is...
  - robocat 5y ago
    At the bottom of that article: “[Dick wrote that he was] approached in 1972 by a representative of a neo-Nazi organisation who pressured Dick into placing coded messages involving ‘politics, illegal weapons, etc’ into his future novels. He linked this organisation to a series of robberies which happened at his home in California”. Wow.
pmoriarty 5y ago
I strongly recommend reading Ubik. To me it is his strongest and most consistently good book. I used to love The Three Stigmata too, but when I tried to read it again recently I couldn't get in to it either. I do think you have to be in the right mood to savor a Dick book, so maybe I was in the wrong mood that time. The other first-tier PKD book for me is Martian Time-Slip. Second-tier PKD books for me are VALIS and Galactic Pot Healer. Third-tier are Maze of Death, Eye in the Sky, and Divine Invasion (the 2nd in the VALIS trilogy.. didn't like the 3rd in the series, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer at all). Many of his other books, like Lies, Inc, also have great parts in them, but are kind of inconsistent. Some of his short stories are excellent. My favorites: - Beyond Lies the Wub - Roog - The Father Thing - Faith of Our Fathers I didn't really like A Scanner Darkly, nor Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep and would consider them of minor import had not movies been made of them. Other books in this category are Now Wait for Last Year (made in to Total Recall) and Time Out of Joint (made in to The Truman Show.. though the book is much darker). The movie Minority Report was based on another minor short story of his, as The Terminator might have been partially based on his story Second Variety. Virtually all of the movies made from his work only bear only a very slight resemblance to the originals, which tends to be a lot darker, a lot less action-filled, and much more thought-provoking than the Hollywood adaptations.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  Total Recall was based on We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, not Now Wait for Last Year.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    I think you're probably right. It's been a really long time since I read these books and could use a bit of artificial memory myself.
  - rkk3 5y ago
    Yep, I was going to say the same thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_Wholesale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_Who...
vlunkr 5y ago
A Scanner Darkly is my favorite book of his (that I've read so far). I think because it's a bit longer than most so there's more time to develop characters. It's got such a sad and interesting tone.
- robocat 5y ago
  I loved the movie too. I was really pleased I read the book first because although the movie is a really good rendition, I feel it would be hard to comprehend certain parts of the movie without knowing the book. The acknowledgements page after the ending of the book is brutally heart breaking: he mentions all the friends he lost to psychosis and death, due to the drugs they all took together. I also find that the book remains a fantastic read a second or third time - which I only find worthwhile doing with a few books.
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    Yeah, I thing that movie is the best rendition of a PKD novel I have ever seen, partly because it is so weird, and partly because it captures some of the black humour of the novel.
  - kevinventullo 5y ago
    I just finished ASD and felt the same way about the acknowledgments page. It absolutely changed how I thought about the book.
rantwasp 5y ago
The Three Stigmata is IMHO his best work. It’s like reality itself dissolves as you read it.
dayofthedaleks 5y ago
“A Scanner Darkly” captures a moment in American drug culture intersecting with the cult of Scientology very artistically, in my opinion. “Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said” is among Dick’s peak stuff, too.

B1FF_PSUVM 5y ago

Back then I used to read a lot of SF and didn't think much of P.K. Dick's writing. His stories had a tinge of paranoid fantasy about them, and felt implausible, rushed and disjointed, compared with more standard SF fare. I think this wasn't an uncommon perception. The movie guys, in spite of all the derision they get for bumbling and fumbling, were on the mark spotting a powerful source of mana, and made hay from PKD's chaff. Lem, being a genius in his own right and honed sharp by life in Soviet-watched Eastern Europe, was able to disregard the "shoddiness of the props" and get to the potency of the spell.

pmoriarty 5y ago
"His stories had a tinge of paranoid fantasy about them, and felt implausible, rushed and disjointed, compared with more standard SF fare." They're a lot more comprehensible and relatable if you've ever had a bad trip on psychedelics.
elbasti 5y ago
One of my favourite anecdotes about Lem+Dick is that while Lem held PKD in high regard, PKD thought Lem didn't exist.[0]. He was convinced, in paranoid-Dickian-realityisweird fashion that Lem was actually a committee of people, and a Soviet hoax, not an individual. 0: https://culture.pl/en/article/philip-k-dick-stanislaw-lem-is-a-communist-committee https://culture.pl/en/article/philip-k-dick-stanislaw-lem-is...
- robocat 5y ago
  At the bottom of that article: “[Dick wrote that he was] approached in 1972 by a representative of a neo-Nazi organisation who pressured Dick into placing coded messages involving ‘politics, illegal weapons, etc’ into his future novels. He linked this organisation to a series of robberies which happened at his home in California”. Wow.

pmoriarty 5y ago

I strongly recommend reading Ubik. To me it is his strongest and most consistently good book. I used to love The Three Stigmata too, but when I tried to read it again recently I couldn't get in to it either. I do think you have to be in the right mood to savor a Dick book, so maybe I was in the wrong mood that time. The other first-tier PKD book for me is Martian Time-Slip. Second-tier PKD books for me are VALIS and Galactic Pot Healer. Third-tier are Maze of Death, Eye in the Sky, and Divine Invasion (the 2nd in the VALIS trilogy.. didn't like the 3rd in the series, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer at all). Many of his other books, like Lies, Inc, also have great parts in them, but are kind of inconsistent. Some of his short stories are excellent. My favorites: - Beyond Lies the Wub - Roog - The Father Thing - Faith of Our Fathers I didn't really like A Scanner Darkly, nor Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep and would consider them of minor import had not movies been made of them. Other books in this category are Now Wait for Last Year (made in to Total Recall) and Time Out of Joint (made in to The Truman Show.. though the book is much darker). The movie Minority Report was based on another minor short story of his, as The Terminator might have been partially based on his story Second Variety. Virtually all of the movies made from his work only bear only a very slight resemblance to the originals, which tends to be a lot darker, a lot less action-filled, and much more thought-provoking than the Hollywood adaptations.

Jtsummers 5y ago
Total Recall was based on We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, not Now Wait for Last Year.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  I think you're probably right. It's been a really long time since I read these books and could use a bit of artificial memory myself.
- rkk3 5y ago
  Yep, I was going to say the same thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_Wholesale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_Who...

vlunkr 5y ago

A Scanner Darkly is my favorite book of his (that I've read so far). I think because it's a bit longer than most so there's more time to develop characters. It's got such a sad and interesting tone.

robocat 5y ago
I loved the movie too. I was really pleased I read the book first because although the movie is a really good rendition, I feel it would be hard to comprehend certain parts of the movie without knowing the book. The acknowledgements page after the ending of the book is brutally heart breaking: he mentions all the friends he lost to psychosis and death, due to the drugs they all took together. I also find that the book remains a fantastic read a second or third time - which I only find worthwhile doing with a few books.
- zabzonk 5y ago
  Yeah, I thing that movie is the best rendition of a PKD novel I have ever seen, partly because it is so weird, and partly because it captures some of the black humour of the novel.
- kevinventullo 5y ago
  I just finished ASD and felt the same way about the acknowledgments page. It absolutely changed how I thought about the book.

rantwasp 5y ago

The Three Stigmata is IMHO his best work. It’s like reality itself dissolves as you read it.

dayofthedaleks 5y ago

“A Scanner Darkly” captures a moment in American drug culture intersecting with the cult of Scientology very artistically, in my opinion. “Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said” is among Dick’s peak stuff, too.