5 ms·
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,
by 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 agoOne 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 agoAt 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.