5 ms·

I've read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, A Scanner Darkly, and a collection of his short stories and while he's a very good author, I just find the spirit

I've read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, A Scanner Darkly, and a collection of his short stories and while he's a very good author, I just find the spirit of his work so depressing. I don't want to read more.

duxup 5y ago
I’m kinda burned out on dystopian everything.
- csdvrx 5y ago
  Same. I am now watching Stargate. My mom used to watch so I didn't because I didn't want to be like her (ahh, kids... :) But it's very Star Trekky, full of hope of "doing better" even when failing at times, and much unlike everything else I've watched! And I love it!!
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  Writing good utopian works is really hard!
- WesternWind 5y ago
  You might enjoy solarpunk then. It's basically sci-fi about working for a better brighter future more beautiful future where human agency matters.
  - duxup 5y ago
    TY
Beltiras 5y ago
VALIS is a full-fledged acid trip. There are pages where the narrative changes perspective so harshly it can break your brain. Recommend the trip regardless.
- Trasmatta 5y ago
  Not to mention the additional level introduced by the fact that VALIS is pseudo-autobiographical. e.g., remember when Horselover Fat gets beamed secret information from a faraway satellite through a pink light to his forehead? Or when he learns we are secretly still living in first century Rome? Both things that PKD actually believed happened to him. The lucidity with which PKD explored his mental illness in VALIS is pretty extraordinary.
  - 1MachineElf 5y ago
    I really enjoyed VALIS because it reminded me a lot of my father's mental issues and helped me cope with the things that happened to him.
  - Beltiras 5y ago
    It's just brain-breaking on so many levels. I often had to re-read couple of pages back to decypher what the hell was going on. But still in all that madness remains a certain lucidity and clarity.
  - beermonster 5y ago
    Philip is Greek for lover of horses i.e. ‘Horselover’. Dick is German for fat. So Horselover Fat = Philip Dick.
- KingFelix 5y ago
  https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html Have you read How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days? Check it out
  - Beltiras 5y ago
    Enticing title. I will!
anyfoo 5y ago
Yeah. Reading Ubik was fascinating, and somehow tortuous, at once. "Fever dream" came to mind.
gloriana 5y ago
Living in Dick's world makes his work have a bad taste.
JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
It just seems like what is actually happening, the future we are getting. Mix in some Idiocracy and Infinite Jest and the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar and that’s what we have.
- audiometry 5y ago
  Yeah, and don't forget William Gibson-style mega-corps that are almost uncontrollable sovereign entities at this point.
Kye 5y ago
Reality copied his worlds and now they seem overwrought. Just like how Tolkien made all kinds of stuff everyone copied, and now you get people with no historical perspective calling him a hack for being derivative. Like most famous sci-fi writers, Phillip K. Dick likely worried about the things he wrote about and hoped technologists would take it as advice against when faced with the same choices as the people in the stories.
Trasmatta 5y ago
He was a depressed and haunted man, and almost certainly suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness. Those aspects of himself were reflected in his works. Writing was a deeply personal thing for him, which you can see especially in The Exegesis (a collection of his journals published after he died, where he continuously grapples with the slipperiness of reality, the dark edges of his mind, and the absurdity of existence, just like his characters). One of the most fascinating writers in history, I think, but can definitely be depressing to read sometimes.
mpreda 5y ago
"A Scanner Darkly" is dedicated to his many close friends that suffered or died as a result of drug use. I think there is this heartbreaking dedication at the end of the novel, with the names of his friends and how they ended. Yet the book is full of subtle humor, and a profound understanding of individuals' tragedy at the same time. There is a great movie made after the novel, with the same name. The movie does capture the spirit of the book, even as switching the medium, a noteworthy achievement.
- elmomle 5y ago
  The book in particular really opened my mind to the idea that illicit drug economies and anti-drug police activity are ultimately symbiotic, forming a system that consumes lives. And nothing else that I've read has conveyed so vividly the confusion and powerlessness one can feel in a life of addiction to hard drugs, caught up in that system.
- robocat 5y ago
  Here is the dedication: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29642422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29642422
throwawayboise 5y ago
The Crack In Space is the only Phillip K Dick book I have read. I found it on a bookshelf when I was maybe in middle school or early high school. I don't remember much about it, so I guess I did not find it memorable.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
I made a spreadsheet of all of his books, and read everything my library had, which was about 70% of them. His early stuff is shlocky and gets tedious by the 10th book from that era. About 20% of his stuff is truly groundbreaking, the rest is ... boring.
the_af 5y ago
> I just find the spirit of his work so depressing I don't. I think he paints up depressing worlds often, but there's also a spirit of perseverance, of ingenuity, of "life goes on". His characters are occasionally soldiers, but more often workers and everyday people doing their things. In a Nazi alt-history dystopia, he takes the time to explain how an antiquarian earns his living. [1] In some dystopia were mankind loses a war against aliens, he makes the aliens sympathetic enough to give the remaining humans a fiction to believe in that will make them want to keep on living. The aliens are also quite forgiving and want to rebuild Earth after the war. [2] When robots take over humanity, hidden in underground caves after a terrible war between the East and the West Blocs, they are actually hiding the fact they rebuilt the world and it's green and healthy, ready for us to re-enter it. [3] When an alien invader supplants the horrible husband of the woman protagonist, she finds the alien is actually loving and caring, and prefers it to her husband. [4] When a (possibly deranged) dog sees threats to the family it loves in everyday things, like the milkman or the garbage truck "stealing their garbage", it does this out of love and fierce loyalty -- however misplaced. [5] (or is it..?) When an authoritarian interstellar military force wants to punish Earth for having ruined it all, those cheeky earthers invent an elusive rebel leader, Benny Cemoli, and pin all the blame on him; keeping the military force occupied chasing ghosts seemingly forever. [6] When an underhanded authoritarian government is shaping up covertly in Callisto, Earth agents find the way to dismantle it -- and in the process, PKD shows his vision that there's no concept as absurd and easy to subvert as the concept of "a just war". The good guys win though. [7] I agree PKD often imagined visions of dystopian hell, but he just as often offered nuggets of hope and everyday life. A bit like Bradbury, only more surreal. ---- [1] "The Man in the High Castle" [2] "Precious Artifact" [3] Can't remember the title of this one, sorry [4] Also cannot remember the title. It was included as an episode of PKD's Electric Dreams. [5] "Roog" [6] "If there were no Benny Cemoli" [7] "The mold of Yancy"
- abecedarius 5y ago
  3: the penultimate truth
  - the_af 5y ago
    Thanks for refreshing my memory! I was thinking of the short story "The Defenders", which Wikipedia tells me it inspired the novel "The Penultimate Truth". I find most (maybe all?) of PKD's novels were born of a short story with the same theme.
n4r9 5y ago
I used to have this perspective, but then I read a quote or excerpt in which PKD says he was surprised that people find his work hopeless or depressing, because he intends his work to be hopeful. I reflected on this and realised that he's right. In his stories the hero often courageously penetrates through the facade and gets to the truth of things. What's more, there is generally an objective truth underneath the facade. It's not turtles all the way down. There is a reasonable explanation and once the hero figures it out they manage to take some control of their own destiny.

duxup 5y ago

I’m kinda burned out on dystopian everything.

csdvrx 5y ago
Same. I am now watching Stargate. My mom used to watch so I didn't because I didn't want to be like her (ahh, kids... :) But it's very Star Trekky, full of hope of "doing better" even when failing at times, and much unlike everything else I've watched! And I love it!!
fennecfoxen 5y ago
Writing good utopian works is really hard!
WesternWind 5y ago
You might enjoy solarpunk then. It's basically sci-fi about working for a better brighter future more beautiful future where human agency matters.
- duxup 5y ago
  TY

Beltiras 5y ago

VALIS is a full-fledged acid trip. There are pages where the narrative changes perspective so harshly it can break your brain. Recommend the trip regardless.

Trasmatta 5y ago
Not to mention the additional level introduced by the fact that VALIS is pseudo-autobiographical. e.g., remember when Horselover Fat gets beamed secret information from a faraway satellite through a pink light to his forehead? Or when he learns we are secretly still living in first century Rome? Both things that PKD actually believed happened to him. The lucidity with which PKD explored his mental illness in VALIS is pretty extraordinary.
- 1MachineElf 5y ago
  I really enjoyed VALIS because it reminded me a lot of my father's mental issues and helped me cope with the things that happened to him.
- Beltiras 5y ago
  It's just brain-breaking on so many levels. I often had to re-read couple of pages back to decypher what the hell was going on. But still in all that madness remains a certain lucidity and clarity.
- beermonster 5y ago
  Philip is Greek for lover of horses i.e. ‘Horselover’. Dick is German for fat. So Horselover Fat = Philip Dick.
KingFelix 5y ago
https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html Have you read How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days? Check it out
- Beltiras 5y ago
  Enticing title. I will!

anyfoo 5y ago

Yeah. Reading Ubik was fascinating, and somehow tortuous, at once. "Fever dream" came to mind.

gloriana 5y ago

Living in Dick's world makes his work have a bad taste.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago

It just seems like what is actually happening, the future we are getting. Mix in some Idiocracy and Infinite Jest and the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar and that’s what we have.

audiometry 5y ago
Yeah, and don't forget William Gibson-style mega-corps that are almost uncontrollable sovereign entities at this point.

Kye 5y ago

Reality copied his worlds and now they seem overwrought. Just like how Tolkien made all kinds of stuff everyone copied, and now you get people with no historical perspective calling him a hack for being derivative. Like most famous sci-fi writers, Phillip K. Dick likely worried about the things he wrote about and hoped technologists would take it as advice against when faced with the same choices as the people in the stories.

Trasmatta 5y ago

He was a depressed and haunted man, and almost certainly suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness. Those aspects of himself were reflected in his works. Writing was a deeply personal thing for him, which you can see especially in The Exegesis (a collection of his journals published after he died, where he continuously grapples with the slipperiness of reality, the dark edges of his mind, and the absurdity of existence, just like his characters). One of the most fascinating writers in history, I think, but can definitely be depressing to read sometimes.

mpreda 5y ago

"A Scanner Darkly" is dedicated to his many close friends that suffered or died as a result of drug use. I think there is this heartbreaking dedication at the end of the novel, with the names of his friends and how they ended. Yet the book is full of subtle humor, and a profound understanding of individuals' tragedy at the same time. There is a great movie made after the novel, with the same name. The movie does capture the spirit of the book, even as switching the medium, a noteworthy achievement.

elmomle 5y ago
The book in particular really opened my mind to the idea that illicit drug economies and anti-drug police activity are ultimately symbiotic, forming a system that consumes lives. And nothing else that I've read has conveyed so vividly the confusion and powerlessness one can feel in a life of addiction to hard drugs, caught up in that system.
robocat 5y ago
Here is the dedication: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29642422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29642422

throwawayboise 5y ago

The Crack In Space is the only Phillip K Dick book I have read. I found it on a bookshelf when I was maybe in middle school or early high school. I don't remember much about it, so I guess I did not find it memorable.

SavantIdiot 5y ago

I made a spreadsheet of all of his books, and read everything my library had, which was about 70% of them. His early stuff is shlocky and gets tedious by the 10th book from that era. About 20% of his stuff is truly groundbreaking, the rest is ... boring.

the_af 5y ago

> I just find the spirit of his work so depressing I don't. I think he paints up depressing worlds often, but there's also a spirit of perseverance, of ingenuity, of "life goes on". His characters are occasionally soldiers, but more often workers and everyday people doing their things. In a Nazi alt-history dystopia, he takes the time to explain how an antiquarian earns his living. [1] In some dystopia were mankind loses a war against aliens, he makes the aliens sympathetic enough to give the remaining humans a fiction to believe in that will make them want to keep on living. The aliens are also quite forgiving and want to rebuild Earth after the war. [2] When robots take over humanity, hidden in underground caves after a terrible war between the East and the West Blocs, they are actually hiding the fact they rebuilt the world and it's green and healthy, ready for us to re-enter it. [3] When an alien invader supplants the horrible husband of the woman protagonist, she finds the alien is actually loving and caring, and prefers it to her husband. [4] When a (possibly deranged) dog sees threats to the family it loves in everyday things, like the milkman or the garbage truck "stealing their garbage", it does this out of love and fierce loyalty -- however misplaced. [5] (or is it..?) When an authoritarian interstellar military force wants to punish Earth for having ruined it all, those cheeky earthers invent an elusive rebel leader, Benny Cemoli, and pin all the blame on him; keeping the military force occupied chasing ghosts seemingly forever. [6] When an underhanded authoritarian government is shaping up covertly in Callisto, Earth agents find the way to dismantle it -- and in the process, PKD shows his vision that there's no concept as absurd and easy to subvert as the concept of "a just war". The good guys win though. [7] I agree PKD often imagined visions of dystopian hell, but he just as often offered nuggets of hope and everyday life. A bit like Bradbury, only more surreal. ---- [1] "The Man in the High Castle" [2] "Precious Artifact" [3] Can't remember the title of this one, sorry [4] Also cannot remember the title. It was included as an episode of PKD's Electric Dreams. [5] "Roog" [6] "If there were no Benny Cemoli" [7] "The mold of Yancy"

abecedarius 5y ago
3: the penultimate truth
- the_af 5y ago
  Thanks for refreshing my memory! I was thinking of the short story "The Defenders", which Wikipedia tells me it inspired the novel "The Penultimate Truth". I find most (maybe all?) of PKD's novels were born of a short story with the same theme.

n4r9 5y ago

I used to have this perspective, but then I read a quote or excerpt in which PKD says he was surprised that people find his work hopeless or depressing, because he intends his work to be hopeful. I reflected on this and realised that he's right. In his stories the hero often courageously penetrates through the facade and gets to the truth of things. What's more, there is generally an objective truth underneath the facade. It's not turtles all the way down. There is a reasonable explanation and once the hero figures it out they manage to take some control of their own destiny.