3 ms·

And if anyone wants to get into PKD, I highly recommend the following books: * Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? * Ubik * The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eld

And if anyone wants to get into PKD, I highly recommend the following books: * Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? * Ubik * The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch * A Scanner Darkly * VALIS (but probably not until you've read some of his others, and also read a bit about his life, because it's pseudo-autobiographical) I just finished reading a biography of him called "Divine Invasions" (not to be confused with his book "The Divine Invasion", which is roughly a sequel to VALIS), which I recommend as well. PKD was an utterly brilliant, fascinating, and sadly broken man.

prepend 3y ago
I love the VALIS trilogy and like to recommend Radio Free Albemuth as an intro book to new PKD readers. It’s basically a rewrite of the trilogy in a single, short novel.
- skhm 3y ago
  Thank you for this - I loved VALIS and read it after most of his other major novels but the fact that the third in the trilogy (transmigration?) was unfinished put me off carrying on. I'll be reading this today.
  - Trasmatta 3y ago
    The Transmigration of Timothy Archer was finished. It was published after his death, but he did complete it. It's also not really related to VALIS at all. I still don't really understand why people call it "the third novel in the VALIS" trilogy. It explores some of the same philosophical and religious themes, but has no connection otherwise. The "second book", The Divine Invasion, feels closer to VALIS (and it's pretty good, I'd recommend it!), especially because of the gnostic themes. But even that is distinctly different. VALIS honestly stands entirely on its own. PKD never wrote another book quite like it -- in fact, nobody has.
    - skhm 3y ago
      Thank you for this clarification - I don't think I ever read Invasion (despite reading relative dross like Frolix) - so I might revisit.
- Trasmatta 3y ago
  Interestingly, it was actually his original idea for VALIS, and wasn't published until after his death. He scrapped the original idea when he decided to make VALIS much more directly about himself and his experiences. ...but in typical PKD fashion, it gets weird, because he adapted the rough plot of Radio Free Albemuth into the book VALIS as a fictional movie called VALIS.
  - prepend 3y ago
    It was really fun for me as I first read RFA and then learned there were more books that fit into the plot of RFA. Not everyone is into postmodern American Gnosticism , for those that are PKD’s last works are a goldmine. And he also has lots of journals where he just goes on batshit crazy threads (some are collected as the Exegesis of Philip K Dick). I really would have loved to see his collected bulletin board posts or Usenet posts if he had just lived a few more years.
Nursie 3y ago
Wasn’t a fan of the Three Stigmata, personally. I quite like to recommend “A Maze Of Death” as a starter, and the short story collections. There are some very weird (and IMHO great) concept novels like “Flow My Tears the Policeman Said”. And of course there’s “A Scanner Darkly” After a while you get a feeling there’s a sort of semi-coherent PKD reality out there, in which continuity is less important than the concept being played with, but the background is consistent in its own odd way.
- Trasmatta 3y ago
  Three Stigmata is really bizarre, and probably not for everyone. I do think it, Ubik, and VALIS are the best examples of his "what is reality" explorations.
- skhm 3y ago
  Flow My Tears is incredible and also in https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html PKD's anecdote about a pivotal scene happening in is own life has always fascinated me. Objectively, I know this was a coincidence (like the events that lead to PKD's belief in VALIS) - but it's fun to wander down thoughtways where perhaps just as complexity emerges from well-patterned subatomic lattices, so might that patterning emerge at higher levels of emergence - geodes that look similar, parallel evolution, and then at a level humans can recognise (as coincidence or synchronicity), and maybe at other higher and equally unrecognisable levels, in a dance between fractal cosmoi. But then one has to live in the world, and do science, and pay rent, and one isn't meant to dwell in such powerful memetic rooms for long.
  - skhm 3y ago
    On holding these conflicting beliefs: "I can just picture myself being examined by a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist says, “What year is it?” And I reply, “A.D. 50.” The psychiatrist blinks and then asks, “And where are you?” I reply, “In Judaea.” “Where the heck is that?” the psychiatrist asks. “It’s part of the Roman Empire,” I would have to answer. “Do you know who is President?” the psychiatrist would ask, and I would answer, “The Procurator Felix.” “You’re pretty sure about this?” the psychiatrist would ask, meanwhile giving a covert signal to two very large psych techs. “Yep,” I’d replay. “Unless Felix has stepped down and had been replaced by the Procurator Festus. You see, Saint Paul was held by Felix for —” “Who told you all this?” the psychiatrist would break in, irritably, and I would reply, “The Holy Spirit.” And after that I’d be in the rubber room, inside gazing out, and knowing exactly how come I was there. Everything in that conversation would be true, in a sense, although palpably not true in another. I know perfectly well that the date is 1978 and that Jimmy Carter is President and that I live in Santa Ana, California, in the United States. I even know how to get from my apartment to Disneyland, a fact I can’t seem to forget. And surely no Disneyland existed back at the time of Saint Paul. So, if I force myself to be very rational and reasonable, and all those other good things, I must admit that the existence of Disneyland (which I know is real) proves that we are not living in Judaea in A.D. 50. The idea of Saint Paul whirling around in the giant teacups while composing First Corinthians, as Paris TV films him with a telephoto lens — that just can’t be. Saint Paul would never go near Disneyland. Only children, tourists, and visiting Soviet high officials ever go to Disneyland. Saints do not."
skhm 3y ago
Stigmata is my favourite of these, though all brilliant. I read it in on a trip from the UK to Vegas at age 24 (really trying to channel hunter s thompson, so was in a strange place) and it chilled me to the core. When I walk around London and see large structures like St Paul's cathedral sat directly alongside skyscraping banking institutions, I can't help but wonder if in fact "the empire never ended". (https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html) Then I shake the thought off and go uneasily to my workplace.
0_____0 3y ago
Don't sleep on the short stories! I read "Electric Ant" as a young man at a time when I was experimenting with psychedelics, and it still sticks with me in some ways. I didn't manage to get into VALIS. It felt a bit mental-illness-ey in a way that other PKD work didn't, and as someone who had a loved one with terrible schizophrenia, it rubbed me a bit wrong. Maybe I'll try it again soon, I can see it on my shelf from here.
- Trasmatta 3y ago
  The thing to understand about VALIS is that it's an adaptation of his own experiences. i.e., the events of 2-3-74 actually happened to PKD. He then fictionalizes a lot of the aspects around it (especially in the second half), but all the philosophical musings are things he actually struggled with in real life. PKD likely suffered from a large variety of mental illnesses, and he frequently wondered if he was schizophrenic himself (although he had therapists give him a negative diagnosis). The events of 2-3-74 may have also been the result of a frontal lobe epilepsy. He constantly was trying to figure out whether the things he experienced were the result of mental illness or something else entirely. Or trying to figure out whether there's any difference at all. The core theme of his work is "what is real?", and that became something that consumed his own personal reality in his last decade of life. So I think a good way to read VALIS is knowing it's coming from a person who was deeply suffering, and trying to come to some explanation of what he experienced. And how that truly underlies Horselover Fat's deep fear that the universe is possibly guided by an "irrational mind". PKD wanted to know whether his suffering had any meaning, or was just the result of an irrational, and unknowable universe.
pallas_athena 3y ago
This box-set: https://www.loa.org/books/311-the-philip-k-dick-collection-3-volume-boxed-set https://www.loa.org/books/311-the-philip-k-dick-collection-3... is one of the best thing you can gift yourself.

prepend 3y ago

I love the VALIS trilogy and like to recommend Radio Free Albemuth as an intro book to new PKD readers. It’s basically a rewrite of the trilogy in a single, short novel.

skhm 3y ago
Thank you for this - I loved VALIS and read it after most of his other major novels but the fact that the third in the trilogy (transmigration?) was unfinished put me off carrying on. I'll be reading this today.
- Trasmatta 3y ago
  The Transmigration of Timothy Archer was finished. It was published after his death, but he did complete it. It's also not really related to VALIS at all. I still don't really understand why people call it "the third novel in the VALIS" trilogy. It explores some of the same philosophical and religious themes, but has no connection otherwise. The "second book", The Divine Invasion, feels closer to VALIS (and it's pretty good, I'd recommend it!), especially because of the gnostic themes. But even that is distinctly different. VALIS honestly stands entirely on its own. PKD never wrote another book quite like it -- in fact, nobody has.
  - skhm 3y ago
    Thank you for this clarification - I don't think I ever read Invasion (despite reading relative dross like Frolix) - so I might revisit.
Trasmatta 3y ago
Interestingly, it was actually his original idea for VALIS, and wasn't published until after his death. He scrapped the original idea when he decided to make VALIS much more directly about himself and his experiences. ...but in typical PKD fashion, it gets weird, because he adapted the rough plot of Radio Free Albemuth into the book VALIS as a fictional movie called VALIS.
- prepend 3y ago
  It was really fun for me as I first read RFA and then learned there were more books that fit into the plot of RFA. Not everyone is into postmodern American Gnosticism , for those that are PKD’s last works are a goldmine. And he also has lots of journals where he just goes on batshit crazy threads (some are collected as the Exegesis of Philip K Dick). I really would have loved to see his collected bulletin board posts or Usenet posts if he had just lived a few more years.

Nursie 3y ago

Wasn’t a fan of the Three Stigmata, personally. I quite like to recommend “A Maze Of Death” as a starter, and the short story collections. There are some very weird (and IMHO great) concept novels like “Flow My Tears the Policeman Said”. And of course there’s “A Scanner Darkly” After a while you get a feeling there’s a sort of semi-coherent PKD reality out there, in which continuity is less important than the concept being played with, but the background is consistent in its own odd way.

Trasmatta 3y ago
Three Stigmata is really bizarre, and probably not for everyone. I do think it, Ubik, and VALIS are the best examples of his "what is reality" explorations.
skhm 3y ago
Flow My Tears is incredible and also in https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html PKD's anecdote about a pivotal scene happening in is own life has always fascinated me. Objectively, I know this was a coincidence (like the events that lead to PKD's belief in VALIS) - but it's fun to wander down thoughtways where perhaps just as complexity emerges from well-patterned subatomic lattices, so might that patterning emerge at higher levels of emergence - geodes that look similar, parallel evolution, and then at a level humans can recognise (as coincidence or synchronicity), and maybe at other higher and equally unrecognisable levels, in a dance between fractal cosmoi. But then one has to live in the world, and do science, and pay rent, and one isn't meant to dwell in such powerful memetic rooms for long.
- skhm 3y ago
  On holding these conflicting beliefs: "I can just picture myself being examined by a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist says, “What year is it?” And I reply, “A.D. 50.” The psychiatrist blinks and then asks, “And where are you?” I reply, “In Judaea.” “Where the heck is that?” the psychiatrist asks. “It’s part of the Roman Empire,” I would have to answer. “Do you know who is President?” the psychiatrist would ask, and I would answer, “The Procurator Felix.” “You’re pretty sure about this?” the psychiatrist would ask, meanwhile giving a covert signal to two very large psych techs. “Yep,” I’d replay. “Unless Felix has stepped down and had been replaced by the Procurator Festus. You see, Saint Paul was held by Felix for —” “Who told you all this?” the psychiatrist would break in, irritably, and I would reply, “The Holy Spirit.” And after that I’d be in the rubber room, inside gazing out, and knowing exactly how come I was there. Everything in that conversation would be true, in a sense, although palpably not true in another. I know perfectly well that the date is 1978 and that Jimmy Carter is President and that I live in Santa Ana, California, in the United States. I even know how to get from my apartment to Disneyland, a fact I can’t seem to forget. And surely no Disneyland existed back at the time of Saint Paul. So, if I force myself to be very rational and reasonable, and all those other good things, I must admit that the existence of Disneyland (which I know is real) proves that we are not living in Judaea in A.D. 50. The idea of Saint Paul whirling around in the giant teacups while composing First Corinthians, as Paris TV films him with a telephoto lens — that just can’t be. Saint Paul would never go near Disneyland. Only children, tourists, and visiting Soviet high officials ever go to Disneyland. Saints do not."

skhm 3y ago

Stigmata is my favourite of these, though all brilliant. I read it in on a trip from the UK to Vegas at age 24 (really trying to channel hunter s thompson, so was in a strange place) and it chilled me to the core. When I walk around London and see large structures like St Paul's cathedral sat directly alongside skyscraping banking institutions, I can't help but wonder if in fact "the empire never ended". (https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html) Then I shake the thought off and go uneasily to my workplace.

0_____0 3y ago

Don't sleep on the short stories! I read "Electric Ant" as a young man at a time when I was experimenting with psychedelics, and it still sticks with me in some ways. I didn't manage to get into VALIS. It felt a bit mental-illness-ey in a way that other PKD work didn't, and as someone who had a loved one with terrible schizophrenia, it rubbed me a bit wrong. Maybe I'll try it again soon, I can see it on my shelf from here.

Trasmatta 3y ago
The thing to understand about VALIS is that it's an adaptation of his own experiences. i.e., the events of 2-3-74 actually happened to PKD. He then fictionalizes a lot of the aspects around it (especially in the second half), but all the philosophical musings are things he actually struggled with in real life. PKD likely suffered from a large variety of mental illnesses, and he frequently wondered if he was schizophrenic himself (although he had therapists give him a negative diagnosis). The events of 2-3-74 may have also been the result of a frontal lobe epilepsy. He constantly was trying to figure out whether the things he experienced were the result of mental illness or something else entirely. Or trying to figure out whether there's any difference at all. The core theme of his work is "what is real?", and that became something that consumed his own personal reality in his last decade of life. So I think a good way to read VALIS is knowing it's coming from a person who was deeply suffering, and trying to come to some explanation of what he experienced. And how that truly underlies Horselover Fat's deep fear that the universe is possibly guided by an "irrational mind". PKD wanted to know whether his suffering had any meaning, or was just the result of an irrational, and unknowable universe.

pallas_athena 3y ago

This box-set: https://www.loa.org/books/311-the-philip-k-dick-collection-3-volume-boxed-set https://www.loa.org/books/311-the-philip-k-dick-collection-3... is one of the best thing you can gift yourself.