I just want to apologize up front if this should be in the literature section, but it does seem rather Sci-Fi.
I recently starting reading some of Phillip K. Dick's work, and must admit I find it rather interesting. I for one really like the way he can make you stop and really think about how we percieve reality and conscious thought. His life experiences in themselves are well worth reading about let alone his literary works.
I was just curious if anyone has read any of his works and what your opinions are?
Well anyway, I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday wherever life may find you.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
He traded magic for fact, no trade backs. . .
I've read The Man In the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and The World Jones Made. Each of them is very good, though the latter is the best.
Dick is one of the greatest sci-fi writers of the 20th century.
Waddley wrote:your Highness Sir Dr. Loredoctor, PhD, Esq, the Magnificent, First of his name, Second Cousin of Dragons, White-Gold-Plate Wielder!
I've read Dr. Bloodmoney, Ubik, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep and A Scanner Darkly. The latter two I enjoyed most.
Oh and I have Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said still on the shelf.
I do not find him easy to read, or even to understand sometimes. During Dr. Bloodmoney is was constanly wondering what the hell it was all about, and Ubik is just plain frigging weird.
Spiral Jacobs wrote:Ubik is just plain frigging weird.
I may be wrong, but from what I read, Dick was in his paranoid/delusional stage when he wrote that - literally believing some of the ideas in the book were real.
Last edited by Loredoctor on Tue Dec 26, 2006 2:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
Waddley wrote:your Highness Sir Dr. Loredoctor, PhD, Esq, the Magnificent, First of his name, Second Cousin of Dragons, White-Gold-Plate Wielder!
Can't believe I missed this thread. Dick clearly is the greatest sci/fi author of the 20th century, possibly the best ever. I've read a ton of his stuff, and am always looking for more (yeah, yeah, Cail can't get enough Dick, go ahead and laugh).
Ubik was great. Scanner Darkly was great. MitHC was great. Hell, I have yet to read anything of his that wasn't challenging and intelligent. If I could find his grocery lists, I'd read them too.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
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"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
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"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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Honestly, I'd start with the stories that were filmed....Minority Report, Second Variety (Screamers), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Bladerunner), and so on.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
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"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
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"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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Never read any of PKD's work's but I've seen most of the film adaptations and enjoyed them all save for Scanner Darkly which put me to sleep twice. I tried watching the DVD three times and couldn't make it all the way through.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.John Stuart Mill
Brinn wrote:Never read any of PKD's work's but I've seen most of the film adaptations and enjoyed them all save for Scanner Darkly which put me to sleep twice. I tried watching the DVD three times and couldn't make it all the way through.
Well, the last thirty minutes make the rest of the movie really. Until the story closes, it feels like one of those movies where you are just laughing at the stupidity of the addicts...
I don't know if that is due to how the story was adapted, or if the story works similarly.
"Humanity indisputably progresses, but neither uniformly nor everywhere"--Regine Pernoud
You work while you can, because who knows how long you can. Even if it's exhausting work for less pay. All it takes is the 'benevolence' of an incompetant politician or bureaucrat to leave you without work to do and no paycheck to collect. --Tjol
