Matthew Francis wrote:
> Amazing this discussion got so far without Dick being mentioned.
In my family he is known as Philip K. "what the hell is going on" Dickbecause,
typically, the protagonist is plunged into a world where he can't
distinguish illusion from reality. Meanwhile, the reader is plunged into
a world where he can't distinguish one Dick story from another.
(I exaggerate, but certainly a lot of his stories seem to follow that line.)
K
> He is *the*
> genius of SF, surely. Though _A Scanner Darkly_ strikes me as being not
> really SF, but a brilliant drugs novel with a thin coating of SF over the
> top. (What an opening it has!) My favourite of Dick's work, apart from _Do
> Androids..._ is the short stories, eg 'I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon' and
> 'Rautavaara's Case' - astonishingly bleak, powerful stuff.
>
> Incidentally, I never see Dick credited for the plot of _Invasion of the
> Bodysnatchers_ , which surely owes something to his story 'The Father
> Thing'. _The Encyclopedia of SF_ credits a novel by Jack Finney published a
> year later.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Matthew
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin J. Walker <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 26 June 2001 16:17
> Subject: Re: Fwd: [SciFiNoir] FWD: Star Factory Near Galactic Center Bathed
> InHigh-Energy X-Rays
>
> >I'd like to put my vote in ~ at this late stage ~ for Philip K. Dick, whose
> >books I find very rereadable, _A Scanner Darkly _ being a masterpiece of
> >dystopian writing on drugs. He was also one of the only SF writers to
> >furnish a plot for an opera ~ Tod Machover's _Valis_, more recent than
> >_Aniara_ , & of course his novel _Do Androids etc _ provided the plot ideas
> >for _ Blade Runner_, though not the development. I find he creates a poetry
> >of modern life by slipping seamlessly from the mundane to the paranoid in
> an
> >apparently transparent style. Anyone who enjoys using the I Ching now &
> then
> >must read _The Man in the High Castle_. I have also got innocent
> >trans-artistic pleasure from Ian Watson's SF Bosch paraphrase, _The Garden
> >of Delights_ (I think it's called).
> >regards
> >Martin
> >
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