| | Comment from (2003-03-08) |
| PKD wrote approximately 40 novels and struggled his entire life with the disappointment of being known for his science fiction while desiring success as a mainstream novelist. However contrary to his own poor estimation of himself and the judgments of his contemporaries, it was in his science fiction novels that he achieved greatness. He stands as one of our best speculative fiction authors.
Dicks books revolved around a few central themes: memory, what it means to be human, and the struggle of the individual against illegitimate authority. In this way his books were more concerned with the kinds of ideas one would expect from mainstream novels. Often the "science" in his books was a thinly applied veneer designed to please the expectations of his editors, publishers, and their estimates of what would sell at the time. In fact his work has more in common with magical realism than it does with hard science fiction.
What makes his work so touching is his constant concern for the individual and his suspicion that science and a technological society could ever possibly represent progress without putting the individual first. He contrasted real humans with mere human imitating machines as a way of criticizing both science and those people he'd felt had forfeited their humanity by willingly becoming more machine-like.
Dick won the Hugo Award for The Man in the High Castle (1962). He was again nominated for the Hugo and also won the John W Campbell for Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said (1974). With A Scanner Darkly (1977) he won the British SF Award.
Hollywood has mined his works for several movies:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968) became Blade Runner (1982) starring Harrison Ford and Sean Young.
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (1996) became the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Total Recall, and Minority Report (1956) was adapted to the Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise film of the same name.
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| | Comment from (2003-03-07) |
| Great author because of his uniquness and brilliant ideas. The fact that he was half crazy only adds more weird philosophical angles to his books. |
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| | Comment from (2003-03-07) |
| This author isn't for hard-core sci-fi fans: he has plenty of bad science. But his insanely complicated plots make you easily forget that.
If you can't stand star wars because of the bad science in it, Dick isn't for you, but if you can look past that and you enjoy mind-warping ideas and plots within plots, you will love him.
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