The Library of America is making available through Amazon.com a collection of four novels from Philip K. Dick entitled “Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Ubik”. It is available in hardcover. This quad of stories is a must for the true and avid P.K. Dick fan.
Several of Dick’s novels have been turned into major motion pictures, and although much of what he writes is, at times, hard to transfer from the page to the screen, all the endeavors have been a sheer delight to watch. But, to appreciate his vision and genius at work, he must be read.
Brief Summary of Contents:
- “The Man in the High Castle” was written by Dick in 1962. It won him the Hugo Award, and tells the story of a world in which Japan and Germany won the Second World War with the United States divided up as an occupied State.
- “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” comes from 1965 and invisions a future where competing hallucinogens proffer different brands of virtual reality (Dick fans know how he and friend Timothy Leary loved their hallucinogens).
- “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” was published in 1968. It is about a bounty hunter who searches for escaped androids for a living in a postapocalyptic future. If you think this sounds a lot like “Blade Runner” you would be correct. This Dick novel was used as the foundation for the famous film starring Harrison Ford.
- Finally there is the 1969 story called “Ubik” — the lesser known of the four, but just as powerful a work. It takes place in a futuristic society where psychic espionage agents and cryogenically frozen patients inhabit an illusory half-life of virtual realities full of simulated lies and false perceptions. It is a look into the mind of Dick’s lust of pure escapism and paranoia.
David says
Don’t tell Summer, apparently she has so much much Dick we wouldn’t believe it, massive amounts of Dick, she’s already been on a Dick-A-Thon.