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What can you
say about Philip K. Dick? He is a curious fellow in the sci-fi genre. Either
he is not known at all or he is a god in the eyes of those who have. He even
has a wikipedia page!
Dick shares the same time period
as the modern masters, Herbert (Dune) Asimov (I Robot) and Heinlein
(Stranger In a Strange Land), though his works are a bit less known,
but that is changing. A trip to the used book store reveals that his works
never stay on the shelves, especially the short stories, and if you don't
know anyone at the store, apparantly, you're out of luck.
He put out a dizzying amount of
work during his life and quite frankly, we'll have to change Fictionarium's
site to accommodate it! I had a feeling of this as I had picked up a number
of short story collections by him and they never had the same story. By no
means did he skimp on the novels, either. There are almost too many to count,
again check out the Wiki
page!
Many of his works have been made
into films, like Screamers, Total Recall, and perhaps most well
known, Blade Runner (which is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?).
This is the only book I have been able to find at the used book stores...probably
because everyone has the movie, like me.For
the most part, the movies read like the written works.
His work dealt with the question,
"What is real?". Although his work is science fiction based, he made sure
this question was at the heart of the story, not the model number of the laser
pistol. The body of work is easy reading and thought provoking and begs you
to read more.
Dick is a master of the genre
and perhaps in another few decades everyone will finally know that. Right
now, if you can get your hands on them, I would certainly suggest reading
his work if you are into things like the old TV program Outer Limits,
The Twilight Zone or the X-Files - especially the short stories.
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