also, DOCTOR BLOODMONEY is all sorts of awesome.
Richard Pinhas liked it to much he named a Heldon track after it!
― ian, Thursday, 17 January 2008 04:37 (sixteen years ago) link
hmmmm, hadn't heard about this:
<i>Film adaptation Main article: Radio Free Albemuth (film) John Alan Simon is producing, writing, and directing the upcoming film adaptation for Radio Free Albemuth. Alanis Morissette stars in the lead role. A release date has yet to be determined. Filming took place during October 2007 in Los Angeles at Lacy Street Studios and multiple locations for the film version which will be released in the summer of 2008. Phillip Kim was the executive producer.</I>
― ian, Thursday, 17 January 2008 04:42 (sixteen years ago) link
martian time slip is also a very good "first Dick" read because it explores some of his main themes within a fairly "straightforward" sf context.
― ian, Thursday, 17 January 2008 04:44 (sixteen years ago) link
Counter Clock World is definitely bottom tier. Simulacra is great as Abbott noted, I also really like We Can Build You for classic PKD. My favorite more esoteric one is Radio Free Albemuth.
― sleeve, Thursday, 17 January 2008 04:55 (sixteen years ago) link
ubik too
― remy bean, Thursday, 17 January 2008 04:57 (sixteen years ago) link
you should all read the PKD bio "Divine Invasions." A+ even if it does read like fiction half the time.
― ian, Thursday, 17 January 2008 05:01 (sixteen years ago) link
Divine Invasions is one of the best books I ever found at one of my favorite stores in NYC that i never go to, Mercer Street Books.
Where is the love for The Man In The High Castle? I thought this was by far his best. Though love Ubik and Palmer Eldritch too, think those are the three to go for. I found Valis beyond dullsville.
― Meg Busset, Thursday, 17 January 2008 08:58 (sixteen years ago) link
Piece on Dick's last days in Orange County (doesn't add much for folks who've read his bios, but still):
http://www.orangecoastmagazine.com/article2.aspx?id=15622
― Alex in SF, Friday, 10 July 2009 22:47 (fourteen years ago) link
For all his psychological maladies and quirks, though, Dick remained a focused, professional writer. “He would get up at 10, have some coffee, write until 3 in the morning, sleep for five hours, and then get up and do the same thing the next day,” Sauter recalls. “He’d switched to using an IBM Selectric typewriter, and he was a lightning-fast typist. I don’t recall him doing a lot of rewriting. The first draft was always very readable.
“After he passed away, people would always ask me, ‘How sane was Philip K. Dick?’ Anybody who could wake up at 5 a.m. like he did and play hardball on the phone with his agent in New York—I mean, how crazy could he be? There’s been a tendency to picture him as a psychological mess, because of the suicide attempts and so on. But Phil had the ability to put aside whatever he was feeling or thinking to do business.”
the detail that scanner was the first novel he had written without speed is kind of ... well, i suppose i knew that, i just hadn't ever seen it put down as that kind of straight fact before.
― thomp, Friday, 10 July 2009 22:57 (fourteen years ago) link
Pretty sure it's mentioned in one of the bios.
― Alex in SF, Friday, 10 July 2009 22:59 (fourteen years ago) link
the two biographies i read don't really agree on quite how sane he was: but one of those was the awful emanuel carrere one. (jacket quote: "philip dick, like edgar poe, seems to be being placed more and more in the unenviable condition of being appreciated by the French.")
xp i think the relative facts are presented in 'divine invasions' but i don't think at any point sutin says "btw, if you weren't paying attention, the novel dick wrote on pp164 is the first one he wrote without chemical assistance." actually, now i think about it, i think he kind of does.
― thomp, Friday, 10 July 2009 23:01 (fourteen years ago) link
I thought I Am Alive and You Are Dead was great but it was super-fucking depressing
― Sleep Causes Cancer (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 10 July 2009 23:02 (fourteen years ago) link
How near are either of the biopics to being released?
― kingfish, Friday, 10 July 2009 23:04 (fourteen years ago) link
"but one of those was the awful emanuel carrere one"
Oh I love that one! Who cares what the jacket quote sez?
― Alex in SF, Friday, 10 July 2009 23:06 (fourteen years ago) link
I don't know that I've seen discussion of this anywhere on ILX, but it seems pretty huge and majorly WTF: they are making a Walt Disney animated feature based on a a PKD short story.
― Crude Robot Senses (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 11 July 2009 01:25 (fourteen years ago) link
!!! will see.
― ian, Saturday, 11 July 2009 04:14 (fourteen years ago) link
[i]I Am Alive and You Are Dead[/i} is a biographical novel. Scenes or details are sometimes falsified.
― bamcquern, Saturday, 11 July 2009 04:57 (fourteen years ago) link
dammit
Also this old article first published in the LRB that I've come across recently
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n13/burt01_.html
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 11 July 2009 11:27 (fourteen years ago) link
I've read the Tiptree bio. It is fascinating as well.
― He was only 21 years old when he 16 (Alex in SF), Saturday, 11 July 2009 14:56 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm partway through reading the collections of short stories, and King of the Elves was one of the most WTF - I hope Disney don't change a single thing...
― Not the real Village People, Saturday, 11 July 2009 20:14 (fourteen years ago) link
The best PKD biography is still Paul Williams' one: Only Apparently Real
― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 12 July 2009 00:41 (fourteen years ago) link
Start of a six part series on the LA Times site on PKD's life in Orange County. Good stuff, they're currently up to the third part.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 27 January 2010 22:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Movie version of Radio Free Albemuth on the way. Starring Alanis Morissette and with music by Robyn Hitchcock.
― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 1 February 2010 08:28 (fourteen years ago) link
The Exegesis is forthcoming:
In 1974, after a number of novels that explored the notions of personal identity and what it means to be human, Mr. Dick had a series of experiences in which he believed he had information transmitted to his mind by a pink beam of light. He wrote about these and similar occurrences in autobiographical novels like “Valis,” but also contemplated their meanings in personal writings that were not published.“It’s something that he talked about and created a kind of amazing aura around,” Mr. Lethem said, “so that people have an image of it as if it’s some kind of consummated effort. ‘I’m working on my exegesis.’ But what he really meant was he was turning his brain inside out on the page, on a nightly basis, over a period of years of his life.”Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which has also acquired the rights to 39 of Mr. Dick’s previously published works and will release them next year, plans to release Volume 1 of “Exegesis,” which is about 350 pages, in the fall of 2011, and Volume 2, at the same length, a year later.
“It’s something that he talked about and created a kind of amazing aura around,” Mr. Lethem said, “so that people have an image of it as if it’s some kind of consummated effort. ‘I’m working on my exegesis.’ But what he really meant was he was turning his brain inside out on the page, on a nightly basis, over a period of years of his life.”
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which has also acquired the rights to 39 of Mr. Dick’s previously published works and will release them next year, plans to release Volume 1 of “Exegesis,” which is about 350 pages, in the fall of 2011, and Volume 2, at the same length, a year later.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:28 (fourteen years ago) link
Wow! Awesome news.
― EZ Snappin, Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:32 (fourteen years ago) link
can't wait to the wikipedia summaries of these!
― emotional radiohead whatever (Jordan), Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:33 (fourteen years ago) link
I don't think this is a good idea tbh
― the sound of a norwegian guy being wrong (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:37 (fourteen years ago) link
altho I'm curious about the non-exegesis unpublished works
some of this was collected in The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings, right? Which I remember as being pretty unreadable and dull (though it has been over ten years)...
― Jeff LeVine, Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:40 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah pieces have been published here and there.
I guess if you are also excited to read rants posted on telephone poles by homeless schizophrenics then this will be right up yr alley
― the sound of a norwegian guy being wrong (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:41 (fourteen years ago) link
"Pamela Jackson, a Philip K. Dick scholar"
lol, cute. Really could care less about this, but the nearly complete canonization of Dick has truly been a wonder to behold.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:43 (fourteen years ago) link
I've enjoyed the exegesis excerpts I've read; I expect I'll enjoy the whole hit and caboodle as well.
― EZ Snappin, Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:43 (fourteen years ago) link
It's still excerpts though, 700 pages out of 8,000 or whatever...
― Jeff LeVine, Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:47 (fourteen years ago) link
Whole thing feels like it'll be the equivalent to that Jung book that recently came out.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:49 (fourteen years ago) link
Sort of surprised Vintage lost (or gave up on?) the rights to Dick's work after all these years...
― Jeff LeVine, Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:49 (fourteen years ago) link
Are Jonathan Lethem books worth reading? I know him almost entirely for his "I AM THE BIGGEST DICK FANBOY"-dom, but he actually writes books, right?
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:51 (fourteen years ago) link
unfortunately no he's not worth reading anymore. as soon as the NPR/NYT crowd got ahold of him it was all over. His early stuff is quite good though, would be happy to recommend some if yr curious
― the sound of a norwegian guy being wrong (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:52 (fourteen years ago) link
xp Probably just got outbid.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:52 (fourteen years ago) link
I am. I see copies remaindered all over the place.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:53 (fourteen years ago) link
you don't love me yet (2007?) isn't horrible. there's even a kangaroo reprise
― kamerad, Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:54 (fourteen years ago) link
My commute is putting a serious dent in the stack of unread books by my bed so any suggestions are welcome actually.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:54 (fourteen years ago) link
Gun With Occasional Music - some PKD silliness (genetically engineered talking kangaroos! super-intelligent babies!) plus Dashiell Hammet/Raymond Chandler noir narrativeGirl in Landscape - PKD plus Little House on the Prairie, Martian colony coming-of-age story from the POV of a young girlAmnesia Moon - pretty much just straight PKD homage. Plague of amnesia has hit the planet, nobody can remember anything for more than a few days, civilization has collapsed, etc.The Shape We're In - THE BEST. very short, Kafka-esque journey by two hapless miniature protagonists as they try to find their way around a body that they live in (literally, they are trying to get from the bowels to the eyes)Men and Comics, some other collection I can't remember the name of right now - short stories, prose experiments, usually pretty well done. he's an excellent stylist.
Everything afterwards = crap.
― the sound of a norwegian guy being wrong (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 April 2010 22:56 (fourteen years ago) link
well not totally crap but there's definitely a precipitous drop in quality (imho) when he started working in more conventional literary territory. his book about an indie rock band (the above-referenced You Don't Love Me Yet) = ugh, hated it. definitely put me off him for good.
― the sound of a norwegian guy being wrong (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 April 2010 23:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Ick.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 29 April 2010 23:09 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah it's about a young couple who form a band together but aren't sure they're a couple (or really a band!) and .. ugh. just... why.
― the sound of a norwegian guy being wrong (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 April 2010 23:12 (fourteen years ago) link
oh there's also a split book he did with Carter Scholz called Kafka in America which is really good.
― the sound of a norwegian guy being wrong (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 April 2010 23:13 (fourteen years ago) link
Some of the excerpts from the Exegesis have been interesting. It's hard to believe that Ubik wasn't intentionally about gnosticism but that's what he claims. Dick said he only noticed the themes in his work in retrospect. Anyone ever read the early book that was explicitly Zoroastrian (the Cosmic Puppets)?
― Kenji Shwarz, Friday, 30 April 2010 02:30 (fourteen years ago) link
Finally returned to reading PKD for the first time since junior high, just finished The Simulacra and am ready to head back to the library for more.
― he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, 30 April 2010 02:46 (fourteen years ago) link