philip k dick C/D, S+D

Nice enough story about PKD and his influence, based around interviews with his daughter Ilsa. Talks about the Blade Runner rerelease, the Giamatti biopic etc.

Nice piece - Giammatti thing sounds interesting. No mention of the Bill Pullman pseudo-biopic...?

There was also a piece in the New Yorker recently although I didn't trust it (anything that claims that VALIS is his masterpiece is suspect in my view.)

it is!

See!

Sci-fi crank 'em out one after another Dick >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> kooky am I crazy or not religious-o Dick.

hey, I read Vulcan's Hammer and Cosmic Puppet and Doctor Futurity this year: I'll take the kooky nutbag over the typewriter-monkey responsible for those three

i love UBIK b/c its best-of-both-dicks

I think the final trilogy of VALIS, Divine Invasion, and Transmigration of Timothy Archer are tops, and the ones I keep rereading all these years. They're the things that got me into philosophy in the first place, and that's not too bad a place to start.

Haha the mind fucking boggles at the idea of people whose start in "philosophy" is the Transmigration of Timothy Archer.

Naming three of the weakest books he wrote in that period, doesn't change the fact that almost everything else he wrote then is leagues more interesting than The Divine Invasion or VALIS.

To be honest, I exempt the Pike "bio" because it is pretty unquestionably the best non-sci fi book he wrote. But compared to Dr. Bloodmoney, UBIK, The Martian Time-Slip, Now Wait For Last Year, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Three Stigmata of Palmet Eldritch it's no contest at all.

perhaps I'm stupid or liquored up or both, but VALIS presented me w. some provocative ideas that had never occurred to me before -- or at least a new and interesting formulation/articulation of paranoid gnosticism that i'd never previously considered.

Naming three of the weakest books he wrote in that period, doesn't change the fact that almost everything else he wrote then is leagues more interesting than The Divine Invasion or VALIS.

it isn't just those three that drove me nuts. i mean, i adore time-slip, stigmata, ubik, transmigration, even eye in the sky... which i'd hardly call sci-fi crank 'em out! they're - i imagine you agree with me - pretty thoughtful books.

what i'm getting at is that i don't feel like this is an either/or proposition. one isn't definitionally pro-VALIS and anti crank 'em out. i like both, and enough to have read +/- 80% of pkd's novels. that i prefer strangely-executed drug-addled mystical fantasy to high-concept space-time wackiness doesn't devalue my opinion or stance on the matter.

Placing a large(r) emphasis on late and kooky x-tian Dick basically = being more interested in placing Dick in a certain continuum of metaphysical fiction writers rather than as just another, more talented and profilic than most admittedly, sci-fi writer. It's telling to me that a most people I've talk to, met, or read who loved loved loved those last three tend to be largely uninterested in other sci-fi writers or the history of science-fiction, but instead are interested in viewing Dick as being some sort of unique genius who somehow trancends the limitations of his chosen genre. That's ignorant at best and downright insulting at worst. And yes it is a viewpoint which is NOT at all trustworthy to me.

alex thats TOTALLY unfair

and not really confronting remy's point which is that its totally possible to love both the gnostic trilogy and the rest of dicks oeuvre

I wasn't confronting Remy's point. I was simply explaining my point above "anything that claims that VALIS is his masterpiece is suspect in my view".

Oh, finally, glad to get someone's opinion on Divine Invasion. Just read it last week. It was better than meh, but I didn't enjoy it as much as all his books that were made into crappy movies. During the same week, I also read Vonnegut's Jailbird and enjoyed that novel much more than PKD's Divine Invasion.

I also was disappointed to learn that the Kilgore Trout who wrote Venus on the Half-Shell wasn't Vonnegut's alter-ego/psuedonym. I spent > 20 years thinking that Vonnegut had penned it!

I've read pretty everything PKD wrote, and while I wouldn't call VALIS his "masterpiece", because I don't think he wrote a "masterpiece", I love it more than anything else he wrote.

To respond to Alex in SF from earlier: it is true that I haven't read much other science fiction: I pretty much went from PKD in high school to Plato and Aquinas, who I first encountered in PKD, and now I'm a "professional" philosopher. Alex in SF is probably right that I'm an oddball philosopher as a result, but actually I know a lot of philosophers in the US at least who are, or at least were, huge PKD fans. One of these days I'll get around to teaching a seminar in which I work something from PKD in---for now the best I can usually do is refer to The Matrix.

Hang on to the dream! A couple of years ago Max and I took this class together:

378. LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY: DELEUZE, DERRIDA, AND DICK.

This class will attempt to determine if the post-structuralist insights of two of the 20th century’s greatest literary philosophers can provide a framework adequate to interpret that century’s greatest science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick. Students should be willing to encounter abstract theory, film, and dizzy fiction. May be used as a Group IV course.

Fineman

Holy shit, I'd love that class, mostly because I'm totally that guy

you know what would've been cooler?

http://www.domdeluise.com/gallery/domcasual.jpg

"deleuze derrida and dick" is still probably the best class ive ever taken at any level of education anywhere

at least in terms of pure life-chaning wtfness

^^^that class sounds like exactly ("that century’s greatest science fiction writer". . . yeah riiiiiight) what I am lamenting above^^^

fwiw the prof is a sci fi fan but honestly alex id like to hear who you think is better??

sorry that came out a little aggro, i just mean that i dont think its a weird or ignorant claim to make at all!

lem, delany, moorcock, butler, le guin, herbert, bradbury, heinlein, asimov, sturgeon, vogt, bester, cordwainer smith, etc etc

^^ many of whom are subject to the same "transcending the genre" bs that alex in sf is complaining about upthread ... same reason i left, say, borges and atwood and john collier off the list

Tiptree, Silverberg, Brunner, Malzberg, Ballard, Kuttner/Moore, Knight, Clifton, Blish, Budrys, Kornbluth, etc

To be fair Dick did have more very good novels than most of these folks did, but I don't think he was the best writer of this group by ANY stretch of the imagination and I don't think any of stories would place in the top twenty of this group and maybe one of his novels might make a top ten.

When I say this group I am including a number of names from Vahid's list as well.

esp. Sturgeon and Bester who were NOT lucky enough to be able "transcend the genre" and consequently haved slipped in and out of print for the last 50 years despite writing novels and stories which wipe the floor with just about everything.

I'm kind of in both camps - as a fan of much of what moonship and alex have listed and also as a big booster of Dick's final "trilogy". Altho I can totally see Alex's point that Dick's best, more trad-sci-fi novels (Ubik, Stigmata, Maze of Death, etc.) are actually better written... I re-read Divine Invasion recently and it definitely rose in my estimation. But this is largely because Dick's own pet interests in theology/philosophy mirror my own, so it tends to resonate a little more. There's also something more nakedly emotional about that trilogy, they seem to come from a much deeper, personal place in Dick's psyche (whether that makes them better books is totally debatable, but they do have a heavier emotional impact on ME, as a result of their thematic content).

oh I think Bester totally transcended the genre (as has Moorcock on many many levels, among others).

I have yet to read a full-length Sturgeon novel that really blew me away though (feel free to recommend one!) What I've read has been really mired in 50s psychoanalysis - fairly common for the period, and not bad, but kind of Twilight Zone-ish.

(bear in mind I consider the Twilight Zone to be one of, if not THE best TV show ever so that's not entirely a knock)

Shakey read the (unfortunately titled) The Cosmic Rape.

I'll hunt that down... I read um, something with Medusa in the title and a bunch of his short story omnibus collections.

everyone knows sturgeon wrote for twilight zone, but did you know he wrote for star trek too?

I was aware of both of those tidbits yes

how about frederik pohl, he's pretty badass too

More Than Human is a classic, too, but I can see that some would find (the last section anyway) slightly dated.

Strangely I've never read a Pohl novel not written in conjunction with someone else.

sorry i didnt mean to imply that i thought dick was unequivocally the best sf writer of the century, nor that there arent plenty who had better novels (tho seriously fuck asimov, heinlein & vogt)--just that to call dick the "greatest sf writer of the 20th century" isnt exactly a spurious claim. i mean it sounds to me like this is all backlash--and alex i totally understand what youre saying, the whole "transcends his genre" stuff is crap and far too prevalant (esp. because dick was in a lot of ways one of the worst stylists in his genre). i mean i guess i can see why youre suspicious but it seems silly to automatically disqualify anyone as a sci-fi fan because they liked VALIS or think dick is the best in the century

btw seeing this at the top of new answers warms my heart:

philip k dick C/D, S+D [Started by toby, last updated 15 seconds ago] 44 new answers
who in this bitch reads robert jordan? [Started by di smith (lucylurex), last updated 1 minute ago] 33 new answers
Young Kirk n Spock + Lost = new Star Trek movie [Started by Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), last updated 2 minutes ago] 37 new answers

I am a big Pohl fan and have long considered Jem the best novel written about space colonization ever (besides maybe Red Mars, which takes a couple pages from it anyway). Space Merchants is also fantastic (sequel slightly less so).

"i mean i guess i can see why youre suspicious but it seems silly to automatically disqualify anyone as a sci-fi fan because they liked VALIS or think dick is the best in the century"

I don't think liking VALIS is a disqualification! I just think liking VALIS best makes me distrust your opinions! And stating unequivocally that Dick is the best sci-fi writer ever (cuz really what other century would you pick if not the 20th) is pretty suspicious too.

I think the reason why I give Kornbluth slightly more credit for The Space Merchants than Pohl is that the Syndic is so fantastic too.

haha well there are those whod argue that wells or verne are >>>>>>>>>> than dick

I just mean that Ubik still has a somewhat unpolished and pulpy style to the writing (though it’s funny and fast-paced). It doesn’t bother me, but A Scanner Darkly stands apart in terms of his writing imo, and going from that to something like Three Stigmata (which I love) might be startling.

Xp yeah Three Stigmata has like 15 insane plot twists in the last 50 pages I think.

you've definitely gotta be primed for Three Stigmata, that was maybe the 10th novel of his that I read and honestly I missed a lot, and knowing its reputation, was let down when I finished it. I really need to revisit it. agree that UBIK is pulpy but it's probably the best work of that period of his writing.

I read “Faith of Our Fathers” recently. All-time line - “And I will tell you this: there are things worse than I. But you won't meet them because by then I will have killed you.”

Dr. Bloodmoney for total insanity

I read Martian Time-Slip today, not quite out there like most of his work but man I can't stop loving his books.

yea i wasn't keen on that one either, a lot of people like it

Electric dreams: Autofac was pretty good. Janelle Monae as a customer service bot!

I would not start with UBIK but with the short stories.

This is madness

Just started Skull. Hurrah

PKD's widow Tessa has a youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/busby777/

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ee_H1VMX0AUzLRG?format=jpg&name=small

Schmowen
@themoosemingles

Philip K. Dick, The Germs’ manager Nicole Panter, author KW Jeter, and artist Gary Panter at Philip K. Dick’s Santa Ana condo. Note poster of Fat Freddy of Freak Bros fame.

Marc ʄⁿ Laidlaw
@marc_laidlaw
·
7h

Paul Mavrides tells an amazing story about how he was ghost-drawing a Fat Freddy poster for Shelton just when "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" (which hinges on such a poster, and the possibility it's a forgery (in a forged reality)) appeared in Playboy.

Whole thread is worth reading, but got to go now.

Whole Twitter thread, that is (this one too o course)

Poster is the 'Keed Spills' Freddy anti-speed warning, appropriately/ironically.

PDK seems to have been speed-dependent, to an extent, during extended bouts of writing---for reasons of inspiration, obsession, and/or financial desperation---think he acknowledged it in intro to at least one of his books (A Scanner Darkly, maybe?), and it may well have shortened his life---as William Burroughs observed, there were some old junkies, hardly any old speed freaks.

I think nearly every major work was written in a speed haze or post-74 theophany (tho he still used speed, like that speech in France 1977)

"Non-woven masks better to stop Covid-19, says Japanese supercomputer."