philip k dick C/D, S+D

in related news i continue to believe the Exegesis is one of the best bathroom books out there

haven't read much of it yet, it has the RS story from 1974 and other conversations with PKD. highly recommended from all the fans i know. i'm working my way through all of his novels rn, just started time out of joint

I ended up subscribing to Amazon Prime in order to get a christmas gift out in time and decided to check out Man in the High Castle. I have not read a lot of PKD, and haven't read the book, but judging on its own merits the show was pretty middling. Basically I was fascinated by any of the characters who had a role in government, and found the rest veering between incredibly tiresome to downright idiotic. The plotting is generally good at keeping up tension but to what end? Parts of it seem like LOST-level stringing the viewer along. The writing- especially the dialogue, is pretty bad, way too much reliance on contemporary usage of "fuck" & "fucking" for emphasis. It's not the kind of thing I could imagine another 10 hours of.

I loved the pilot when it came out a year ago but I'm struggling to finish the series. The universe they're in is so much more fascinating than the story they're telling. I want a big city detective show in Nazi-controlled America.

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The universe they're in is so much more fascinating than the story they're telling. I want a big city detective show in Nazi-controlled America.

I would totally watch a procedural with Tagomi and Chief Inspector Kido

This is neat. Awesome soundtrack, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcatGSYtzQ0

If all goes well, next week I'll be moving into the neighborhood several blocks away from where PKD had his 2-3-74 visions.

Wasn't intentional, just worked out that way.

Recently I've been reading a lot of the novels I'd passed on before: Eye in the Sky, Game Players of Titan, The Simulacra, The Penultimate Truth and (currently) Lies, Inc. ... most of these are from his freakish burst of 10 novels in 1963-64, when he was running wild with the multiple-point-of-view approach developed for The Man in the High Castle.

Of these I've enjoyed Game Players the most for its creepiness and high-speed closing chapters, The Simulacra least as more disjointed and less energetic in its treatment of his usual themes (propaganda accepted as reality, hapless Everymen living in collectives, is-he-or-isn't-he human?). But the cover of this library copy is nice:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e8/TheSimulacra(1stEd).jpg

The Man in the High Castle (TV show) isn't very good is it? The world is impressively realised, but the characters are mostly boring, not helped by the casting of generic pretty young things. The older cast members are generally decent, but it's not enough really. Also, I know a show about Nazi controlled America is never going to be a barrel of laughs but this is humourless to the point of dreary. Plus it has even worse opening credit music than Homeland. Eight episodes in and not sure I can even be bothered to watch the final two.

The final 2 episodes is where it sort of gets interesting.

Ha:

http://www.clickhole.com/quiz/how-many-these-philip-k-dick-novels-have-you-read-4579

huh Conduit for Sale! does sound like a PKD title

I already posted this in the clickhole thread, but I liked the result I got:

You’re A True Philip K. Addickt!

Lord alive, but when it comes to Philip K. Dick, you’re unstoppable! From the beginningless daymares of Runcifer Cale to the unforgettable twist of Blind, Underwater! (it’s apples), you’ve experienced just about everything his tortured mind had to offer! And now he’s dead, and each re-read milks a little less magic out of his words, and bit by bit, the spark behind them will fade and flicker out, until you’re left in a colder, darker world, a prisoner of an empty future! Wow!

accurate!

Not a prob, I still haven't read nearly everything, incl. most of his non-SF novels. They're all towering here and there, in this room and the next, not really waiting.

You’re A Dick Disdainer!

It looks like you haven’t read a word of Philip K. Dick! You couldn’t know less about how our reality actually exists only in the mind of a young girl trapped in perpetual cryogenesis to halt the spread of her genetically engineered cancer! You have just no idea that that’s what reality actually is! Get out there and read more, for Phil’s sake!

You’re A Bit Of A Phil-O-Phile!

Hey, all right! You’ve read your fair share of Phil Dick! You’re probably plenty familiar with concepts like the Twin Planes of Electrific Dissonance, the Klein-Byrne device, and meta-anamnetic counter-remembrance, and if you found out that you were just a shell persona engineered by chess-playing androids from outside of linear time, you wouldn’t be all that surprised. That is a good and healthy way for your brain to be!

You’re A True Philip K. Addickt!

Lord alive, but when it comes to Philip K. Dick, you’re unstoppable! From the beginningless daymares of Runcifer Cale to the unforgettable twist of Blind, Underwater! (it’s apples), you’ve experienced just about everything his tortured mind had to offer! And now he’s dead, and each re-read milks a little less magic out of his words, and bit by bit, the spark behind them will fade and flicker out, until you’re left in a colder, darker world, a prisoner of an empty future! Wow!

"Father Of Plasma, Mother Of Centipedes!"

lmao @ 'And the Plexi-Bishop Played Dice'

i just finished The Divine invasion, really good, but fuck i'm gonna need to read that one again.

Silverbob argues in one of his essays that all fictional stories follow a single template: protagonist -> conflict -> transformation. Made me think that Dick's rather unique contribution to this paradigm was to constantly undermine the reader's certainty that any of this does, in fact, happen in his stories. So many instances where these various elements are put into doubt (is the protagonist really transformed, or is he just crazy? Was the conflict illusory? etc)

I read a version of that argument in Silverberg's anthology Worlds of Wonder quite recently. He doesn't quite say that "all fictional stories follow a single template", rather that the protagonist>conflict>transformation formula (which is also the Syd Field three act screenwriting formula) was especially well suited to producing consistently saleable science fiction short stories in the 1950s (and even then, he acknowledges that certain writers didn't follow the formula, or successfully inverted or subverted it).

^Highly recommend that anthology.

I can't remember the specific essay I was thinking of - I think it was in this: http://nonstoppress.com/2010/12/silverbergs-musings-meditations/. I don't disagree that there are nuances to this theory but I do recall him literally saying "really, there's only ONE story, and it goes like this..."

Didn't attend but found out about a Spanish PKD adaptation through this post: https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/back-to-the-future-androids-dream-and-el-futuro

Late but wow, I'd like to see that.

Also I'm re-reading Confessions of a Crap Artist. Just so y'all know.

I thought Confessions was really good, and made me wonder about a world where he'd been a mainstream-only writer. A sadder, emptier world, obviously.

I have been working through the Library of America collection of PK Dick on and off over the past year. Just recently finished reading Dr. Bloodmoney and Martian Time-Slip for the first time. Dr. Bloodmoney was pretty good. There is such a odd dreaminess to his stories. Most of the first volume I had read before except Ubik.

Bloodmoney's one of my favorites

I love Bloodmoney, too, and Ubik.

I thought Confessions was really good, and made me wonder about a world where he'd been a mainstream-only writer.

I'm really enjoying it - I'd forgotten most of it so it's sort of fresh, it really has a unique feel. It's definitely making me want to check out what other non sci-fi stuff I can find by him.

I liked The Broken Bubble a lot

I've got The Exegesis Of but don't think I really give a toss about the endless gnostic / Manichean speculations except where distilled as metaphysical fiction.

The Exegesis has value as an art object and as a grand publishing folly, rather than as a text to be read and deciphered, imho.

great bathroom book

I've very gradually (as they come back into affordable print) accumulated all the non-SF PKD novels I know of, but so far have only read Mary and the Giant and The Broken Bubble, which is kind of a follow-up, though I guess several deal with Bay Area culture of the early 50s---not Beat (so far), but a different kind of realism anyway...I liked these two.

Also ones finally in print, incl. Gather Yourselves Together (apparently completed in 1950, pub. '95) and Voices From The Street (1952/2007!)

This looks like it might be legitimately amazing:

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/philip-k-dicks-electric-dreams

Also I clearly need to read more of his short stories - I only have vol 1 out of the collection of 5. Might now wait till after this airs though.

presumably this is channel 4's reaction to losing black mirror to netflix but either way i'm psyched to see more dick on teevee

don't see any dates on air time, any ideas?

to be announced - here as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick%27s_Electric_Dreams

I visited PKD's grave in Fort Morgan, Colorado today. Someone had left a toy car on it, another had left a button with a vintage cartoon robot picture. Both had been there for a long time.

I'd post pictures right now but I'm drunk in a Nebraska cattle pasture awaiting the solar eclipse.

Elvis appears to be having the best day ever

lol

Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award winner Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire, Boss Baby)

The cat looks like him

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4425/36729235205_cee1c301b4_z.jpg

9.00 on ch4 tonight, first of the Electric Dreams. Just a reminder for UKer's

eh

is this any cop? The Graun seem to like it, but I have no faith in Ch4's ability to not make a dog's breakfast out of sci-fi dystopias.

Den of Geek gave it a good right up too

*write

have any of you watched it? what did you think?

Watched about 10 minutes earlier but then stopped as thought my wife might want to watch it too (she's not usually a big fan of sci-fi).

Seemed pretty decent and well shot with a bit of a film noir vibe about it. As it's an anthology series I guess some episodes will be better than others.