Comments on Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Experience: Mind-Shattering Novels of Philip K. Dick

Thank you Matthew for this insight... Gene Wolfe i...

2009-07-07T19:43:01.089-07:00

Thank you Matthew for this insight... Gene Wolfe is a must-read, but his writing is also uneven, alas.

Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch is not to be unr...

2009-07-07T14:31:04.786-07:00

Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch is not to be unread. Some of the best SciFi films in the last 30 years have been based on PKD's stories.

The only PKD novel I read was Ubik. I thought it w...

2009-07-02T13:50:29.967-07:00

The only PKD novel I read was Ubik. I thought it was pretty good but not revelatory. I was fascinated and impressed with some parts but not very much with the work as a whole. I read Gene Wolfe about the same time and I think he is a far more talented writer of bizarre science fiction.
One weakness of PKD is in my eye his language. His style is nothing notable. So are most of his visual descriptions. It seemed to me that his strategy of describing futuristic designs was to avoid describing their appearance but to concentrate on the functions and perhaps general measurements. For the man who is most famous for creating the original for the visual feast of a movie Blade Runner, which is often seen as heralding a new era of aesthetics in scifi (inspiring even William Gibson), this is pretty disappointing.
On the other hand, he has a strength of conveying a certain bodily feeling and things like tricks of the eye.

Reading Michael Moorcock's polemic criticism of PDK's characters in particular, I feel inclined to agree. They are rather types than original inventions. Now you may like his types, but the statement about the mediocre artistry remains. (At least I can agree with my experience of that one novel. Maybe I would change my mind with some other story of his.)

I think his existential themes and effects of philosophical confusion are very interesting, but other authors, such as Gene Wolfe, handle them with greater ease and mastership of style.

Great reviews! Love the pictures by Tim Warnock!

2008-12-27T11:32:00.000-08:00

Great reviews! Love the pictures by Tim Warnock!

Thank you Michael, you're right - I made it more c...

2008-12-27T10:19:00.000-08:00

Thank you Michael, you're right - I made it more clear. All this adds to "The Truman Show" dimension of this story...

Umm, the description of "The Penultimate Truth" is...

2008-12-27T03:48:00.000-08:00

Umm, the description of "The Penultimate Truth" is plain wrong. In the novel, most of Earth's population is indeed underground, making robots. But above ground, it's not robots who control things. It's a human elite, the former leaders and top bureaucracy from both sides, who enjoy the depopulated earth and control large estates while their human brethren suffer underground. The robots made by the underground humans are simply used as servants. In Dick's world, robots are usually untrustworthy... but the establishment, the human political leadership and the captains of industry, are even worse.

Excellent reviews of extraordinary writings of:a. ...

2008-12-26T10:50:00.000-08:00

Excellent reviews of extraordinary writings of:

a. a demented mind
b. the last sane man on Earth
c. a secret conspiracy to enslave robots and free mankind
d. a secret conspiracy to enslave mankind and free robots
e. all of the above

As a longstanding PDK fan, I'm going with "e".

Thank you for bringing PDK to the attention of those who have never heard of him. He was a remarkable man possesed by a phenomenal mind.