Philip K Dick

Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American writer known for his work in science fiction. A master of dystopian fiction, he wrote 44 published novels and approximately 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime.

If nothing else, everyone knows him because of the 1982 movie Bladerunner, which was based on his book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Sadly, he died only months before the movie's release.

I read this book back in 2015 but have not read anything further up till now. It was only after I started watching the Amazon TV alternative history series The Man in the High Castle that I decided to revisit Philip K Dick and read some more. This series was started in 2015 and finished its fourth and final series in 2019. It is a superb piece of television. His novel The Man in the High Castle (1962) earned Dick early acclaim, including a Hugo Award for Best Novel, when he was just 33 years old.

The first two cabs off the rank were

 

Second Variety (1953)

This is a science fiction novelette by Dick, first published in Space Science Fiction magazine, in May 1953. Set in a world where war between the Soviet Union and United Nations has reduced most of the world to a barren wasteland, the story concerns the discovery, by the few remaining soldiers left, that self-replicating robots originally built to assassinate Soviet agents have gained sentience and are now plotting against both sides. It is one of many stories by Dick to examine the implications of nuclear war, particularly after it has destroyed much or all of the planet.

The story was adapted into the movie Screamers in 1995. The short story Jon's World, written in 1954, serves as a sequel.

 

The Zap Gun (1957)

This was written in 1964 and first published under the title Project Plowshare as a serial in the November 1965 and January 1966 issues of Worlds of Tomorrow magazine.

The novel is set in a then-future 2004. There is still a (theoretical) Cold War between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies. At the elite governmental level, however, both "sides" have secretly come to an agreement. They have decided that, instead of continuing the ecologically and economically crippling nuclear and conventional arms race, they will pretend to be constantly developing new weapons, which are then "plowshared". This means that these items are transformed into novel but baroque consumer products. Most of these weapon designers are mediums, who create their new designs in trance states. 

One Wes-Bloc weapons designer, Lars Powderdry (Mr. Lars of Mr. Lars Incorporated) is the central character. His female Peep-East counterpart is Lilo Topchev. There is also a subplot related to alien invasion and a further subplot about a conspiracy theorist who is elected as an "average man" to the governing body of Wes-Bloc. 

It's a complex tale from a very complex and imaginative mind. I really enjoyed it and found an amusing undertone that fitted in well.

Both came across as very innovative SciFi writing. 

So much to read.....I bought a copy of The Man in the High Castle (Penguin Classics 2017 edition) in early 2021 and lent it to a couple of my sons to read. Now onto my own review. 

The Man In The High Castle (1962)

The book features all the same characters as the TV Series but is NOT the TV Series which has borrowed from the story and completely rewritten it for a modern TV audience. Not that I have any concerns with this, they have done a fantastic job.

First to a brief synopsis of the book: This an alternative history novel where the Axis Powers won the Second World War. The story occurs in 1962, fifteen years after the end of the war in 1947, and depicts the political intrigues between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany as they rule the partitioned United States. The plot includes The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a novel-within-the-novel, which is an alternative history of the Second World War wherein the Allies defeat the Axis Powers.

It's a frightening glimpse of how our world could been if the Axis Powers had won the World War II.

I was reminded of Fatherland, a 1992 alternative history detective novel by English writer and journalist Robert Harris. This was also a novel in which the Nazis had won the war and is an excellent read. I also have that book in my home library.
 
MITHC is a hard book to read for an English purist like me, given the choppy, grammatically incorrect sentences? They are reminiscent of the way some Japanese speak English so perhaps that was a purposeful ploy to illustrate how the new Japanese order had filtered through everywhere, even into the way English was spoken/thought in the Japanese west coast. The new ruling class had effected just about every facet of American life.

The Japanese philosophical approach to life is to the fore, and the use of the I Ching (the Chinese book of divination) by both Japanese and Americans is another indication of the Japanisation of American life.

The characters are not developed particularly well, nor do they come across as particularly likeable people to whom you would be drawn. At just over 200 pages, this is perhaps understandable. Most of the short book is taken up with painting the picture of the alternate America, under Axis rule, and that is done very well.

Definitely a disturbing and strange read but a good one. The end is very much mid sentence. Juliana has just seen Hawthorne Abendsen and he has recognised her as a major disruptor, a theme that is developed further in the TV series.

In a 1976 interview, Dick said he planned to write a sequel novel to The Man in the High Castle: "And so there's no real ending on it. I like to regard it as an open ending. It will segue into a sequel sometime." Dick started several times to write the sequel but it was not to be. It now stands alone as a once off concept, with its relatively unfinished finish.

In 2017, 3 well known writers picked their favourite Philip K Dick books in https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/27/philip-k-dick-best-novels-blade-runner-minority-report

Puttering About in a Small Land - Nicola Barker
Time Out of Joint - Michael Moorcock
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Adam Roberts

In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik (1969) one of the hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923.

I think I should read Ubik next.