the All-Purpose nuILX Philip K. Dick thread for discussion, bible study, and cat shelter

Dude really liked cats, too.

It's ridiculous how good his ideas are. I got to know him through the 5 short stories compilation books and I remember having to pause after most of them, thinking "sh*t, I knew there's usually a twist at the end, but this? cool!" or "how DID he come up with this? it's sooooo obvious, but he thought it up first..."

hey I just finished that book about a week ago! Its great but I gotta say it left me deeply depressed.

I love him but I'll never forgive the fucker for Valis, even if he was madder than me when he wrote it.

How do you lose a book? I dug out A Scanner Darkly to re-read in anticipation of the film and got about 100 pages in then it disappeared. I didn't leave it at work or on the train and I didn't change bags or anything, but the book has gone. I need to buy it again knowing that when I do I'll find the old copy in my house. PKD means these things to happen.

here it is:

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=41331E2B59DBDAF7

you don't like valis?

Valis messes with your head. Too many identities within identities (Philip K Dick writing about a science fiction writer called Philip K Dick helping Horselover Fat whilst freely admitting that Philip K Dick *is* Horselover Fat iirc - how the fuck does someone get to a point where they're writing this stuff?). Maybe my head wasn't in the right place to start with.

Not that I didn't like it. It's an amazing book. I'm glad he was an established author, otherwise I don't think a work like his would ever see the light of day.

Thanks for the link pkdfan, I'll start reading the pdf in the hope that the book will reappear sometime soon.

I just remembered a friend of mine wrote a review of the Minority Report movie in which he said "Who'd have thought Spielberg was a Dick head?"
:-)

I was really dissatisfied with Valis. How similar were the
two (quasi?) sequels? How's Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said?
So far my favorite PKD book is a collection of later stories,
_I Hope We Shall Arrive Soon_. In the introduction he talked
about how he wrote a scene in _Flow My Tears_, and a fan
pointed out the scene was basically a rewrite of something
from the book of Acts. In typical Dick fashion, this triggered
a brainstorm/ephiphany that that we were still actually in the
1st century AD, and the past 2,000 years of history was a lie
created by the devil to distract us from the approaching
apocalypse. Did he ever use this idea in anything?

Just heard about this:
http://ec3.images-amazon.com/images/P/0765316927.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V63356308_.jpg

"Stuart Hadley is a young radio electronics salesman in early 1950s Oakland, California. He has what many would consider the ideal life; a nice house, a pretty wife, a decent job with prospects for advancement, but he still feels unfulfilled; something is missing from his life. Hadley is an angry young man—an artist, a dreamer, a screw-up. He tries to fill his void first with drinking, and sex, and then with religious fanaticism, but nothing seems to be working, and it is driving him crazy. He reacts to the love of his wife and the kindness of his employer with anxiety and fear.

One of the earliest books that Dick ever wrote, and the only novel that has never been published, Voices from the Street is the story of Hadley’s descent into depression and madness, and out the other side."

http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Street-Philip-K-Dick/dp/0765316927/