Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick (December 16 1928 — March 2 1982), often known by his initials PKD, and sometimes by the pen name Richard Phillips, was an American science fiction writer and novelist who changed the genre profoundly. Though hailed during his lifetime by peers such as Stanisław Lem, Dick received little public recognition until after his death, when several popular film adaptations of his novels introduced him to a larger audience. His work is now some of the most popular in science fiction, and Dick has gained both general acclaim and critical respect, though, sadly, most of the popular interest in his work has occured after his death.
Dick consistently explored the themes of the nature of reality and humanity in his novels, which were populated by common working people, rather than galactic elites. Foreshadowing the cyberpunk sub-genre, Dick brought the anomic world of Southern California to many of his works. His acclaimed novel, The Man in the High Castle (1963, winner of the Hugo Award), is a pioneering work bridging the genres of alternative history and science fiction. He also produced a tremendous number of short stories and minor works which were published in pulp magazines.
His works are characterized by a constantly eroding sense of reality, with protagonists often discovering that those close to them (or even they themselves) are secretly robots, aliens, supernatural beings, brainwashed spies, hallucinations, dead, from another time or a combination of these.
There is evidence to suggest that Dick had schizophrenia.
Early life
Philip K. Dick was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Dorothy Kindred Dick. His father, Edgar Dick, was a fraud investigator for the United States Department of Agriculture. He had a twin sister, Jane. They were born six weeks premature, and Jane died on 26 January 1929. Shortly thereafter, the family moved to California.
Dick's parents divorced when he was young, and he grew up with his mother. He went to high school in Berkeley and briefly attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he majored in German. He sold records and was a disc jockey before selling his first story in 1952. He wrote full-time, more or less, from that time forward. He sold his first novel in 1955. The 1950s were a hard-scrabble time for Dick, so much so that, as he once said, "we couldn't even pay the late fees on a library book." He associated with the pre-1960s counterculture of California and was sympathetic to beat poets and the Communist Party. There is some dispute regarding the latter and Dick later admitted to being literally thrown out of at least one of their rallies. In 1963, he won the Hugo Award for The Man in the High Castle. Dick was opposed to the Vietnam War and had a file at the FBI as a result.
Though Dick was hailed as a genius at this time in the SF world, the literary world as a whole was as yet unappreciative, and so he could only publish books at low-paying SF publishers. Consequently, while he would regularly publish novels for the next several years, he continued to struggle financially and psychologically. Even in his later years, he continued to have financial troubles. In the introduction to the 1980 short story collection "The Golden Man", Dick writes:
- "Several years ago, when I was ill, Heinlein offered his help, anything he could do, and we had never met; he would phone me to cheer me up and see how I was doing. He wanted to buy me an electric typewriter, God bless him--one of the few true gentlemen in the world. I don't agree with any of the ideas he puts forth in his writing, but that is neither here nor there. One time, when I owed the IRS a lot of money and couldn't raise it, Heinlein loaned the money to me. I think a great deal of him and his wife; I dedicated a book to him in appreciation. Robert Heinlein is a fine looking man, very impressive and military in stance; you can tell he has a military background, even to the haircut. He knows I'm a flipped out freak and still he helped me and my wife when we were in trouble. That is the best in humanity, there; that is who and what I love."
This excerpt shows not only that Dick was continually having monetary troubles, but also the regard other SF writers had for him. Robert Heinlein was Dick's opposite in almost every way--certainly in politics, lifestyle, and writing style--yet they admired each other's work. Dick said of Heinlein in the same introduction, "...I consider Heinlein my spiritual father, even though our political ideologies are totally at variance."
Dick and his visions
In his youth, around the age of thirteen, Dick had a recurring dream for a number of weeks. He dreamt that he was in a bookstore, trying to find an issue of Astounding Magazine. This issue, when he found it, would contain a story called "The Empire Never Ended", which would reveal to him the secrets of the universe. As the dream repeated, the pile of magazines through which he was searching got smaller and smaller, but he never reached the bottom of it. Eventually, he became anxious that discovering the magazine would drive him mad (like the Lovecraftian Necronomicon, promising insanity to its readers). Shortly thereafter, the dreams stopped. They never returned, but the phrase "The Empire Never Ended" would appear in his later works. Template:QuoteSidebar
On 20 February 1974 he was recovering from the effects of sodium pentothal administered after the extraction of an impacted wisdom tooth. Answering the door to receive a delivery of additional painkillers, he noticed the woman delivering the package was wearing a pendant with what he called the "vesicle pisces". (He probably was referring to the intersecting arcs of the vesica piscis.) After her departure, Dick began experiencing strange visions. Although this may have initially been attributed to the painkillers, after weeks of these visions, such a rationale becomes less probable. Throughout February and March of 1974 he received a series of visions which he collectively referred to as 2-3-74, shorthand for February/March of 1974. He described his initial visions as laser beams and geometric patterns, and occasionally brief pictures of Jesus and ancient Rome, which he would glimpse periodically. As the pictures increased in length and frequency, Dick claimed that he began to live a double life, one as himself and one as Thomas, a Christian persecuted by Romans in the 1st century A.D. Despite his current and past drug use, Dick accepted these visions as reality, believing that he had been contacted by a god-entity of some kind, which he referred to as Zebra, God, and most often VALIS.
VALIS
VALIS is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System; he used this term as the title of one of his novels (and continued the theme in at least three more books) and later theorized that VALIS was both a "reality generator" and a means of extraterrestrial communication. VALIS has been described as one node of an artificial satellite network originating from the star Fomalhaut in the Pisces constellation. According to Dick, the Earth satellite used "pink laser beams" to transfer information and project holograms on Earth and to facilitate communication between an extraterrestrial species and humanity. Dick claimed that VALIS used "disinhibiting stimuli" to prep the subjects for communication, in one case the symbol of the vesicle pisces. He wrote about this experience and his beliefs that the Roman empire never ended in detail in his essay, "How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later".
At one point, during an encounter with the VALIS, Dick learned that his infant son was in danger of perishing from an unnamed malady. Routine checkups on the child had shown no trouble or illness; however, Dick insisted that thorough tests be run to ensure his son's health. The doctor eventually complied, despite the fact that there were no apparent symptoms. During the examination doctors discovered an inguinal hernia, which would have killed the child if an operation was not quickly performed. His son survived thanks to the operation, which Dick accredited to the "intervention" of VALIS.
Another event was an episode of glossolalia. Dick's wife transcribed the sounds she heard him speak, and discovered that he was speaking Koiné Greek, an ancient dialect which he had never studied. As Dick was to later discover, Koiné Greek was originally used to write the New Testament and the Septuagint. However, this was not the first time Dick had experienced glossolalia. A decade earlier, Dick claimed he was able to think, speak, and read fluent Latin under the influence of Sandoz LSD-25.
In his essay, Will the Atomic Bomb Ever be Perfected, And if so, What becomes of Robert Heinlein? Dick mentions that he began seeing pink light during an LSD experience, eight years before he wrote and attributed the so-called pink lasers to VALIS.
Exegesis
Regardless of the feeling that he was somehow experiencing a divine communication, Dick was unable ever to fully rationalize the events. For the rest of his life, he struggled to fully comprehend what was occurring, questioning his own sanity and perception of reality. He transcribed what thoughts he could into an 8,000 page, million word journal dubbed the Exegesis. He spent sleepless nights furiously writing into this journal, in some instances high on large quantities of amphetamines, which no doubt contributed to its eclectic tone. A recurring theme in the Exegesis is Dick's hypothesis that history had been stopped in the 1st century, and that the "Roman Empire never ended." He saw Rome as the pinnacle of materialism, which, after forcing the Gnostics underground 1900 years earlier, had kept the population of the Earth as slaves to worldly possessions. Dick believed that VALIS had contacted him and unnamed others to induce the "impeachment" of Richard M. Nixon, whom Dick believed to be the current Emperor incarnate.
As time went on, he became increasingly paranoid, imagining plots against him perpetrated by the KGB or FBI, who he believed were constantly laying traps for him. At one point he alleged that they had been responsible for a burglary at his house in which various documents had been stolen. However, he later stated that he had probably committed the burglary himself, and then forgotten he had done so.
His later works, especially the Valis trilogy, were heavily autobiographical, many with 2-3-74 references or influences. Dick was also a voracious reader of works on religion, philosophy, metaphysics, and Gnosticism, and these ideas found their way into many of his stories. The final novel to be published during his life was The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, though many more were published posthumously, most notably Lies, Inc. Dick's works may be compared with those of William S. Burroughs, though Dick is arguably less scathing and more philosophical.
Marriages and children
Dick married five times, and had two daughters and a son. All marriages ended in divorce.
- May 1948, to Jeanette Marlin (lasted six months)
- June 1950, to Kleo Apostolides (divorced 1958)
- 1958, to Anne Williams Rubinstein (children: Laura Archer, born 26 February 1960) (divorced 1964)
- 1966 or 1967 (sources conflict), to Nancy Hackett (children: Isolde, usually called "Isa") (divorced 1970)
- 18 April 1973, to Tessa Busby (children: Christopher) (divorced 1976)
Death
Philip K. Dick died on 2 March, 1982, the result of a combination of recurrent strokes accompanied by heart failure.
After his death (he was disconnected from life support on 2 March but his EEG had been isoelectric for five days prior to that), his father Edgar brought his son's body to Fort Morgan, Colorado. When his twin Jane had died, a tombstone had been carved with both of their names on it, and an empty space for Philip's date of death. After fifty-three years, that final date was carved in, and Philip K. Dick was buried beside his sister.
Dick's influence
Like other more famous science fiction authors, several of Dick's stories have been made into movies. Most of these are only loosely based on Dick's original story, using them as a starting-point for a Hollywood action-adventure story. While the most admired is Ridley Scott's classic movie Blade Runner (based on Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) the action film Total Recall faithfully translates a number of Dick themes (in particular from Dick's short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale), as does Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Minority Report. All, however, introduce uncharacteristic violence and replace the typically nondescript Dick protagonist with an action hero.
Dick was apprehensive about how Blade Runner would treat his story; he refused to do a novelization of the film and was critical of it during production, especially with Ridley through articles. When given an opportunity to see some special effects sequences of Los Angeles 2019 Dick was amazed the environment was "exactly as how I'd imagined it!" Following the screening Dick and Ridley had a frank but cordial discussion of Blade Runner themes and characters, and although they had differing views Dick fully backed the film from then on. Tragically Dick passed away from a stroke less than four months before the release of the film.
John Woo's 2003 film, Paycheck, was a very loose adaptation of Dick's short story, and suffered greatly, both at the hands of critics and at the box office.
The 2002 film Impostor is based on Dick's 1953 short story of the same name. Starring Gary Sinise and Madeleine Stowe, the film includes two of Dick's most common themes: mental illness, which diminishes the sufferer's ability to discriminate between reality and hallucination, and a protagonist persecuted by an oppressive government.
The film Screamers (1995) was based on a Dick short story Second Variety; however, the location was altered from a war-devastated Earth in the story to a generic science fiction environment of a distant planet in the film. Second Variety has been cited as an influence on the scenes set in the machine-dominated future of The Terminator (1984) and its sequels.
The French film Barjo is based on Dick's non-sf book Confessions of a Crap Artist.
It has been noted, though the connection (if any) is unknown, that the subjective reality created by the cryonic Life Extension system in Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky and its Spanish original, Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) strongly resembles that of 'half-life' in Dick's Ubik. The 1998 movie The Truman Show bears a similar resemblance to Dick's novel Time Out of Joint. The 1999 David Cronenberg film "eXistenZ" features a reference to "Perky Pat", a recurring name from Dick's books, and takes as its theme virtual reality, on a number of levels.
Since his death, Dick has featured as a character in a number of novels and stories, most notably Michael Bishop's The Secret Ascension (1987; published in the UK under the author's preferred title Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas), set in a Gnostic alternative universe where his non-genre work was published but his science fiction is banned by a totalitarian USA in thrall to a demonically possessed Richard Nixon. Other fictional appearances by Dick include the short play Kindred Blood in Kensington Gore (1992) by Brian W. Aldiss and the Faction Paradox novel Of the City of the Saved... (2004) by Philip Purser-Hallard.
K. W. Jeter's Doctor Adder series has a radio disk jockey who is obviously Dick. Orval Wintermute, translator of the Nag Hammadi codices and major figure in Dick's VALIS mythos lends his name to an artificial intelligence in William Gibson's Neuromancer. Dick's influence is particularly evident in Jonathan Lethem's novels, such as Gun, With Occasional Music (1994), Amnesia Moon (1995), and Girl in Landscape (1998). Hints at Dick's VALIS can also be found in Lethem's last novel, The Fortress of Solitude (2003). Richard Linklater name-checked Dick in the climactic sequence of his experimental film Waking Life(2001) and is currently working on a film adaptation of Dick's A Scanner Darkly employing a similar rotoscoping process to the earlier film.
One influence that may be considered unusually distant from science fiction within "culture space" is the composition by Tod Machover, and performance, of an opera VALIS.
Bibliography
Best-known novels
- The Man in the High Castle, which takes place in an alternate America ruled by the victorious Axis powers, and which features an early exploration by Dick into the questions of false worlds;
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the inspiration for the film Blade Runner, which deals with Dick's themes about replicas of real things;
- Time Out of Joint, another excellent depiction of a man discovering his world to be fake (in many ways very similar to the movie The Truman Show);
- Now Wait for Last Year, a somewhat traditional sf novel involving time travel, Dick's theme of reality-altering drugs, more questions of replicas, and a fine example of Dick's recurring dark-haired female character; and
- Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb, which transposes northern California culture in the early 60's onto a post apocalpytic world and raises questions of politics, society, disability and race.
Novels by year
- 1955
- Solar Lottery
- 1956
- The World Jones Made
- The Man Who Japed
- 1957
- Eye in the Sky
- The Cosmic Puppets
- 1959
- Time Out of Joint
- 1960
- Dr. Futurity
- Vulcan's Hammer
- 1962
- The Man in the High Castle
- 1963
- The Game-Players of Titan (ISBN 0679740651)
- 1964
- Martian Time-Slip
- The Simulacra
- Clans of the Alphane Moon
- The Penultimate Truth
- 1965
- The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
- Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb
- 1966
- The Crack in Space
- Now Wait for Last Year
- The Unteleported Man
- 1967
- Counter-Clock World
- The Zap Gun
- The Ganymede Takeover with Ray Nelson
- 1968
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- 1969
- Ubik
- Galactic Pot-Healer
- 1970
- A Maze of Death
- Our Friends from Frolix 8
- 1972
- We Can Build You
- 1974
- Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
- 1975
- Confessions of a Crap Artist
- 1976
- Deus Irae with Roger Zelazny
- 1977
- A Scanner Darkly
- 1981
- Valis
- The Divine Invasion
- 1982
- The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
- The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike
- 1983
- The Unteleported Man (expanded edition)
- 1984
- Lies, Inc.
- 1985
- Radio Free Albemuth
- Puttering About in a Small Land
- In Milton Lumky Territory
- 1986
- Humpty Dumpty in Oakland
- 1987
- Mary and the Giant
- 1988
- The Broken Bubble
- Nick and the Glimmung (for children)
- 1994
- Gather Yourselves Together
Short stories
The short stories of Philip K. Dick have recently been republished in five omnibus volumes, as follows:
- The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and Other Stories, ISBN 0806511532
- We Can Remember It for You Wholesale and Other Stories, ISBN 0806512091
- Second Variety and Other Stories, ISBN 0806512261
- The Minority Report and Other Stories, ISBN 0806512768
- The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Stories, ISBN 0806513284
- 1952
- Beyond Lies the Wub
- The Gun
- The Little Movement
- The Skull
- The Variable Man
- 1953
- The Builder
- Colony
- The Commuter
- The Cookie Lady
- The Cosmic Poachers
- The Defenders
- Expendable
- The Eyes Have It
- The Great C
- The Hanging Stranger
- The Impossible Planet
- Impostor
- The Indefatigable Frog
- The Infinities
- The King of the Elves
- Martians Come in Clouds
- Mr. Spaceship
- Out in the Garden
- Paycheck
- Piper in the Woods
- Planet for Transients
- The Preserving Machine
- Project: Earth
- Roog
- Second Variety
- Some Kinds of Life
- The Trouble with Bubbles
- The World She Wanted
- 1954
- A World of Talent
- The Last of the Masters
- Adjustment Team
- Beyond the Door
- Breakfast at Twilight
- The Crawlers
- The Crystal Crypt
- Exhibit Piece
- The Father-thing
- The Golden Man
- James P. Crow
- Jon's World
- The Little Black Box
- Meddler
- Of Withered Apples
- A Present for Pat
- Prize Ship
- Progeny
- Prominent Author
- Sales Pitch
- Shell Game
- The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford
- Small Town
- Souvenir
- Strange Eden
- Survey Team
- Time Pawn
- Tony and the Beetles
- The Turning Wheel
- Upon the Dull Earth
- 1955
- Autofac
- Captive Market
- The Chromium Fence
- Foster, You're Dead! In German: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/2797/dick.htm
- The Hood Maker
- Human Is
- The Mold of Yancy
- Nanny
- Psi-man Heal My Child!
- Service Call
- A Surface Raid
- Vulcan's Hammer
- War Veteran
- 1963
- All We Marsmen
- The Days of Perky Pat
- If There Were No Benny Cemoli
- Stand-by
- What'll We Do With Ragland Park?
- 1964
- Cantata 140
- A Game of Unchance
- Novelty Act
- Oh, to be a Blobel!
- Orpheus with Clay Feet
- Precious Artifact
- The Unteleported Man
- The War with the Fnools
- Waterspider
- What the Dead Men Say
- 1968
- Not By Its Cover
- The Story To End All Stories
- 1969
- A. Lincoln, Simulacrum
- The Electric Ant
- 1974
- The Different Stages of Love
- The Pre-persons
- A Little Something For Us Tempunauts
- 1980
- I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon
- Rautavaara's Case
- Chains of Air, Web of Aethyr
- 1981
- The Alien Mind
- 1984
- Strange Memories Of Death
- 1987
- The Day Mr. Computer Fell Out of Its Tree
- The Eye of The Sibyl
- Fawn, Look Back
- Stability
- 1988
- Goodbye, Vincent
- 1989
- 11-17-80
- 1992
- The Name of the Game is Death
Film adaptations of Philip K. Dick's works
- Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) is based on his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven, 1990) is based on his short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.
- Confessions d'un Barjo (Jérôme Boivin, 1992) is based on his novel Confessions of a Crap Artist.
- Screamers (Christian Duguay, 1995) is based on his short story Second Variety.
- Impostor (Gary Fleder, 2000) is based on the short story of the same name. Terry Nation adapated the story into an 1962 episode of the English television series Out of This World, directed by Peter Hammond.
- Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2002) is based on the short story of the same name.
- Paycheck (John Woo, 2003) is based on the short story of the same name.
- A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006) is based on the novel of the same name.
- Next (Lee Tamahori, 2007) is inspired by the short story The Golden Man.
- Dick's personal essay Strange Memories of Death was adapted into a short film of the same name by Yates House Studios, but the film has yet to be distributed.
Awards
- Hugo Awards
- Best Novel
- 1963 - The Man in the High Castle (winner)
- 1975 - Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (nominee)
- Best Novelette
- 1968 - Faith of Our Fathers (nominee)
- Best Novel
- Nebula Awards
- Best Novel
- 1965 - Dr. Bloodmoney (nominee)
- 1965 - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (nominee)
- 1968 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (nominee)
- 1974 - Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (nominee)
- 1982 - The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (nominee)
- Best Novel
- John W. Campbell Memorial Award
- Best Novel
- 1975 - Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (winner)
- Best Novel
Biographies
- Carrere, Emmanuel. Bent, Timothy. (translator) (2005). I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick. Picador. ISBN 0312424515 [reviewed by Michael Saler in the Times Literary Supplement, 5 August 2005, page 10]
- Dick, Ann R. (Former Wife). (1995). Search for Philip K. Dick, 1928-1982: A Memoir and Biography of the Science Fiction Writer. Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 0773491376
- Mason, Daryl. (2006). The Biography of Philip K. Dick. Gollancz. ISBN 0575072806
- Sutin, Lawrence (Official biographer). (1991). Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick. Citadel Press; Rep edition. ISBN 0806512288
- Williams,Paul. (1986). Only Apparently Real - The Worlds of Philip K. Dick. Entwhistle Books. ISBN 0934558310
Interviews
- Apel, D. Scott. (1999). Philip K. Dick : The Dream Connection. The Impermanent Press. ISBN 1886404038
- Lee, Gwen (ed). What If Our World Is Their Heaven? The Final Conversations Of Philip K. Dick. Overlook Press. ISBN 1585673781
See also
- List of science fiction authors
- List of science fiction novels
- List of science fiction short stories
- List of science fiction television
External links
- Official website
- Philip K Dick Biography - PopSubCulture.com - with additional essays and analysis
- Philip K. Dick fans (with many articles & interviews)
- The Philip K. Dick Bookshelf - A complete pictorial bibliography of Philip K Dick with more than 1200 coverscans
- Review of PKD's Selected Stories
- Philip K. Dick at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Philip K. Dick at IMDb
- The PKDicktionary, originally authored by Simon Hickinbotham
- Open Directory entry for Philip K. Dick
- Robert Crumb comic strip about Philip K. Dick's theophany
- A fan's website with an extensive bibliography and many photos
- Philip K. Dick Comes to Life in Robotic Form
- The Second Coming of Philip K. Dick by Frank Rose, an article from Wired about movies based on the Dick's novels
- How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later (Essay by PKD on his "discovery" that we are living in the Roman Empire)
- A Very PhilDickian Existence
- The Secret Gray-Robed Christians
- Benjamen Walker talks with authors Jonathan Lethem and Josh Glenn about the Science Fiction genius Philip K Dick in his podcast.
- NNDB entry for Philip K. Dick
- Examination of Gnostic themes in Dick's life