Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Ubik
by Philip K. Dick
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Book Summary Information
Author: Philip K. DickEditor: Jonathan Lethem
Edition: Hardcover
Published: 2007-05-10
ISBN: 1598530097
Number of pages: 900
Publisher: Library of America
Book Reviews of Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Ubik
Book Review: Welcome to the dark, thrilling, paranoid world of PKD
Summary: 5 Stars
Plaudits to the Library of America for adding the unique and radical genre fiction of Philip K. Dick to their canon of American masterworks. Science fiction fans have long espoused the genius of Dick's revelatory vision of a future world gone wildly out of control. His prose is never wordy, pretentious, or convoluted - the plots are already confusing enough. The typical Dick story is hyper-fast-paced, dropping the reader right into the action with little preparatory exposition, and no sooner do you think you've got a handle on what's going on than he starts throwing major league curves at you. In the dangerous and unfriendly future, Dick's characters are always frantically caught up in the struggle to survive, only to find out that their situation isn't nearly as cut and dried as they'd believed. In contrast to Proust, who tried to show us that life was only what we thought it was, Philip K. Dick, amidst the turbulence of the 1960's, deals with the discovery that your life is NOT what you thought it was. What's often missed is how skillfully Dick fits this revelation into the context of his novels; we aren't so much suddenly in a different world than we were at the beginning of the story than simply more aware of the reality (or non-reality) of our situation than we had been. This sometimes causes some major plot malfunctions, since after all, once you realize that you're dead (for example) priorities can change dramatically, and that's why the conclusions usually don't tie things up in a neat little package. Dick tends to disdain predictable plots and pat endings. Often there's no real resolution at all, but merely a recognition of the true state of affairs, and yes, some readers will find this off-putting, but isn't this more realistic than having the hero beat the villain and then living happily ever after? Like all of Dick's work, these novels are dark, crazy, explosive, and suspenseful and often very funny as well. But if you're self-assured enough to face a world gone totally mad, Dick has some thrilling tales to tell.
Summary of Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Ubik
Known in his lifetime primarily to readers of science fiction, Philip K. Dick (1928-82) is now seen as a uniquely visionary figure, a writer who, in editor Jonathan Lethem's words, "wielded a sardonic yet heartbroken acuity about the plight of being alive in the twentieth century, one that makes him a lonely hero to the readers who cherish him." Posing the questions "What is human?" and "What is real?" in a multitude of fascinating ways, Dick produced works-fantastic and weird yet developed with precise logic, marked by wild humor and soaring flights of religious speculation-that are startlingly prescient imaginative responses to 21st-century quandaries.This Library of America volume brings together four of Dick's most original novels. The Man in the High Castle (1962), which won the Hugo Award, describes an alternate world in which Japan and Germany have won World War II and America is divided into separate occupation zones. The dizzying The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) posits a future in which competing hallucinogens proffer different brands of virtual reality. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), about a bounty hunter in search of escaped androids in a postapocalyptic future, was the basis for the movie Blade Runner. Ubik (1969), with its future world of psychic espionage agents and cryogenically frozen patients inhabiting an illusory "half-life," pursues Dick's theme of simulated realities and false perceptions to ever more disturbing conclusions. As with most of Dick's novels, no plot summary can suggest the mesmerizing and constantly surprising texture of these astonishing books.
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