2022, The Summer of Dick
Imagine four or five novels by the same author mashed together into a single volume the size of an encyclopedia! Over eight-hundred pages, some well over a thousand! Library of America. That’s where I found Philip K. Dick at my local library, in these fantastic collections of novels published through Library of America, a non-profit entity that’s sole purpose is to prevent the loss of great literary works. The first volume I read contained four novels, Man in the High Castle, Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep (which was made into the movie, Blade Runner), and Ubik.
I’ll be honest, though. When I started reading Man in the High Castle (which was turned into an American TV series), I put it down after one paragraph. “What the hell is this?” I picked up the book again, read a bit more, then stopped again. I consider myself a fairly patient reader, and even though it wasn’t the sci fi genre I had braced myself for, I wasn’t sure what it was. Nevertheless, I pushed on. And am so thankful I did, and over this past summer read thirteen of Dick’s novels back to back
However, don’t expect Dick to slow the narrative to explain terms such as, “conapt,” or “andy,” or “Pre-Fash.” Nor will he translate German phrases he sprinkles through his prose. Dick dumps his reader right into this futuristic world so the reader will feel like a part of it, Dick never risking the chance of spoiling the dream with cumbersome clarifications. Rest assured, meaning comes, eventually, which can leave a reader on uneven ground for a bit.
Dick’s work may be an acquired taste, at least it was for me, but so worth the effort. A remarkable writer, hands down. His work transcends the usual mélange of machinery and technologies, and instead, focuses on the human foibles, politics and dramas nestled into the chrysalis of a foreign landscape. Yes, there may be far-out gadgetry and ingeniously conceived devices, even space transports, but never to the detriment of great writing and living-breathing flesh-covered characters.
But it’s also Dick’s sense of humor, his fusion of the everyday and the fantastic, and his prescient, fearless wrangling with the nature of reality that kept me wanting more. Dick earned my trust as a reader early on. Even when I thought I knew where he was headed, I was always wrong; Dick constantly delivering something new. In one of his novels, he tinkers with the most cliché of all clichés; the waking from a dream motif! “Seriously?” I uttered to myself, chuckling, knowing, or at least believing, and hoping full well there was more to it, as the story wasn't over. And where he finally went awed me as a writer… and as a reader, left me gobsmacked!
Sadly, some of Dick’s work has been lost to us forever. Tom Doherty Associates has managed to resurrect some of his more mainstream work, published under the TOR imprint. Currently, I am reading one of his novels from TOR, Voices from the Street, and am constantly blown away by Dick’s fluid, evocative prose!
Dick’s other novels—Martian Time Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney or How We Got Along After the Bomb, Now Wait for Last Year, Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, A Scanner Darkly, A Maze Of Death, VALIS (the writing of VALIS a story in and of itself), The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer—I devoured one after another over the past summer in these huge Library of America volumes.
I’ll be honest, though. When I started reading Man in the High Castle (which was turned into an American TV series), I put it down after one paragraph. “What the hell is this?” I picked up the book again, read a bit more, then stopped again. I consider myself a fairly patient reader, and even though it wasn’t the sci fi genre I had braced myself for, I wasn’t sure what it was. Nevertheless, I pushed on. And am so thankful I did, and over this past summer read thirteen of Dick’s novels back to back
However, don’t expect Dick to slow the narrative to explain terms such as, “conapt,” or “andy,” or “Pre-Fash.” Nor will he translate German phrases he sprinkles through his prose. Dick dumps his reader right into this futuristic world so the reader will feel like a part of it, Dick never risking the chance of spoiling the dream with cumbersome clarifications. Rest assured, meaning comes, eventually, which can leave a reader on uneven ground for a bit.
Dick’s work may be an acquired taste, at least it was for me, but so worth the effort. A remarkable writer, hands down. His work transcends the usual mélange of machinery and technologies, and instead, focuses on the human foibles, politics and dramas nestled into the chrysalis of a foreign landscape. Yes, there may be far-out gadgetry and ingeniously conceived devices, even space transports, but never to the detriment of great writing and living-breathing flesh-covered characters.
But it’s also Dick’s sense of humor, his fusion of the everyday and the fantastic, and his prescient, fearless wrangling with the nature of reality that kept me wanting more. Dick earned my trust as a reader early on. Even when I thought I knew where he was headed, I was always wrong; Dick constantly delivering something new. In one of his novels, he tinkers with the most cliché of all clichés; the waking from a dream motif! “Seriously?” I uttered to myself, chuckling, knowing, or at least believing, and hoping full well there was more to it, as the story wasn't over. And where he finally went awed me as a writer… and as a reader, left me gobsmacked!
Sadly, some of Dick’s work has been lost to us forever. Tom Doherty Associates has managed to resurrect some of his more mainstream work, published under the TOR imprint. Currently, I am reading one of his novels from TOR, Voices from the Street, and am constantly blown away by Dick’s fluid, evocative prose!
Dick’s other novels—Martian Time Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney or How We Got Along After the Bomb, Now Wait for Last Year, Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, A Scanner Darkly, A Maze Of Death, VALIS (the writing of VALIS a story in and of itself), The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer—I devoured one after another over the past summer in these huge Library of America volumes.
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