The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick, 1980-1982

The issue of the SFRA Review containing my review of The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick vol. 5: 1980-1982 has been posted at the SFRA's website. An excerpt:

Those familiar with the previous volumes of Dick's letters will know, more or less, what to expect of this one. Dick is still exploring and expounding upon his religious experiences of early 1974, and much of this volume consists of extended philosophical speculations. (Indeed, most of the book's first hundred pages are a single series of letters sent to Patricia Warrick, author of Mind in Motion: The Fiction of Philip K. Dick,in January 1981). But philosophical exegesis is not all that was going on in Dick's life and mind in this period, and this volume presents vital information about other aspects of his work as well. Dick's final two novels—The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer—were written during this period, and several letters shed light on their composition. A pair of letters to Ursula K. Le Guin (137 and 150–151) show Dick reflecting on the often-problematic nature of his female characters, and even suggest that Angel Archer, the protagonist of Transmigration and undoubtedly Dick's most carefully thought-out female character, grew at least in part in response to Le Guin's criticisms. Two letters (to Russell Galen, 89–92, and to David Hartwell, 154–156) contain detailed plot outlines for novels that were never written. Elsewhere, we can glean information about Dick's knowledge of William S. Burroughs (145), Alfred North Whitehead (148), and Martin Luther (251). Other letters show Dick's thoughts on the publication of VALIS and his response to the novel's reviews, his shifting opinions on the film Blade Runner, and his brief love affair, a mere four months before his death, with a young woman known only as "Sandra." Needless to say, there is much to reward the PKD researcher in this volume.

Read the full review, plus the rest of the issue, here (it's on p. 9-10 of the PDF).