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The Novels of Philip K. Dick
150 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
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About the author
Kim Stanley Robinson
256 books7,563 followersKim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer. He has published 22 novels and numerous short stories and is best known for his Mars trilogy. His work has been translated into 24 languages. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes and feature scientists as heroes. Robinson has won numerous awards, including the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the World Fantasy Award. The Atlantic has called Robinson's work "the gold standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction writing." According to an article in The New Yorker, Robinson is "generally acknowledged as one of the greatest living science-fiction writers."
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 12, 2020
“Science fiction is this literature of historical meditation, and as such it can be a powerful and important tool of human thought. The history of this young, vital, and important literary genre should therefore be of interest to all; and in this short history Philip K. Dick is one of the major figures.”
The reason I wanted to read this book (beside being written by KSR), was to have a better insight into PKD’s works and to find one to enjoy, because as much as I love SF, I didn’t find so far any book of his on my taste.
KSR begins his thesis with a brief history of SF publications, its origins, promoters, and the Golden Age. PKD became in love with SF at the age of 12 and him aim was to write such stories, but because SF was in its beginnings and they were not among publishers’ choices and couldn’t make a living out of it, he began writing realistic novels. He wrote 8 such novels, from which only one was published, Confessions of a Crap Artist, only 16 years after it was written.
Eventually, his stories started to be published, thus he began writing one after another, being detrimental to the quality of his works:
"Like all professional American science fiction writers of the 1950s and 1960s, he was forced to write hastily in order to make enough money to support himself and his family. He wrote nearly forty novels and over one hundred short stories in thirty years; this includes a period of five years in the mid-1960s during which he published sixteen novels. The result is a very inconsistent group of texts. Several of his novels are trivial commercial efforts, while others contain, side-by-side, illuminating metaphors for our present society and borrowed plots, conveyed in poorly-written prose. Even his best novels are often flawed, sometimes seriously. Such flaws lead us to suspect that Dick was not in full control of his fictions, and that the political analyses they embody were not consciously thought out."
But as the author points out at the end, "As I finish this first description of Dick's entire career as a novelist, I feel sharply its many inadequacies. I wish in particular that I could have made it clearer how funny Dick's novels are, and how important comedy is to his work."
PKD began writing dystopias with heavy critiques of American society, feature which is present in all his works, in various forms. The leap up is considered to be The Man in the High Castle, and the one which propelled him into the SF hall of fame.
“Dick believed that all of these powers – the power of large corporations, the power of self-righteous moralism – were growing in the America of the 1950s, and he emphasized each them in turn, in a process of simple extrapolation. Damon Knight, in the first serious review of these works, describes the process in a nutshell: “Dick has made his future world a distorted mirror-image of our own. The distortion is what makes it science fiction: but the image is what strikes home.””
As a whole, this book is a comprehensive study of his novels and seeing all of them in a big picture, one can see with other eyes PKD’s works, the recurrent themes, the typology of characters and so on.
But I can’t say it sparked any interest in me to try other of his works. I will, though, just out of curiosity, but I’m convinced now that PKD’s novels will never be among my top choices.
KSR also makes brief references of other SF writers and I was surprised to see that we share the same feeling toward Asimov’s Foundation, opinion iterated in a comparison with Olaf Stapledon:
“The Foundation trilogy, in both conception and execution, is often a weak work; yet it received a Hugo award (given by fans at a yearly convention) as Best Science Fiction Series Ever.
It may be objected that this comparison only shows that Stapleton was a stronger writer and thinker than Asimov, and this is probably true. (By this I do not mean to disparage Dr. Asimov, who is an excellent teacher, and a prolific and entertaining writer, and who has written works much superior to the Foundation trilogy; but Olaf Stapleton was a brilliant and very original writer, and few writers if any have matched his achievements in the writing of future histories).”
Overall, an interesting reading. Even that it did not make me a fan of PKD, at least I got to know more of his works, of the beginning of SF in general and bumped Stapledon higher up on my TBR pile.
The reason I wanted to read this book (beside being written by KSR), was to have a better insight into PKD’s works and to find one to enjoy, because as much as I love SF, I didn’t find so far any book of his on my taste.
KSR begins his thesis with a brief history of SF publications, its origins, promoters, and the Golden Age. PKD became in love with SF at the age of 12 and him aim was to write such stories, but because SF was in its beginnings and they were not among publishers’ choices and couldn’t make a living out of it, he began writing realistic novels. He wrote 8 such novels, from which only one was published, Confessions of a Crap Artist, only 16 years after it was written.
Eventually, his stories started to be published, thus he began writing one after another, being detrimental to the quality of his works:
"Like all professional American science fiction writers of the 1950s and 1960s, he was forced to write hastily in order to make enough money to support himself and his family. He wrote nearly forty novels and over one hundred short stories in thirty years; this includes a period of five years in the mid-1960s during which he published sixteen novels. The result is a very inconsistent group of texts. Several of his novels are trivial commercial efforts, while others contain, side-by-side, illuminating metaphors for our present society and borrowed plots, conveyed in poorly-written prose. Even his best novels are often flawed, sometimes seriously. Such flaws lead us to suspect that Dick was not in full control of his fictions, and that the political analyses they embody were not consciously thought out."
But as the author points out at the end, "As I finish this first description of Dick's entire career as a novelist, I feel sharply its many inadequacies. I wish in particular that I could have made it clearer how funny Dick's novels are, and how important comedy is to his work."
PKD began writing dystopias with heavy critiques of American society, feature which is present in all his works, in various forms. The leap up is considered to be The Man in the High Castle, and the one which propelled him into the SF hall of fame.
“Dick believed that all of these powers – the power of large corporations, the power of self-righteous moralism – were growing in the America of the 1950s, and he emphasized each them in turn, in a process of simple extrapolation. Damon Knight, in the first serious review of these works, describes the process in a nutshell: “Dick has made his future world a distorted mirror-image of our own. The distortion is what makes it science fiction: but the image is what strikes home.””
As a whole, this book is a comprehensive study of his novels and seeing all of them in a big picture, one can see with other eyes PKD’s works, the recurrent themes, the typology of characters and so on.
But I can’t say it sparked any interest in me to try other of his works. I will, though, just out of curiosity, but I’m convinced now that PKD’s novels will never be among my top choices.
KSR also makes brief references of other SF writers and I was surprised to see that we share the same feeling toward Asimov’s Foundation, opinion iterated in a comparison with Olaf Stapledon:
“The Foundation trilogy, in both conception and execution, is often a weak work; yet it received a Hugo award (given by fans at a yearly convention) as Best Science Fiction Series Ever.
It may be objected that this comparison only shows that Stapleton was a stronger writer and thinker than Asimov, and this is probably true. (By this I do not mean to disparage Dr. Asimov, who is an excellent teacher, and a prolific and entertaining writer, and who has written works much superior to the Foundation trilogy; but Olaf Stapleton was a brilliant and very original writer, and few writers if any have matched his achievements in the writing of future histories).”
Overall, an interesting reading. Even that it did not make me a fan of PKD, at least I got to know more of his works, of the beginning of SF in general and bumped Stapledon higher up on my TBR pile.
August 8, 2023
Definitiv ein lohnenswertes Buch, wenn man mit dem Werk Philip K. Dicks bereits gut vertraut ist. KSR eröffnet eine SciFi-Geschichte, in der er PKD als eine der zentralen genrekonventionen-überwindenden Figuren präsentiert. Mir gefiel die Mischung aus tiefer Analyse des Hauptwerks und der Kritik an den schwächeren Romanen.
Da ich einige Bücher des Autors noch nicht kenne, habe ich die Abschnitte über "Nach der Bombe", "Die Clans des Alpha-Mondes", "Der galaktische Topfheiler", "Der dunkle Schirm" und die "VALIS"-Trilogie erst einmal ausgelassen und habe sie mir markiert für eine Nachlese, sobald ich die Lektüren der jeweiligen Romane nachgeholt habe. Freue mich nun noch mehr auf das weitere Entdecken seiner vielfältigen, verrückten Romane!
Da ich einige Bücher des Autors noch nicht kenne, habe ich die Abschnitte über "Nach der Bombe", "Die Clans des Alpha-Mondes", "Der galaktische Topfheiler", "Der dunkle Schirm" und die "VALIS"-Trilogie erst einmal ausgelassen und habe sie mir markiert für eine Nachlese, sobald ich die Lektüren der jeweiligen Romane nachgeholt habe. Freue mich nun noch mehr auf das weitere Entdecken seiner vielfältigen, verrückten Romane!
October 16, 2021
A really interesting overview of PKD's work, that functions almost as much as an interesting insight into the the ways that KSR thought about science fiction as he was starting his career. Most clearly to me, the dichotomy between realism and science fiction that KSR reads as central to PKD's life and work are two threads that KSR himself so clearly works to entwine in his own work.
There are some interesting aspects missing from the book however. On an academic sense, there is no significant engagement with theory and the epistemological groundings of the review. In this sense, and despite the brief points where the epistemological stance of other critics of PKD are examined, here we seem to be getting a relatively unexamined positivist reading of PKD's work that focuses often on understanding the "true" interpretation of a novel that PKD intended for it. And yet, the text significantly glosses over PKD's drug problems, and the ways that speed psychosis may have shaped his work, seeming to draw an arbitrary line where some engagement with PKD's life outside of writing is taken into account, but the rest is considered outside the province of the text. I think I might be judging the book a little too much from a contemporary perspective with these criticisms though, and it's important to remember that this review was written nearly 40 years ago at this point.
There are some interesting aspects missing from the book however. On an academic sense, there is no significant engagement with theory and the epistemological groundings of the review. In this sense, and despite the brief points where the epistemological stance of other critics of PKD are examined, here we seem to be getting a relatively unexamined positivist reading of PKD's work that focuses often on understanding the "true" interpretation of a novel that PKD intended for it. And yet, the text significantly glosses over PKD's drug problems, and the ways that speed psychosis may have shaped his work, seeming to draw an arbitrary line where some engagement with PKD's life outside of writing is taken into account, but the rest is considered outside the province of the text. I think I might be judging the book a little too much from a contemporary perspective with these criticisms though, and it's important to remember that this review was written nearly 40 years ago at this point.
November 1, 2017
It's a very thorough PhD. thesis. KSR interprets the ouevre of PKD from his first novels to his last ones. It seems to be extremely hard to find. KSR has clearly read PKD and views his art as a reflection of feeling at odds living in the post-war world that is increasingly alienating & sterile. He interprets PKD's weirder sci-fi elements as political analyses of & malaise about the post-war era. Readable & enlightening!
I highly recommend this for anyone with a deep interest in the novels of PKD. It's the most accessible and sensible commentary I've read about his novels, from the most mundane to the most bizarre. All of it comes through a lens of his place and time: post-war California.
I read it several years ago tucked away in a public library with a DON NOT REMOVE FROM LIBRARY sticker on it. Where did you find it?
I highly recommend this for anyone with a deep interest in the novels of PKD. It's the most accessible and sensible commentary I've read about his novels, from the most mundane to the most bizarre. All of it comes through a lens of his place and time: post-war California.
I read it several years ago tucked away in a public library with a DON NOT REMOVE FROM LIBRARY sticker on it. Where did you find it?
November 16, 2017
To my knowledge, this is the earliest book length survey of Philip K. Dick's novels, based on Kim Stanley Robinson's PhD thesis. It provides a clearly articulated and very thoughtful reading of Dick's body of work. Robinson excels at making connections between the novels that had not occurred to me, and have rarely been noted by others. His chronological groupings of different phases in PKD's career are somewhat different than others', but effectively support his analysis of Dick's themes and ideas. Robinson does not spare criticism of Dick's sometimes rushed writing style, but on the other hand, he makes the case that what others have dismissed as sloppiness or bad plotting was in some cases a deliberate choice by Dick. Short and easy reading, but nonetheless a serious and delightful overview of Dick's science fiction and realist novels.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews