What is your favorite Philip K Dick story?

[Connavar]

Heh i didnt know Minority Report was based on his novel. Despite Spielberg i like the idea. I hope the book isnt totaly different. I like the hole police that stops crimes before it happens.


I have read alittle for little sci fi for my taste except Assimov,Douglas.

So i wanted to give this guy a chance mostly cause i remembered Bladerunner and thought the book is prolly better.


Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?
The Man in the High Castle
Ubik



Those three stories i am gonna read. Hope they are as good they sound when you read what its about.

 

[HardScienceFan]

Heh i didnt know Minority Report was based on his novel. Despite Spielberg i like the idea. I hope the book isnt totaly different.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?
The Man in the High Castle
Ubik

Those three stories i am gonna read. Hope they are as good they sound when you read what its about.

HSF here
Be surprised,any book or short story has been mangled by Hollywood.
Minority report the novellette IS different from the movie.
U have been warned

 

[Connavar]

Yeah that i know. I read the diffrences in wiki who had alot of info on it.


Plus i have read enough books that have become movies to know the movie are almost always not the same thing. Also they make action movies of everything.


I read about the stories so to see what they are about. Enough without spoiling myself.


They have in common dystopic future things i havent read much of.

 

[The Wanderer]

Frankly, I'll take dozens of Godard's, Resnais's, Truffaut's, etc. over just about any of the "arty" directors Hollywood has turned out in the last 3-4 decades.)

That's Intersting you mentioned the French New wave, which was more or less in my Book from 1959-67

What those filmmakers were doing was fed back into American cinema in the late 60's and 70's and became almost a second American Golden age

Ok it was not only Godard, Antonioni, Mizogouchi, Melville and Bresson, Herzog were influential too

look at 'Two or Three Things I Know about Her' Godard 1966 and Look at 'Taxi Driver' Scorsese 1976, alternatively look at 'Aguirre: Wrath of God' Herzog 1972 amd 'Apocalypse Now' Coppola 1979

but it's indictative that movements influencing other movements are needed to keep things going

hence Coppola, Scorsese, De Palma, freidkin, Speilberg, Millius etc

 

[j d worthington]

That's Intersting you mentioned the French New wave, which was more or less in my Book from 1959-67

What those filmmakers were doing was fed back into American cinema in the late 60's and 70's and became almost a second American Golden age

Ok it was not only Godard, Antonioni, Mizogouchi, Melville and Bresson, Herzog were influential too

look at 'Two or Three Things I Know about Her' Godard 1966 and Look at 'Taxi Driver' Scorsese 1976, alternatively look at 'Aguirre: Wrath of God' Herzog 1972 amd 'Apocalypse Now' Coppola 1979

but it's indictative that movements influencing other movements are needed to keep things going

hence Coppola, Scorsese, De Palma, freidkin, Speilberg, Millius etc

Yes, that's what I was getting at here (and in other threads elsewhere): that Hollywood seems to hit these slumps, where all they want to do is repeat themselves ad nauseum, until they start losing money in large amounts to the independents and foreign films... then the producers wake up (or new heads with more vision start running the studios) and then we see a new crop of creativity.... only this time, I'm not seeing it happen. I'm seeing an even more severe retrenchment into idiotic action films with no substance, lots of explosions and FAR too much CGI.

 

[The Wanderer]

Yes, that's what I was getting at here (and in other threads elsewhere): that Hollywood seems to hit these slumps, where all they want to do is repeat themselves ad nauseum, until they start losing money in large amounts to the independents and foreign films... then the producers wake up (or new heads with more vision start running the studios) and then we see a new crop of creativity.... only this time, I'm not seeing it happen. I'm seeing an even more severe retrenchment into idiotic action films with no substance, lots of explosions and FAR too much CGI.

Too true, Hollywood now seems to be obssessed with Comic Adaptations and and doing urban thriller versions of Asian Cinema

Perhaps these Asian films didn't dynamicly change film language in such a dynamic way as the French New Wave

Hence you get easy praise for Testosterone fueled 'So called Masterpieces' as 'The Fight Club' and Kill Bill' etc

anyone doing something different with language of a particular genre isn't assimilated or accepted 'Mission to Mars', 'The Black Dahlia' etc

these other films may take a few years to be appreciated, IMO

 

[n_tel_ekt]

New Guy here, 1st post (Hi everyone)

Ive read a few PKD works (actually I consider him my fav. SF writer at the moment)

Here's the list of what I've read:
UBIK
VALIS
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Time out of Joint
Counter-Clock World
Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep?
(starting on...) Flow My Tears...

I learned about PKD, and looked for one of his books (which was VALIS, could've picked an easier intro to the Author right?) But I was hooked by the tremendous amounts of ideas in his work, both presented obviously and "between the lines".. Sometimes even unconsciously. So I "get" what he writes. Execpt for one...

SPOILER













At the end of Do Androids Dream...? Whats the significance of Deckard "becoming" Mercer. Which turned out to be a fake... (and the stones being thrown from no where..)? I have my theory, but No one I know reads, so I need some discussion...THX

 

[HardScienceFan]

New Guy here, 1st post (Hi everyone)

Ive read a few PKD works (actually I consider him my fav. SF writer at the moment)

Here's the list of what I've read:
UBIK
VALIS
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Time out of Joint
Counter-Clock World
Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep?
(starting on...) Flow My Tears...

I learned about PKD, and looked for one of his books (which was VALIS, could've picked an easier intro to the Author right?) But I was hooked by the tremendous amounts of ideas in his work, both presented obviously and "between the lines".. Sometimes even unconsciously. So I "get" what he writes. Execpt for one...

SPOILER

At the end of Do Androids Dream...? Whats the significance of Deckard "becoming" Mercer. Which turned out to be a fake... (and the stones being thrown from no where..)? I have my theory, but No one I know reads, so I need some discussion...THX

Funny how both can admire the same author,and then on the basis of different novels!
I've read : the simulacra,Solar Lottery,the Penultimate Truth,Man in the high Castle,Eye in the Sky,plus some anthos.Nobody plays tricks quite like PKD.....
Do you think he is slowly gaining a rep as 'serious' author?
Ben
Oh yeah,and welcome of course,from another newbie

 

[n_tel_ekt]

Yes of course. Unfortunately, post-mortum... I think "mainstream" is just now coming to embrace his work. I really wish he was alive today to write...He'd have tons of sources based on his subject matter and themes. I can see it now:

An evil Gov't (Bush Admin) starts a war (fabricated) with a foreign country (Iraq) over WMD (Oil) while more and more rights are striped (Patriot Act) to protect us (me and you, the everyman) and in the end we find the truth...

Which is that its all lies and our enemy is really our friend, or one in the same (Haliburton plant on Iraqi soil) and our President is really an alien or robot (Bush, and in his case, either would likely be true)...

Matter of Fact, I think I'll write that story!

Anyway, PKD was one of the most serious idealist/theologist of his day. What would the world be like if he was around to share ideas with any of our history's great philosophers?

 

[Connavar]

Forgot to say i loved Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?


Only P.K Dick one i have read so far but it was great and unusually deep for a story about a guy that kills androids.


The animal view was really current and made me alittle sad how they treated the animals that was left like they were sacred.

I mean we arent that much away for that to happen. Almost daily you hear species dying.

 

[Tillane]

Favourite novel would be either The Man In The High Castle or The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch. Favourite short story is tougher: I like most of his shorts, but probably something like The Father-Thing, The Days Of Perky Pat, The Unreconstructed M or Roog.

 

[Thadlerian]

My favourite would have to be Now Wait for Last Year, have anyone else read that one? Flow My Tears was great as well.

 

[Connavar]

New Guy here, 1st post (Hi everyone)

Ive read a few PKD works (actually I consider him my fav. SF writer at the moment)

Here's the list of what I've read:
UBIK
VALIS
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Time out of Joint
Counter-Clock World
Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep?
(starting on...) Flow My Tears...

I learned about PKD, and looked for one of his books (which was VALIS, could've picked an easier intro to the Author right?) But I was hooked by the tremendous amounts of ideas in his work, both presented obviously and "between the lines".. Sometimes even unconsciously. So I "get" what he writes. Execpt for one...

SPOILER













At the end of Do Androids Dream...? Whats the significance of Deckard "becoming" Mercer. Which turned out to be a fake... (and the stones being thrown from no where..)? I have my theory, but No one I know reads, so I need some discussion...THX

The Mercer thing confused me alot in the end of the book and in the scene you are talking about.

I mean how can he be fake when he helped Dekkard against to the Androids.

So i didnt really get the hole "Mercer isnt real but he is real if you believe in him"

 

[Addy]

My favourite would have to be Now Wait for Last Year, have anyone else read that one?

Love that one. I think it's probably the best among his minor novels.

 

[GOLLUM]

I always liked Man In The High Castle.

 

[Tanegashima]

Favorites:

Martian Time Slip
A Scanner Darkly
Now Wait for Last Year
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said


Great stuff, I've read quite a bit of his work, my least favorites are

The Zap Gun
Dr. Bloodmoney

 

[Connavar]

I bought The Mammoth book of Future Cops cause A Scanner Darkly chapter was in the collection. Silly me bought the collection cause a chapter i thought was a short story. Saw later it was a novel not a short story

 

[Stenevor]

Might as well recommend this here as anywhere, read it last week - I Am Alive And You Are Dead: A Journey Inside The Mind Of Philip K Dick by Emmanuel Carrere. A good biography leaning slightly more towards the ideas behind his books than the personal stuff though thats there too and doesnt paint a great picture of him. Goes into quite a bit of detail on all his better known novels.

While im here I'll give a mention to Confessions of a Crap Artist, its his main attempt at a straight novel and I really liked it. A study of the characters involved in a marriage in meltdown. After reading the biography the similarities to his own life are uncanny.

 

[GOLLUM]

Forgot to say i loved Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?


Only P.K Dick one i have read so far but it was great and unusually deep for a story about a guy that kills androids..

Make sure you see the film BladeRunner, a wonderful movie!

 

[Connavar]

I have seen it but i plan to rewatch it just to see with eyes that already know the novel. Will be interesting to see how they did the story in movie form, havent seen it many years so its not fresh in my memory.