Philip K Dick favourites?

[Fried Egg]

I'm just now re-reading "A Scanner Darkly" after reading it for the first time around seven years ago now and I am enjoying it as much this time (if not more) as I did the first time. It's such a wonderful book with a fantastic sense of humour and a great pervading sadness too.

To my mind, this is still his greatest novel. I've read quite a few of them now and none other has come close in my opinion.

 

[johnnyjet]

I've read a lot of Dick's books (and short stories) as he is my favorite author, but somehow I never got around to reading A Scanner Darkly. I will have to correct that error on my part.

 

[Jeremy M. Gottwig]

I've read lots of PKD, and my favorite is easily Ubik.

 

[Ajid]

I have only read DADES, I found the writing average for the first half, the plot superior to most of the era and the lasting memory one of the ultimate reads of my life. I feel awful because this is the only one I've read before seeing the film and i do feel the film added to it. I unfortunately have seen most of the others in film format and will never quite have that experience again. I know it's a bit of a cliche and most purists won't like it but i really like the way Rutger Hauer portrayed his character, It's a shame he was basically cast as Dracula ever since. Even in that awful Buffy movie.

My plan is to read A Scanner Darkly next, unless i end up reading Excession but I have a bit of a Banks hangover following the use of weapons.

 

[Fried Egg]

This is one of my favourite passages from "A Scanner Darkly" (or any of his books for that matter) so I just wanted to share it. I don't know if it loses its resonance taken out of context but here it is anyway:

What does a scanner see? he asked himself. I mean, really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does a passive infrared scanner [...] see into me - into us - clearly or darkly? I hope it does, he thought, see clearly, because I can't any longer these days see into myself. I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside. I hope, for everyone's sake, the scanners do better. Because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we'll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too.

 

[Extollager]

I don't think Humpty Dumpty in Oakland is his best, but I remember reading the sequence in that one in which the protagonist goes for a drive out to a parcel of land where some building is going to be done, and, somehow, I found myself just almost "hugging myself" because this was such enjoyable writing. Maybe that's weird!

 

[dask]

I'm reading Scanner now, almost done with it in fact, but I think I made the mistake of reading it on the heels of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash which was so well done, so dizzyingly plotted and so impressively put together that Scanner almost (and only almost) seemed at first like the first draft to a first novel by an unpublished author. Harsh, I know, but that's how it struck me, at least for a while.

 

[Sigfrid von Shrink]

I'm reading Scanner now, almost done with it in fact, but I think I made the mistake of reading it on the heels of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash which was so well done, so dizzyingly plotted and so impressively put together that Scanner almost (and only almost) seemed at first like the first draft to a first novel by an unpublished author. Harsh, I know, but that's how it struck me, at least for a while.

Oh, boo you. A Scanner Darkly > Snow Crash, that's like Newton's 4th law isn't it?

What did you make of it by the end?

 

[Fried Egg]

Indeed, I felt "Snow Crash" was trying to be too consciously clever for its own good. "Scanner Darkly" on the other hand was a straight from the heart masterpiece.

 

[dask]

Oh, boo you. A Scanner Darkly > Snow Crash, that's like Newton's 4th law isn't it?

What did you make of it by the end?

I liked it and won't argue with anyone who thinks it's his masterpiece, but my above opinion remains basically unchanged.

 

[Sigfrid von Shrink]

I liked it and won't argue with anyone who thinks it's his masterpiece, but my above opinion remains basically unchanged.

I haven't read enough Dick to say it's his masterpiece but yeah ... I do love it so! I did like Snow Crash, some of the concepts were brilliant.

 

[John Thiel III]

I'd have to option as my favorite Dick read a novelette called "Imposter", which I think I saw first in a Groff Conklin anthology. It's as far out as some of these recent works where the whole human race comes to an end. The main character is a robot containing a bomb capable of blowing up the entire Solar System. It's triggered if he speaks a certain unknown phrase. Finally he makes an existential comment about his purpose and it triggers the bomb. The last line of the story reads "The blast was visible in Alpha Centuri." They were the enemy who sent the bomb. Man, that's cosmic!

 

[Kylara]

I love that one too!

 

[Connavar]

I liked it and won't argue with anyone who thinks it's his masterpiece, but my above opinion remains basically unchanged.

Its a strong novel but imho not Dick's masterpiece, he has better novels.

Snow Crash on the other put me off Stephenson when i wanted to try him, the typical cyberpunk novel that tried too hard to be clever by a writer who it seemed didnt know the prose to use, the way to plot SF novels of that kind. Frankly my first impression of Stephenson was so bad that he is still the poster boy for real scientist who are vastly overrated as science fiction writers. Not every scientist should think he is Arthur C Clarke...

Not saying its clear he is a very strong writer in his later SF but Snow Crash was overhyped for no reason imo.

 

[Extollager]

"Scanner Darkly" on the other hand was a straight from the heart masterpiece.

That book was emotionally moving as few books have been for me.

 

[Steve S]

The short story The Mold of Yancy had a huge impact on me as a reader (and eventually, as a writer). The inward-looking, folksy (and decidely anti-intellectual) words of Yancy help to strengthen and maintain the growth of a totalitarian state. A chilling story and one increasingly relevant in our world, I fear...

 

[Chris Before]

I'd have to option as my favorite Dick read a novelette called "Imposter", which I think I saw first in a Groff Conklin anthology. It's as far out as some of these recent works where the whole human race comes to an end. The main character is a robot containing a bomb capable of blowing up the entire Solar System. It's triggered if he speaks a certain unknown phrase. Finally he makes an existential comment about his purpose and it triggers the bomb. The last line of the story reads "The blast was visible in Alpha Centuri." They were the enemy who sent the bomb. Man, that's cosmic!

I am tempted, for nostalgic reasons, to call “Do androids dream of electric sheep?” my favourite Dick book. The film “Blade Runner” introduced me to this extraordinary author. Yet the stories that resonate most in my mind are the short stories, particularly “The Golden Man”. A simple story with a compelling atmosphere that draws us into fundamental questions of adaptation and human existence. A being capable of perfect action, god-like, the next step in human evolution, admired and feared as the progenitor of human demise. In this world, evolution is not welcomed, it is a precursor of the X-Men, mutation is a threat that must be terminated. It is a story, like much of Dick’s work, that simply leaves us pondering long after we have finished the work and reaching for the next.

 

[Rodders]

I totally agree. PKD's short stories were very thought provoking.

 

[Otis B. Driftwood]

Last read was Dr. Bloodmoney (check out the song based on it by The Mugshots [mugshots.it], an Elitarian Undead Rock band). Next up, Clans of the Alphane Moon.

 

[zlogdan]

Clans of the alphane Moon, Ubik, The Man In The High Castle are my favorites.