Philip K. Dick never got rich as a writer. He was a fairly obscure figure until Blade Runner, the 1982 Ridley Scott film based on PKD’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Dick died before Blade Runner was released. He did at least get to see an early cut of the film but he never got a taste of that sweet Hollywood fame.

PKD was never as well known as some of his peers like Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke. Dick should represent the ‘D’ in the sci-fi greats alphabet (fight me Thomas Disch fans). But he wasn’t completely obscure. He published 35 science fiction novels in his lifetime, cranking out on average three per year, plus all the short stories in the pulp magazines. He wrote 11 novels between 1963 & 1964 alone. But he didn’t get paid much and he ruined his health by popping amphetamines for long writing sessions. He had five ex-wives and three children to support.

Someone published a book of interviews with science fiction writers (I can’t remember the author). In the PKD interview, he described being visited by an alien entity in his old apartment in LA. It sounds delusional but Dick delivered this anecdote with a bit of a wink. It’s impossible to tell whether he was serious or pulling the guy’s leg. Tim Powers says he liked to mess with interviewers.

What’s so special about Philip K. Dick? His novels are unlike any of his contemporaries. He wrote about identity and perception and the nature of reality. How can you trust that what you see is real? If you implant false memories in an android, does that make them indistinguishable from a human? How can you be sure that you yourself are even human? Ursula LeGuin compared Dick to Argentine magical realist, Jorge Luis Borges.

Dick was highly influential on the next generation of SF writers. When I was at UCSD, I participated in a Secret Santa thing that included a treasure hunt. I hid one of my clues in a book at the library. I needed a book that was unlikely to be checked out so I chose Kim Stanley Robinson’s PhD thesis on Philip K. Dick, which I found in the central library. Back then few people knew the name Philip K. Dick.

Considering how rapidly he cranked them out, it’s remarkable that PKD’s novels are as good as they are. They are not all masterpieces but they all include interesting ideas even if the execution is a little off. He also wrote nine mainstream novels that he couldn’t get published during his lifetime. They were all published posthumously. Philip K. Dick is a character in his own novel, Radio Free Albemuth. In the book, PKD is a writer known for his mainstream fiction who can’t get his science fiction novels published.

I’ve read 11 of Dick’s 35 science fiction novels and I have 18 more on my shelf or kindle waiting to be read. The list below is the order in which they were written. I intend to read them all some day. As I review them, I will put links here.

Pro Tip: Check Amazon’s kindle store frequently. I managed to buy 26 different PKD novels for $1.99 or less each just by being patient and checking every day.

Vulcan’s Hammer (1953)
Dr. Futurity (1953)
The Cosmic Puppets (1953)
Solar Lottery (1954)
The World Jones Made (1954)
Eye In the Sky (1955)
The Man Who Japed (1955)
Time Out of Joint (1958)
The Man In the High Castle (1961)
We Can Build You (1962)
Martian Time Slip (1962)
Dr. Bloodmoney (1963)
The Game Players of Titan (1963)
The Simulacra (1963)
The Crack in Space (1963)
Now Wait For Last Year (1963)
Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964)
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1964)
The Zap Gun (1964)
The Penultimate Truth (1964)
Deus Irae (1964)
The Unteleported Man [aka Lies, Inc.] (1964)
The Ganymede Takeover (1965)
Counter-Clock World (1965)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1966)
Ubik (1966)
Galactic Pot-Healer (1968)
A Maze of Death (1968)
Our Friends From Frolix 8 (1969)
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1970)
A Scanner Darkly (1973)
Radio Free Albemuth (1976)
VALIS (1978)
The Divine Invasion (1980)
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1981)

PKD at the Movies

There are a number of films based on Philip K. Dick novels and short stories. There are also a lot of phildickian movies that are not directly based on his work but with themes that are clearly inspired by him. Here’s a list.

• The Adjustment Bureau (2011) — Based on the PKD short story, “Adjustment Team”
• Blade Runner (1982) — Based on the PKD novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, this was the first film based on Dick’s work.
• Blade Runner 2049 (2017) — A sequel to the preceding film, cowritten by Hampton Fancher who cowrote the original Blade Runner.
• Dark City (1998) — Not based on a PKD story but very phildickian
• eXistenZ (1999) — Not based on a PKD story but very phildickian. Inside joke: the name of a fast food joint in the movie is Perky Pat’s. Perky Pat is a board game in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
• Impostor (2001) — Based on the PKD short story, “Impostor”
• The Matrix (1999) — Not based on a PKD story but very phildickian
• Minority Report (2002) — Based on the PKD short story, “The Minority Report”
• Next (2007) — Based on the PKD short story, “The Golden Man”
• Paycheck (2003) — Based on the PKD short story, “Paycheck”
• Radio Free Albemuth (2010) — Based on the PKD novel, Radio Free Albemuth.
• A Scanner Darkly (2006) — Based on the PKD novel, A Scanner Darkly.
• Screamers (1995) — Based on the PKD short story, “Second Variety”
• The Thirteenth Floor (1999) — Not based on a PKD story but very phildickian
• Total Recall (1990) — Based on the PKD short story, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”
• Total Recall (2012) — Based on the PKD short story, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”