In 2005,Time magazine namedUbik (1969) one of the hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923.[13] In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer included inThe Library of America series.[14][15][16]
Philip Kindred Dick and his twin sister, Jane Charlotte Dick, wereborn six weeks prematurely on December 16, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, to Dorothy (née Kindred; 1900–1978) and Joseph Edgar Dick (1899–1985), who worked for theUnited States Department of Agriculture.[17][18] His paternal grandparents were Irish.[19] Jane's death on January 26, 1929, six weeks after their birth, profoundly affected Philip's life, leading to the recurrentmotif of the "phantom twin" in his books.[17]
Dick's family later moved to theSan Francisco Bay Area. When he was five, his father was transferred toReno, Nevada, and when Dorothy refused to move, she and Joseph divorced. Both fought for custody of Philip, which was awarded to Dorothy. Determined to raise Philip alone, she took a job inWashington, D.C., and moved there with her son. Philip was enrolled at John Eaton Elementary School (1936–1938), completing the second through fourth grades. His lowest grade was a "C" in Written Composition, although a teacher said he "shows interest and ability instory telling". He was educated inQuaker schools.[20] In June 1938, Dorothy and Philip returned to California, and it was around this time that he became interested in science fiction.[21] Dick stated that he read his first science fiction magazine,Stirring Science Stories, in 1940.[21]
Dick attendedBerkeley High School inBerkeley, California. He and fellow science fiction authorUrsula K. Le Guin were members of the class of 1947 but did not know each other at the time. He claimed to have hosted a classical music program onKSMO Radio in 1947.[22] From 1948 to 1952, he worked at Art Music Company, a record store onTelegraph Avenue.
He attended theUniversity of California, Berkeley, from September 1949 to November 11, 1949, ultimately receiving an honorable dismissal dated January 1, 1950. He did not declare a major and took classes in history, psychology, philosophy, and zoology. Dick dropped out because of ongoinganxiety problems, according to his third wife Anne's memoir. She also says he disliked the mandatoryROTC training. At Berkeley, he befriended poetRobert Duncan and poet andlinguistJack Spicer, who gave Dick ideas for a Martian language.
Through his studies in philosophy, he believed that existence is based on internal human perception, which does not necessarily correspond to external reality. He described himself as "an acosmicpanentheist", which he explained as meaning that "I don't believe that the universe exists. I believe that the only thing that exists is God and he is more than the universe. The universe is an extension of God into space and time. That's the premise I start from in my work, that so-called 'reality' is a mass delusion that we've all been required to believe for reasons totally obscure".[23] After reading the works ofPlato and pondering the possibilities ofmetaphysical realms, he came to the conclusion that, in a certain sense, the world is not entirely real and there is no way to confirm whether it is truly there. That question was a theme in many of his novels.
Dick sold his first story, "Roog"—about "a dog who imagined that the garbagemen who came every Friday morning were stealing valuable food which the family had carefully stored away in a safe metal container"[24]—in 1951, when he was 22. From then on he wrote full-time. During 1952, his first speculative fiction publications appeared in July and September numbers ofPlanet Stories, edited by Jack O'Sullivan, and inIf andThe Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF) that year.[25] By 1953,F&SF described Dick as "one of the most prolific new professionals in the field", joking that "the editors ofWhizzing Star Patrol and of theQuaint Quality Publication are in complete agreement upon Mr. Dick as a singularly satisfactory contributor".[26] His debut novel,Solar Lottery, was published in 1955 as half ofAce Double #D-103 alongsideThe Big Jump byLeigh Brackett.[25] The 1950s were a difficult and impoverished time for Dick, who once lamented, "We couldn't even pay the late fees on a library book." He published almost exclusively within the science fiction genre but dreamed of a career in mainstream fiction.[27] During the 1950s, he produced a series of non-genre, relatively conventional novels.[28]
In 1960, Dick wrote that he was willing to "take twenty to thirty years to succeed as a literary writer". The dream of mainstream success formally died in January 1963 when the Scott Meredith Literary Agency returned all of his unsold mainstream novels. Only one of them,Confessions of a Crap Artist, was published during Dick's lifetime,[29] in 1975 byPaul Williams'Entwhistle Books.
In 1963, Dick won the Hugo Award forThe Man in the High Castle.[7] Although he was hailed as a genius in the science fiction world, the mainstream literary world was unappreciative, and he could publish books only through low-paying science fiction publishers such asAce. He said in a 1977 interview that were it not for the interest of a French publishing company in the mid-1960s, which decided to publish all of his catalog to date, he would not have been able to continue as a writer.[30] But even in his later years, he continued to have financial troubles. In the introduction to the 1980 short story collection,The Golden Man, he wrote:
"Several years ago, when I was ill,Heinlein offered his help, anything he could do, and we had never met; he would phone me to cheer me up and see how I was doing. He wanted to buy me an electrictypewriter, God bless him—one of the few true gentlemen in this world. I don't agree with any ideas he puts forth in his writing, but that is neither here nor there. One time when I owed theIRS a lot of money and couldn't raise it, Heinlein loaned the money to me. I think a great deal of him and his wife; I dedicated a book to them in appreciation. Robert Heinlein is a fine-looking man, very impressive and very military in stance; you can tell he has a military background, even to the haircut. He knows I'm a flipped-out freak and still he helped me and my wife when we were in trouble. That is the best in humanity, there; that is who and what I love."[31]
Flight to Canada, mental health and suicide attempt
In 1971, Dick's marriage to Nancy Hackett broke down, and she moved out of their house inSanta Venetia, California. He had abusedamphetamine for much of the previous decade, stemming in part from his need to maintain a prolific writing regimen due to the financial exigencies of the science fiction field. He allowed other drug users to move into the house. Following the release of 21 novels between 1960 and 1970, these developments were exacerbated by unprecedented periods ofwriter's block, with Dick ultimately failing to publish new fiction until 1974.[32]
One day, in November 1971, Dick returned to his home to discover it had been burglarized, with his safe blown open and personal papers missing. The police could not determine the culprit, and even suspected Dick of having done it himself.[33] Shortly thereafter, he was invited to be the guest of honor at theVancouver Science Fiction Convention in February 1972. Within a day of arriving at the conference and giving his speech,The Android and the Human, he informed people that he had fallen in love with a woman named Janis whom he had met there and announced that he would be remaining in Vancouver.[33] A conference attendee,Michael Walsh, movie critic for the local newspaperThe Province, invited Dick to stay in his home, but asked him to leave two weeks later due to his erratic behavior. Janis then ended their relationship and moved away. On March 23, 1972, Dick attempted suicide by taking an overdose of the sedativepotassium bromide.[33] Subsequently, after deciding to seek help, Dick became a participant in X-Kalay (a CanadianSynanon-type recovery program), and was well enough by April to return to California.[33] In October 1972, Dick wrote a letter to the FBI about science fiction writerThomas Disch. Dick said he had been approached by a covert Anti-American organization which attempted to recruit him. Dick said he recognized their ideology in a book Disch wrote.[34][35]
On relocating toOrange County, California at the behest ofCalifornia State University, Fullerton professor Willis McNelly (who initiated a correspondence with Dick during his X-Kalay stint), he donatedmanuscripts, papers and other materials to the university's Special Collections Library, where they are in the Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Collection in the Pollak Library. During this period, Dick befriended a circle of Fullerton State students that included several aspiring science fiction writers, includingK. W. Jeter,James Blaylock andTim Powers. Jeter would later continue Dick's Bladerunner series with three sequels.[36][37][38]
Dick returned to the events of these months while writing his novelA Scanner Darkly (1977),[39] which contains fictionalized depictions of the burglary of his home, his time using amphetamines and living with addicts, and his experiences of X-Kalay (portrayed in the novel as "New-Path"). A factual account of his recovery program participation was portrayed in his posthumously released bookThe Dark Haired Girl, a collection of letters and journals from the period.[citation needed]
On February 20, 1974, while recovering from the effects ofsodium pentothal administered for the extraction of an impactedwisdom tooth, Dick received a home delivery ofDarvon from a young woman. When he opened the door, he was struck by the dark-haired girl's beauty, and was especially drawn to her golden necklace. He asked her about its curious fish-shaped design. As she was leaving, she replied: "This is a sign used by the early Christians." Dick called the symbol the "vesicle pisces". This name seems to have been based on his conflation of two related symbols, the Christianichthys symbol (two intersecting arcs delineating a fish in profile), which the woman was wearing, and thevesica piscis.[40]
Dick recounted that as the sun glinted off the gold pendant, the reflection caused the generation of a "pink beam" of light that mesmerized him. He came to believe the beam imparted wisdom and clairvoyance, and also believed it to be intelligent. On one occasion, he was startled by a separate recurrence of the pink beam, which imparted the information that his infant son was ill. The Dicks rushed the child to the hospital, where the illness was confirmed by professional diagnosis.[41][verification needed]
After the woman's departure, Dick began experiencing strange hallucinations. Although initially attributing them to side effects from medication, he considered this explanation implausible after weeks of continued hallucination. He toldCharles Platt:
"I experienced an invasion of my mind by a transcendentally rational mind, as if I had been insane all my life and suddenly I had become sane."[42]
Throughout February and March 1974, Dick experienced a series of hallucinations which he referred to as "2-3-74",[27][43] shorthand for February–March 1974. Aside from the "pink beam", he described the initial hallucinations asgeometric patterns, and, occasionally, brief pictures of Jesus andancient Rome. As the hallucinations increased in duration and frequency, Dick claimed he began to live two parallel lives—one as himself, "Philip K. Dick", and one as "Thomas",[44] a Christian persecuted by Romans in the first century AD. He referred to the "transcendentally rational mind" as "Zebra", "God" and "VALIS" (an acronym forVast Active Living Intelligence System). He wrote about the experiences, first in the semi-autobiographical novelRadio Free Albemuth, then inVALIS,The Divine Invasion,The Transmigration of Timothy Archer and the unfinishedThe Owl in Daylight (theVALIS trilogy).[citation needed]
At one point, Dick felt he had been taken over by the spirit of the prophetElijah. He believed that an episode in his novelFlow My Tears, the Policeman Said was a detailed retelling of a biblical story from theBook of Acts, which he had never read.[47] He documented and discussed his experiences and faith in a private journal he called his "exegesis", portions of which were later published asThe Exegesis of Philip K. Dick. The last novel he wrote wasThe Transmigration of Timothy Archer; it was published shortly after his death in 1982.[48]
Anne Williams Rubinstein (April 1, 1959, to October 1965)
Nancy Hackett (July 6, 1966, to 1972)
Leslie "Tessa" Busby (April 18, 1973, to 1977)
Dick had three children, Laura Archer Dick[51] (born February 25, 1960, to Dick and his third wife, Anne Williams Rubenstein), Isolde Freya Dick[52] (nowIsa Dick Hackett) (born March 15, 1967, to Dick and his fourth wife, Nancy Hackett), and Christopher Kenneth Dick (born July 25, 1973, to Dick and his fifth wife, Leslie "Tessa" Busby).[53]
In 1955, Dick and his second wife, Kleo Apostolides, received a visit from theFBI, which they believed to be the result of Kleo'ssocialist views andleft-wing activities.[54]
He physically fought with Anne Williams Rubinstein, his third wife. Dick wrote to a friend that he and Anne had "dreadful violent fights...slamming each other around, smashing every object in the house." In 1963, Dick told his neighbors that his wife was attempting to kill him and had her involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution for two weeks.[55] After filing for divorce in 1964, Dick moved to Oakland to live with a fan, author and editorGrania Davis. Shortly after, he attempted suicide by driving off the road while she was a passenger.[56]
Dick was a critic of the U.S. federal government, regarding it to be just as "bad as theSoviet Union", and cheered on "a great decentralization of the government". Dick's politics occasionally influenced his literature. Dick's 1967 short story "Faith of Our Fathers" is critical ofcommunism. Dick's 1968 novelDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? condemns theeugenics movement.[60] In 1974, as a response to theRoe v. Wade decision, Dick published "The Pre-persons", a satiricalanti-abortion and anti-Malthusianism short story. Following the story's publication, Dick stated that he received death threats from feminists.[61]
On February 17, 1982, after completing an interview, Dick contacted his therapist, complaining of failing eyesight, and was advised to go to a hospital immediately, but did not. The following day, he was found unconscious on the floor of hisSanta Ana, California, home, having suffered a stroke. On February 25, 1982, Dick suffered another stroke in the hospital, which led tobrain death. Five days later, on March 2, 1982, he was disconnected fromlife support.
After his death, Dick's father, Joseph, took his son's ashes to Riverside Cemetery inFort Morgan, Colorado (section K, block 1, lot 56), where they were buried next to his twin sister Jane, who died in infancy. Her tombstone had been inscribed with both of their names at the time of her death, 53 years earlier.[62][63] Philip died four months before the release ofBlade Runner, the film based on his novelDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?[64]
Dick's stories typically focus on the fragile nature of what is real and the construction ofpersonal identity. His stories often become surreal fantasies, as the main characters slowly discover that their everyday world is actually an illusion assembled by powerful external entities, such as the suspended animation inUbik,[65] vast political conspiracies or the vicissitudes of anunreliable narrator. "All of his work starts with the basic assumption that there cannot be one, single, objective reality", writes science fiction authorCharles Platt. "Everything is a matter of perception. The ground is liable to shift under your feet. A protagonist may find himself living out another person's dream, or he may enter a drug-induced state that actually makes better sense than the real world, or he may cross into a different universe completely."[42]
Alternate universes andsimulacra are commonplot devices, with fictional worlds inhabited by common, working people, rather than galactic elites. "There are no heroes in Dick's books",Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, "but there are heroics. One is reminded ofDickens: what counts is the honesty, constancy, kindness and patience of ordinary people."[65] Dick made no secret that much of his thinking and work was heavily influenced by the writings ofCarl Jung.[62][66] The Jungian constructs and models that most concerned Dick seem to be the archetypes of thecollective unconscious, group projection/hallucination,synchronicities, and personality theory.[62] Many of Dick's protagonists overtly analyze reality and their perceptions in Jungian terms (seeLies, Inc.).[citation needed]
Dick identified one major theme of his work as the question, "What constitutes the authentic human being?"[67] In works such asDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, beings can appear totally human in every respect while lacking soul or compassion, while completely alien beings such as Glimmung inGalactic Pot-Healer may be more humane and complex than their human peers. Understood correctly, said Dick, the term "human being" applies "not to origin or to any ontology but to a way of being in the world."[68] This authentic way of being manifests itself in compassion that recognizes the oneness of all life. "In Dick's vision, the moral imperative calls on us to care for all sentient beings, human or nonhuman, natural or artificial, regardless of their place in the order of things. And Dick makes clear that this imperative is grounded in empathy, not reason, whatever subsequent role reason may play."[69] The figure of the android depicts those who are deficient in empathy, who are alienated from others and are becoming more mechanical (emotionless) in their behaviour. "In general, then, it can be said that for Dick robots represent machines that are becoming more like humans, while androids represent humans that are becoming more like machines."[70]
Dick's third major theme is his fascination with war and his fear and hatred of it. One hardly sees critical mention of it, yet it is as integral to his body of work as oxygen is to water.[71]
—Steven Owen Godersky
Mental illness was a constant interest of Dick's, and themes of mental illness permeate his work. The character Jack Bohlen in the 1964 novelMartian Time-Slip is an "ex-schizophrenic". The novelClans of the Alphane Moon centers on an entire society made up of descendants of lunatic asylum inmates. In 1965, he wrote the essay titled "Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes".[72]
Drug use (includingreligious,recreational, andabuse) was also a theme in many of Dick's works, such asA Scanner Darkly andThe Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.[73] Dick himself was a drug user for much of his life. According to a 1975 interview inRolling Stone,[74] Dick wrote all of his books published before 1970 while onamphetamines. "A Scanner Darkly (1977)[a] was the first complete novel I had written without speed", said Dick in the interview. He also experimented briefly withpsychedelics, but wroteThe Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), whichRolling Stone dubs "the classicLSD novel of all time", before he had ever tried them. Despite his heavy amphetamine use, however, Dick later said that doctors told him the amphetamines never actually affected him, that his liver had processed them before they reached his brain.[74]
Summing up all these themes inUnderstanding Philip K. Dick, Eric Carl Link discussed eight themes or "ideas and motifs":[75]: 48 Epistemology and the Nature of Reality, Know Thyself, The Android and the Human, Entropy and Pot Healing, TheTheodicy Problem, Warfare and Power Politics, The Evolved Human, and "Technology, Media, Drugs and Madness".[75]: 48–101
Dick had two professional stories published under thepen names Richard Phillipps and Jack Dowland. "Some Kinds of Life" was published in October 1953 inFantastic Universe under byline Richard Phillipps, apparently because the magazine had a policy against publishing multiple stories by the same author in the same issue; "Planet for Transients" was published in the same issue under his own name.[76]
The short story "Orpheus with Clay Feet" was published under the pen name Jack Dowland. The protagonist desires to be themuse for fictional author Jack Dowland, considered the greatest science fiction author of the 20th century. In the story, Dowland publishes a short story titled "Orpheus with Clay Feet" under the pen name Philip K. Dick.[citation needed]
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) utilizes an array of science fiction concepts and features several layers of reality and unreality. It is also one of Dick's first works to explore religious themes. The novel takes place in the 21st century, when, under UN authority, mankind has colonized theSolar System's everyhabitableplanet andmoon. Life is physically daunting and psychologically monotonous for most colonists, so the UN must draft people to go to the colonies. Most entertain themselves using "Perky Pat"dolls and accessories manufactured by Earth-based "P.P. Layouts". The company also secretly creates "Can-D", an illegal but widely available hallucinogenic drug allowing the user to "translate" into Perky Pat (if the drug user is a woman) or Pat's boyfriend, Walt (if the drug user is a man). This recreational use of Can-D allows colonists to experience a few minutes of an idealized life on Earth by participating in a collective hallucination.[1]
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) is the story of a bounty hunter policing the local android population. It occurs on a dying, poisoned Earth de-populated of almost all animals and all "successful" humans; the only remaining inhabitants of the planet are people with no prospects off-world. The 1968 novel is the literary source of the filmBlade Runner (1982).[78] It is both a conflation and an intensification of the pivotally Dickian question: "What is real, what is fake? What crucial factor defines humanity as distinctly 'alive', versus those merely alive only in their outward appearance?"[citation needed]
Ubik (1969) employs extensive psychic telepathy and a suspended state after death in creating a state of eroding reality. A group of psychics is sent to investigate a rival organisation, but several of them are apparently killed by a saboteur's bomb. Much of the following novel flicks between different equally plausible realities and the "real" reality, a state of half-life and psychically manipulated realities. In 2005,Time magazine listed it among the "All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels" published since 1923.[13]
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974) concerns Jason Taverner, a television star living in a dystopian near-futurepolice state. After being attacked by an angry ex-girlfriend, Taverner awakens in a dingy Los Angeles hotel room. He still has his money in his wallet, but his identification cards are missing. This is no minor inconvenience, as security checkpoints (staffed by "pols" and "nats", the police and National Guard) are set up throughout the city to stop and arrest anyone without valid ID. Jason at first thinks that he was robbed, but soon discovers that his entire identity has been erased. There is no record of him in any official database, and even his closest associates do not recognize or remember him. For the first time in many years, Jason has no fame or reputation to rely on. He has only his innate charm and social graces to help him as he tries to find out what happened to his past while avoiding the attention of the pols. The novel was Dick's first published novel after years of silence, during which time his critical reputation had grown, and this novel was awarded theJohn W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.[8] It is the only Philip K. Dick novel nominated for both a Hugo and aNebula Award.[citation needed]
In an essay written two years before his death, Dick described how he learned from his Episcopal priest that an important scene inFlow My Tears, the Policeman Said – involving its other main character, the eponymous Police General Felix Buckman, was very similar to a scene inActs of the Apostles,[47] a book of theNew Testament. Film director Richard Linklater discusses this novel in his filmWaking Life, which begins with a scene reminiscent of another Dick novel,Time Out of Joint.[citation needed]
A Scanner Darkly (1977) is a bleak mixture of science fiction andpolice procedural novels; in its story, an undercover narcotics police detective begins to lose touch with reality after falling victim to Substance D, the same permanently mind-altering drug he was enlisted to help fight. Substance D is instantly addictive, beginning with a pleasant euphoria which is quickly replaced with increasing confusion, hallucinations and eventually total psychosis. In this novel, as with all Dick novels, there is an underlying thread of paranoia and dissociation with multiple realities perceived simultaneously. It was adapted tofilm byRichard Linklater.[79]
VALIS (1980) is perhaps Dick's mostpostmodern and autobiographical novel, examining his own unexplained experiences. It may also be his most academically studied work, and was adapted as an opera byTod Machover.[81] Later works like theVALIS trilogy were heavily autobiographical, many with "two-three-seventy-four" (2-3-74) references and influences. The wordVALIS is the acronym forVast Active Living Intelligence System. Later, Dick theorized that VALIS was both a "reality generator" and a means of extraterrestrial communication. A fourth VALIS manuscript,Radio Free Albemuth, although composed in 1976, was posthumously published in 1985. This work is described by the publisher (Arbor House) as "an introduction and key to his magnificent VALIS trilogy".[82]
Regardless of the feeling that he was somehow experiencing a divine communication, Dick was never fully able to rationalize the events. For the rest of his life, he struggled to comprehend what was occurring, questioning his own sanity and perception of reality. He transcribed what thoughts he could into an eight-thousand-page, one-million-wordjournal dubbed theExegesis. From 1974 until his death in 1982, Dick spent many nights writing in this journal. A recurring theme inExegesis is Dick's hypothesis that history had been stopped in the first century AD, and that "theEmpire never ended". He saw Rome as the pinnacle ofmaterialism anddespotism, which, after forcing theGnostics underground, had kept the population of Earth enslaved to worldly possessions. Dick believed that VALIS had communicated with him, and anonymously others, to induce theimpeachment of U.S. PresidentRichard Nixon, whom Dick believed to be the current Emperor of Rome incarnate.[83]
Several of Dick's stories have been made into films. Dick himself wrote a screenplay for an intended film adaptation ofUbik in 1974, but the film was never made. Many film adaptations have not used Dick's original titles. When asked why this was, Dick's ex-wife Tessa said, "Actually, the books rarely carry Phil's original titles, as the editors usually wrote new titles after reading his manuscripts. Phil often commented that he couldn't write good titles. If he could, he would have been an advertising writer instead of a novelist."[86] Films based on Dick's writing had accumulated a total revenue of over US$1 billion by 2009.[87]
Blade Runner (1982), based on Dick's 1968 novelDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, directed byRidley Scott and starringHarrison Ford,Sean Young andRutger Hauer. A screenplay had been in the works for years before Scott took the helm, with Dick being extremely critical of all versions. Dick was still apprehensive about how his story would be adapted for the film when the project was finally put into motion. Among other things, he refused to do a novelization of the film. But when Dick was given an opportunity to watch a few sequences portraying the film's imagined Los Angeles of 2019, he was amazed that the environment was "exactly as how I'd imagined it!"—even though Ridley Scott has mentioned he had never even read the source material.[88] Following the screening, Dick and Scott had a frank but cordial discussion ofBlade Runner's themes and characters, and although they had wildly differing views, Dick fully backed the film from then on, stating that his "life and creative work are justified and completed byBlade Runner".[89] Dick died from a stroke less than four months before the release of the film.
Future films based on Dick's writing include a film adaptation ofUbik which, according to Dick's daughter, Isa Dick Hackett, is in advanced negotiation.[91] Ubik was set to be made into a film byMichel Gondry.[92] In 2014, however, Gondry told French outlet Telerama (via Jeux Actu), that he was no longer working on the project.[93] In November 2021, it was announced thatFrancis Lawrence will direct a film adaptation ofVulcan's Hammer, with Lawrence's about:blank production company, alongsideNew Republic Pictures andElectric Shepherd Productions, producing.[94]
It was reported in 2010 that Ridley Scott would produce anadaptation ofThe Man in the High Castle for the BBC, in the form of a miniseries.[97] A pilot episode was released onAmazon Prime Video in January 2015 and season 1 was fully released in ten episodes of about 60 minutes each on November 20, 2015.[98] Premiering in January 2015, the pilot was Amazon's "most-watched since the original series development program began." The next month Amazon ordered episodes to fill out a ten-episode season, which was released in November, to positive reviews. A second season of ten episodes premiered in December 2016, and a third season was released on October 5, 2018. The fourth and final season premiered on November 15, 2019.[99]
Four of Dick's works have been adapted for the stage.
One was the operaVALIS, composed and withlibretto byTod Machover, which premiered at thePompidou Center in Paris[103] on December 1, 1987, with a French libretto. It was subsequently revised and readapted into English, and was recorded and released on CD (Bridge Records BCD9007) in 1988.[104]
Another wasFlow My Tears, the Policeman Said, adapted by Linda Hartinian and produced by the New York-based avant-garde companyMabou Mines. It premiered in Boston at the Boston Shakespeare Theatre (June 18–30, 1985) and was subsequently staged in New York and Chicago. Productions ofFlow My Tears, the Policeman Said were also staged by the Evidence Room[105] in Los Angeles in 1999[106] and by the Fifth Column Theatre Company at theOval House Theatre in London in the same year.[107]
A radio drama adaptation of Dick's short story "Mr. Spaceship" was aired by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yleisradio) in 1996 under the nameMenolippu Paratiisiin. Radio dramatizations of Dick's short storiesColony andThe Defenders[109] were aired byNBC in 1956 as part of the seriesX Minus One.[citation needed]
In January 2006, a theatre adaptation ofThe Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (English forTrzy stygmaty Palmera Eldritcha) premiered in Stary Teatr inKraków, with an extensive use of lights and laser choreography.[110][111]
In June 2014, the BBC broadcast a two-part adaptation ofDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? onBBC Radio 4, starringJames Purefoy as Rick Deckard.[112]
In 2011, Dynamite Entertainment published a four-issue miniseriesTotal Recall, a sequel to the 1990 filmTotal Recall, inspired by Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale".[117] In 1990,DC Comics published the official adaptation of the original film as aDC Movie Special: Total Recall.[118]
In response to a 1975 request from theNational Library for the Blind for permission to make use ofThe Man in the High Castle, Dick responded, "I also grant you a general permission to transcribe any of my former, present or future work, so indeed you can add my name to your 'general permission' list."[119] Some of his books and stories are available inbraille and other specialized formats through the NLS.[120]
As of December 2012, thirteen of Philip K. Dick's early works in thepublic domain in the United States are available in ebook form fromProject Gutenberg. As of December 2019,Wikisource has three of Philip K. Dick's early works in the public domain in the United States available in ebook form which is not from Project Gutenberg.[citation needed]
The book you hold in your hands is a very peculiar book. I have tried to depict the life of Philip K. Dick from the inside, in other words, with the same freedom and empathy – indeed with the same truth – with which he depicted his own characters.[62]
The Philip K. Dick Society was an organization dedicated to promoting the literary works of Dick and was led by Dick's longtime friend and music journalistPaul Williams. Williams also served as Dick'sliterary executor[139] for several years after Dick's death and wrote one of the first biographies of Dick, entitledOnly Apparently Real: The World of Philip K. Dick.[140]
Dick was recreated by his fans in the form of asimulacrum or remote-controlledandroid designed in his likeness.[144][145][146] Such simulacra had been themes of many of Dick's works. The Philip K. Dick simulacrum was included on a discussion panel in aSan Diego Comic Con presentation about the film adaptation of the novel,A Scanner Darkly. In February 2006, anAmerica West Airlines employee misplaced the android's head, and it has not yet been found.[147] In January 2011, it was announced that Hanson Robotics had built a replacement.[148]
BBC2 released in 1994 a biographical documentary as part of itsArena arts series calledPhilip K. Dick: A Day in the Afterlife.[149]
The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick was a documentary film produced in 2001.[150]
The Penultimate Truth About Philip K. Dick was another biographical documentary film produced in 2007.[151]
The 1987 filmThe Trouble with Dick, in whichTom Villard plays a character named "Dick Kendred" (cf. Philip Kindred Dick), who is a science fiction author[152]
The dialogue ofNikos Nikolaidis' 1987 filmMorning Patrol contains excerpts taken from published works authored by Philip K. Dick.
TheSpanish feature filmProxima (2007) byCarlos Atanes, where the characterFelix Cadecq is based on Dick[153]
Michael Bishop'sThe Secret Ascension (1987; published asPhilip K. Dick Is Dead, Alas), which is set in an alternative universe where his non-genre work is published but his science fiction is banned by a totalitarian United States in thrall to a demonically possessedRichard Nixon.
The comics magazineWeirdo published "The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick" by cartoonistRobert Crumb in 1986.[161] Though this is not an adaptation of a specific book or story by Dick, it incorporates elements of Dick's experience which he related in short stories, novels, essays, and theExegesis. The story parodies the form of aChick tract, a type ofevangelical comic, many of which relate the story of an epiphany leading to a conversion tofundamentalist Christianity.
In the 1976 alternate history novelThe Alteration byKingsley Amis, one of the novels-within-a-novel depicted isThe Man in the High Castle (mirroringThe Grasshopper Lies Heavy in the real-life novel), still written by Philip K. Dick.[162] Instead of the novel being set in 1962 in an alternate universe where theAxis Powers won the Second World War and named for Hawthorne Abendsen, the author of its novel-within-a-novel, it depicts an alternate universe where theProtestant Reformation occurred (events including the continuation of Henry VIII's Schismatic policies by his son, Henry IX, and the creation of an independent North America in 1848), with one character speculating that the titular character was a wizard.
The short film trilogyCode 7 written and directed byNacho Vigalondo starts with the line "Philip K. Dick presents". The story also contains some other references to Philip K. Dick's body of work.[163]
In the 2022 web animeCyberpunk: Edgerunners, the character, Rebecca, has the words "PK DICK" tattooed on her right thigh.
"Flow My Tears" is the name of an instrumental by bassistStuart Hamm, inspired by Dick's novel of the same name. The track is found on his albumRadio Free Albemuth, also named after a Dick novel.[164]
"Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said" and other seminal Ph. K. Dick novels inspired the electronic music concept album "The Dowland Shores of Philip K. Dick's Universe"[165] by Levent
American rapper and producerEl-P is a fan of Dick and other science fiction. Many of Dick's themes, such asparanoia and questions about the nature of reality, feature in El-P's work.[166] A song on the 2002 albumFantastic Damage is titled "T.O.J." and the chorus makes reference to the Dick workTime Out of Joint.
English singerHugh Cornwell included an instrumental called "Philip K. Ridiculous" on his 2008 album "Hooverdam".[167]
Sister, aSonic Youth album, "was in part inspired by the life and works of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick".[168][169]
Blind Guardian's song "Time What is Time" from the 1992 album "Somewhere Far Beyond" is loosely based on the book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?".[170]
American band Clutch's song, "X-Ray Visions" features images of Dick in their official music video. Additionally, Neil Fallon said "[Dick's] general philosophy and questions have always crept into my lyrics, because I share an interest in it. On Earth Rocker, 'Crucial Velocity' was definitely a Philip K. Dick song for me. On this record, 'X-Ray Visions' certainly is."[171]
In June 2014,BBC Radio 4 broadcastThe Two Georges by Stephen Keyworth, inspired by the FBI's investigation of Phil and his wife Kleo in 1955, and the subsequent friendship that developed between Phil and FBI Agent Scruggs.[172]
"It is hyperreal. It is a universe of simulation, which is something altogether different. And this is so not because Dick speaks specifically of simulacra. SF has always done so, but it has always played upon the double, on artificial replication or imaginary duplication, whereas here the double has disappeared. There is no more double; one is always already in the other world, an other world which is not another, without mirrors or projection or utopias as means for reflection. The simulation is impassable, unsurpassable, checkmated, without exteriority. We can no longer move 'through the mirror' to the other side, as we could during the golden age of transcendence."[175]
The 3.0 update for the grand strategy video gameStellaris is named the "Dick" update, following the game's trend of naming updates after science fiction authors.[177]
The 2016 video gameCalifornium was developed as a tribute to Philip K. Dick and his writings to coincide with anArte's documentary series.[178]
Precious Artifacts: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography, United States of America and United Kingdom Editions, 1955 – 2012. Compiled by Henri Wintz and David Hyde. (Wide Books 2012). www.wide-books.com
Precious Artifacts 2: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography, The Short Stories, United States, United Kingdom and Oceania, 1952 – 2014. Compiled by Henri Wintz and David Hyde (Wide Books 2014). www.wide-books.com
Precious Artifacts 3: Precieuses Reliques: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography, The French Editions, 1959–2018 (bi-lingual). Compiled by Henri Wintz and David Hyde. (Wide Books 2019). www.wide-books.com
^Behrens, Richard; Allen B. Ruch (March 21, 2003)."Philip K. Dick".The Scriptorium. The Modern Word. Archived fromthe original on April 12, 2008. RetrievedApril 14, 2008.
^Boucher, Geoff (September 15, 2007)."The future keepers".Los Angeles Times.Archived from the original on October 29, 2021. RetrievedOctober 15, 2021.
^abKucukalic, Lejla (2008).Philip K. Dick: canonical writer of the digital age. Taylor and Francis. p. 27.ISBN978-0-415-96242-1.
^Sutin, Lawrence (2003)."Philip K. Dick".Author – Official Biography. Philip K. Dick Trust. Archived fromthe original on April 10, 2008. RetrievedApril 14, 2008.
^The Search for Philip K Dick by Anne R Dick, Tachyon Publications 2010
^abDick, Philip K. "An Interview With America's Most Brilliant Science-Fiction Writer" Interview by Joe Vitale. Interview With Philip K Dick. Print Interviews. Web. October 22, 2011.
^Purser-Hallard, Philip (August 11, 2006)."The drugs did work".The Guardian.Archived from the original on December 21, 2016. RetrievedDecember 14, 2016.
^Green, Ronald S. "The Gnosis of 2-3-74" Philip K. Dick and Philosophy: Do Androids Have Kindred Spirits?, edited by D. E. Wittkower, Chicago: Open Court, (2011) p. 183–192.ISBN9780812697346
^Dick, Philip K. (1995). Sutin, Lawrence (ed.).The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings. Vintage. p. 212.
^Taylor, Angus (2008). "Electric Sheep and the New Argument from Nature", in Jodey Castricano (ed.),Animal Subjects: An Ethical Reader in a Posthuman World. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 188.
^Burt, Stephanie (July 3, 2008)."Kick over the Scenery".London Review of Books.30 (13).Archived from the original on August 25, 2021. RetrievedAugust 25, 2021.
^You Don't Know Dick by Jonathan Lethem, Bookforum"Bookforum | summer 2002". Archived fromthe original on January 16, 2013. RetrievedAugust 23, 2023. (Summer 2002)
^Fredric Jameson,Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, London and New York: Verso, 2005, p. 345; p. 347.
^Foege, Alec (1994).Confusion Is Next: The Sonic Youth Story. St. Martin's Griffin. p. 163.
^Bengal, Rebecca."Albums Sister Sonic Youth 1987".Pitchfork. Condé Nast.Archived from the original on January 13, 2022. RetrievedFebruary 24, 2023.Reviewed: May 9, 2019 The band was also reading the cultishly metaphysical science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, whose mordant, visionary works and traumatic life experiences were very much in the air during Sister's creation.
^ab"Philip K. Dick Award".The Locus Index to SF Awards: About the Awards. Locus Publications. Archived fromthe original on April 12, 2009. RetrievedMarch 22, 2013.
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