Customer Reviews (2)

What is reality; Who is truly human?
In this omnibus, some of the Philip K. Dick stories that explore the borders of reality are brought together:
In "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch," Dick works through the nature of reality and illusion. Set in a dystopian future, Earth is going through a "fire" age and humans cannot survive more than a few seconds outside during daylight; this has forced humanity to spend daylight hours in a warren of buildings and tunnels. Additionally, a draft is set up to send humans out to the colonies on Mars and various asteroids - whether they want to or not. These colonies are living at subsistence level and the colonists there invariably end up hooked on a drug called Can-D, that allows them to live in an illusory world populated by Perky Pat and her boyfriend Walt, thereby escaping their miserable existence. They use miniature items to create these worlds; these "mins" are provided by the same company that supplies the illegal Can-D, which is run by Leo Bulero.
When the famous explorer Palmer Eldritch returns from his trip to Proxa, he brings with him some lichen, with which he creates a product called Chew-Z - a legal alternative to Can-D. This is a more potent drug that allows people to create their own universes, without needing the mins. However, what most do not know is that all these universes are controlled by Eldritch. Is Palmer still human, or did something else come back in his place?
Playing onto our worst nightmares - namely those in which we continually think we've awakened, only to find we're still inside the nightmare - this story keeps you guessing as to what is real and what is hallucination. It is difficult to explain too much of the plot without giving away key elements that will spoil the story, which is why I've stuck mainly to what is given in the editorial review or on the book cover. However, I found the story to be very much in the lines of a typical Philip K. Dick story - twisted and convoluted. Well worth the read, however.

In "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," we find ourselves alternating between two intertwining plot lines. One involves Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who "retires" escaped androids. The latest model - the Nexus-6 - can only be differentiated from humans through use of a sophisticated psychological testing mechanism that measures empathy levels; empathy being the one thing that androids quite simply lack. The other plot line revolves around J. R. Isadore, a "chickenhead" (that is to say, a man who has mutated enough that he is starting to lose his cognitive abilities, but not so much that he cannot still manage to take care of himself and serve the public in some small way). He works for the Van Ness Pet Hospital, which serves people who own electric animals. However, his day gets off to an uneven start when first he discovers another tenant in his previously empty building, and then he is given a real cat - which subsequently dies on the way in to the hospital before he even realizes it is actually alive.
Similar in theme to "Stigmata," this book explores the differences between reality and fantasy by probing the differences between man and machine(sometimes that line is very blurred), electric animal and real animal, and so forth. Always in the background is the constant back and forth of Mercerism vs. Buster Friendly, who always gently (and sometimes not so gently) accuses Mercer as a fraud and fake.
I found the story enjoyable; dense and difficult at times, but the interchange and interplays are always deft and intriguing. This classic bit of surreal sci-fi is not to be missed.

When reading "Ubik," the first comparison that came to mind was Don DeLilo's White Noise (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)" Not due to any special thematic comparison, but because of the advertisements for great new products named Ubik at the beginning of each paragraph in the story; this reminded me of the constant low-level onslaught of information that came at you while reading "White Noise."
As far as the story itself - what can one say without spoiling it? The main character is Joe Chip, a tester for the Runciter Group, which is a group of "Anti-psis" - they null out psionic power to help protect people's privacy. I was by stages amused and appalled by the vision of 1992 painted in this novel - apparently we were supposed to have made our way to Mars and the Moon by now, with colonies on each, and we're supposed to be dressing even more outlandishly than we do now. However, it seems odd to me to note the things that are kept in the style of the 50s and 60s. Women are either young and in the service industry or they are matrons and stay at home. If they are other than that, then they are shown as . . . strange, even dangerous, such as Pat Conroy in this story. It is this that makes her such an appropriate foil for Joe Chip, as he stumbles through his attempts to keep the group together after a major fiasco occurs when the Glen Runciter - the owner of the company - takes a group of his most highly skilled workers to the Lunar colony for a job and is there attacked.
The rest of the story shakes down while the surviving characters notice a strange combination of entropy and growth - recession and coming into being. The world seems to be regressing to an older era, but at the same time, they keep getting messages from "beyond" instructing them on what to do. Then the question arises - who is really dead? Who is really alive? What is reality? Who is creating it?
Not for a light evening's read, that's for sure! But well worth the slodge if you have the time. Most intriguing and something to keep the ol' cerebellum stretched. Give it a try.

"A Scanner Darkly" was the most difficult of the stories for me, personally - I'm not quite certain why, but it just didn't hold my interest as much as the others in the omnibus.Telling the story (on the surface) of the deterioration of the undercover narcotics officer "Fred," living as Bob Arctor - due to substance abuse - into paranoia and split personalities when he is told to begin investigating himself intensely (undercover agents wear a "blur" suit and none of them know each other, nor are they aware of whom is who in the field).Additionally, the federal government is seeking the source of Substance D, a deadly and highly addictive drug that invariably leads to burn-out in the case of users.Darkly comical in the earlier parts of the story - and in general any time when Arctor and his friends and roommates are sitting around and shooting the breeze - it is also in its way terribly depressing.

Overall, however, I give a big thumbs up to this omnibus.If you're a fan of Philip K. Dick, obviously you don't want to miss it.If you enjoy fiction that challenges your perceptions of reality, you definitely don't want to miss it!

The best PKD novel collection
Counterfeit Unrealities, a hardcover omnibus published by the Science Fiction Book Club, contains four of Dick's best novels:

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Ubik
A Scanner Darkly

While it lacks an introduction, notes, or any other exclusive content, the convenience of a single volume makes this recommended for any reader looking for all four novels. ... Read more

Product Description
In The Crack in Space, a repairman discovers that a hole in a faulty Jifi-scuttler leads to a parallel world. Jim Briskin, campaigning to be the first black president of the United States, thinks alter-Earth is the solution to the chronic overpopulation that has seventy million people cryogenically frozen; Tito Cravelli, a shadowy private detective, wants to know why Dr Lurton Sands is hiding his mistress on the planet; billionaire mutant George Walt wants to make the empty world all his own. But when the other earth turns out to be inhabited, everything changes.

Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves.


From the Trade Paperback edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

72 Years Off The Mark
Although he displayed remarkable prescience in many of his books, cult author Philip K. Dick was a good 72 years off the mark in his 18th sci-fi novel, "The Crack in Space." Originally released as a 40-cent Ace paperback in 1966 (F-377, for all you collectors out there), the novel takes place against the backdrop of the 2080 U.S. presidential election, in which a black man, Jim Briskin, of the Republican-Liberal party, is poised to become the country's first black president. (Dick must have liked the name "Jim Briskin"; in his then-unpublished, non-sci-fi, mainstream novel from the mid-'50s, "The Broken Bubble," Jim Briskin is the name of a DJ in San Francisco!) Unlike Barack Obama, whose campaigning centered around the issues of war, economic crisis and health care, Briskin's talking points are a staggering overpopulation problem, the issue of what to do with the "bibs" (100 million frozen citizens awaiting their thaw in a better day), and the shutting down of the Golden Door Moments of Bliss satellite, an orbiting brothel housing no less than 5,000 women. When a door to a parallel Earth is discovered in the wall of a defective Jiffi-scuttler (a tubular device for instantaneous transportation from place to place), Briskin feels confident that he finally has a solution as to where to dump all those bibs. But problems loom, when an exploration team discovers that this parallel Earth is not vacant, but rather peopled by...well, perhaps I'd better not say.

Filled with a typically large Dickian cast of characters (38 named characters are featured...15 of them in just the first 10 pages!), "The Crack in Space" is a very swift-moving vision of the future. With the use of jetcabs, men and women in this book flit from city to city like you might commute to work; indeed, one potential assassin flies from Reno to Chicago while Briskin is delivering a speech! As in many other Dick novels, divorce is featured (Dick himself was married five times) and some truly outre characters are presented. Most memorable here is George Walt, the owner of the Golden Door satellite: a one-headed, two-bodied mutant who constantly bickers with himself. Dick presents a future here in which abortions are legal and paid for by the government (and this was written a good seven years before Roe v. Wade was settled); the only coffee that is consumed (except by the lowest classes) is the "nontoxic," synthetic kind; and political parties, under the ruling of the Tompkins Act, are allowed to jam the transmissions of the opposing party. It is a typically nutty Dick world, for the most part, in which Briskin's campaign manager voices some very PC words on Dick's behalf. Thinking about the people found on the parallel Earth, Sal Heim ponders "the difference between say myself and the average Negro is so damn slight, by every truly meaningful criterion, that for all intents and purposes it doesn't exist." Again, a pretty right-on sentiment for 1966, and one which makes the book praiseworthy in its own right.

"The Crack in Space" is hardly a perfect work. Fast paced and entertaining as it is, and filled with colorful characters, bursts of humor and remarkable situations, there are some problems that crop up. Several main characters (such as Myra Sands, a renowned abortionist) just kinda disappear, and the exploration of the alternate Earth (for this reader, the most fascinating and exciting segment of the book) is a bit too brief. Still, these are mere quibbles. Though this book has been pooh-poohed by some (the British critic David Pringle, in his "Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction," inexplicably calls it "a clotted Dick narrative"), I really did enjoy it very much. Let's just hope that President Obama has an easier time with his wars, economic woes and health care reforms than Jim Briskin will have with his problem of the bibs!

The Caveman in Me
Reading this book today is even more surreal than it must have been in 1966.It concerns the first serious black presidential candidate and what he has to do to have any hope of being elected.Will he maintain his ethical standards, or will he follow his staff's advice and compromise?

Everyone's got a different opinion of how President Obama answered that question, but one thing's for sure; during the elections of 2008, neither Barack Obama nor John McCain had to consider what to do with several million proletarian workers in suspended animation, preserved thus for lack of any work or other means of survival for them.Nor did the real-life presidential candidates have to consider how to relate to a highly public and popular house of prostitution on an orbiting satellite.Most importantly, although overpopulation continues to be a concern in the modern world, Obama and McCain did not have to face an apparently underpopulated alternate Earth, reached through the titular crack in space, and inhabited by a small but possibly dangerous civilization of Peking Man.Black presidential hopeful Jim Briskin and incumbent Bill Schwarz, the fictional candidates in "The Crack in Space", must consider all of this.

That's a lot of stuff for a short novel - probably should have been a good two or three times as long.It's still worth reading, though, if only because it's one of the comparatively few science fiction novels of the time (or any time, for that matter) to consider the political implications of scientific discovery, especially during an election year.That setting allowed Philip K. Dick to get around one of his real weaknesses - his tendency to throw all kinds of unconnected plot points into his work and let the reader sort them out.By contrast, the candidates in this novel draw the connections for you.

Look at it this way - frozen workers, orbiting bawdy houses and alternate Earths don't have much to do with each other unless you're running for President.In that case, you might consider defrosting the workers and sending them to colonize the alternate Earth if doing so prevented the powerful bawdy-house owner from coming down on your opponent's side, and scored a number of other political points for you.See how it works?Of course you do.Unfortunately for Briskin and Schwarz, this is a PKD novel, and so the plan does not, in fact, work as designed.

Whatever happens next, you would think that this would be more than enough plot.Not for PKD.He also decided to include an explanation of how this crack in space turns up - it has to do with a famous transplant surgeon's urgent need to hide his mistress from his equally famous counselor wife as she looks for something unsavory she can use in their divorce proceeding.In addition to that, PKD decided to make that bawdy-house owner a set of conjoined twins, joined not at the hip or chest, but at the head - two bodies with one cranium and a shared brain.And, as implied above, there's the implicit conflict going on between the races, about to boil over in the rumble-tumble of a presidential election.

Then the Peking Man culture shows up and all of this detail vanishes in a puff of smoke - the surgeon, his wife and his mistress disappear around page 80, the double-bodied being loses all its impact on the story a few chapters after that, and as for the racial issue, that fizzles out in the face of an alien threat, as clichéd a science-fictional theme as ever emerged from the civil rights movement.Kind of disappointing, really.

PKD might have produced better work here if he had cut all the extraneous stuff and concentrated on the political back-and-forth over the scientific breakthroughs.But then, that wouldn't be much like PKD.I'm kind of torn, to be perfectly honest.Trying to tame a wild man like this author is rarely advisable - you end up with either a run-of-the-mill tamed beast or a really irritated wild one.

Come to think of it, that may be what "The Crack in Space" is really about.The story takes a while to rev up, but eventually it turns into a pretty intense examination of what we can do when confronted with the craziness of our deeper nature, represented here by the earlier evolutionary form of humankind.After all, even the morally courageous Jim Briskin has to move in a rather unorthodox fashion if he's to win the election, and no other characters in the book have even that much hesitation about using incomplete, possibly dangerous knowledge to their own ends.

The extraneous detail, crammed into the minimal space, distracts from the book's emotional power.When you consider that PKD wrote "The Crack in Space" in 1963 along with four other novels, this isn't terribly surprising - that much production leaves room for a lot of junk to get past the authorial filter.The surprise is that he turned out any good work at all that year.Actually, he did more than that - 1963 produced "Dr. Bloodmoney," an acknowledged classic, and "Now Wait for Last Year," an unacknowledged one.What's more, PKD wrote that last title immediately after "The Crack in Space", so it's not like he had lost it or anything.He was just playing his usual game - he wrote what came to mind and didn't bother with any rules of structure, for better or worse.

With PKD as with his character Jim Briskin, that kind of personal dedication looks positively heroic from a distance; from close up it can be mighty damaging.

Benshlomo says, A little chaos never hurt anyone, but a lot of chaos is another story.

I love this book.
I really like this book.This book is an incredibly interesting tale of the political and social ramifications of the existence of an alternative Earth.Truly magnificent story with a great deal of surprises.

Dick plays it straight in this one

After passing the half-way point in this book, I began anticipating the traditional "Dick-twist". You know, the part where the book takes an extremely unexpected and bizarre twist and the story you thought you were reading is completely changed. Take, for example, the LSD dart in "Lies Inc", or the "grubbish" from Martian Time-Slip.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that he didn't go that way with this one, and instead gives us a story with a reasonable beginning, middle, and end. The book starts as many do- Dick presents us with the usual large cast of amusing and seemingly independent characters, that eventually become completely interwoven with each other. The plot- a hole in a "Jifi-Scuttler" turns out to be a door to a parallel Earth (of course we never learn just what a "Jifi-Scuttler" is supposed to do normally), long after our Earth has been crowded past maximum capacity.

I don't need to tell you any more than that. Dick gives us a wonderful, entertaining premise for a science fiction story, and then tells us that story from beginning to end, complete with the usual hilarious Dick ideas and character dialogue.

I recommend this one 110% for any Dick fan. The only reason The Crack in Space gets 4 stars is because it's just a shade below his obvious 5-star classics that every Dick fan is already aware of. 4.5 - 4.75 stars would be more appropriate, if Amazon allowed such ratings.

Lesser Dick
The recurrence of the theme of the discovery of living ancient ancestors in modern times, as in Dick's The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike and The Simulacra, suggests a symbolic incursion into modern consciousness of the buried, primitive self. But despite flashes of the author's characteristic humor, The Crack in Space is substandard PKD. It relies on routine political intrigue and a meandering plot without compelling characters. Except for Jim Briskin, the first black man ever to run for president, there seem to be none who are not mired down in petty, personal, materialistic concerns. This novel also lacks both the themes of the problematical marriage and the breakthrough to a higher reality that mark much of Dick's best work. Probably only those who have read just about everything else Dick wrote need seek this one out. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Microcosm and the Macrocosm reunited- the sundered realms rejoined.
_The basic premise of this series is that a transcendent God (or Vast Active Living Intelligence System) not only exists, but also periodically "breaks through" into our own material world, "the Black Iron Prison." If we are receptive, or desperate enough, it makes itself known (i.e. grants "gnosis"- the knowledge of the true state of things.) I consider Dick to be an expert on Gnosis, after all, it actually happened to him. You see this story is semi-autobiographical. Considering the hell that the protagonist, Horselover Fat, goes through in his interactions with a totally incompetent mental health bureaucracy, and a completely dysfunctional social and family life, you hope that it isn't too close to his actual life. Still, it was no doubt this living hell (coupled with his drug abuse) that led to his epiphany. This is somewhat like true shamanic initiation- the ordeal either kills you, or you break through the veil of this prison world into the "real" world beyond.

_Actually, it is the ideas imbedded in this novel that are its true worth. These are best expressed in _The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings_ by the same publisher.

_The Divine Invasion_ is the only other _Valis_ novel. There was supposed to have been a third, but Dick died before it was finished. _The Transmigration of Timothy Archer_, while good, is not properly part of the _Valis_ trilogy.

_The Divine Invasion, while set in the far future, does continue the specific themes introduced in _Valis_, and reference is made back to some of the specific characters. You see, this is the time when VALIS, the Logos, the greater face of God, or whatever name you choose to limit it by, breaks through into our "black iron prison" to reclaim it and banish the Empire and the Adversary behind it.

_I admit that the story takes 50 or 60 pages to get up to speed, but by that time the IDEAS that are the real value of P.D.K.'s writing begin to surface. For instance, the idea of the "Hermetic Transform" and how the microcosm and macrocosm can interpenetrate and become One- and how to God time can run backwards. Pretty deep stuff compared to most of the semi-literate pap that is published nowadays.

_What really leaped out at me though was the fact that Dick wrote of the Torah as an interactive, holographic, computer code. It predicts the future because it is the blueprint for creation that even God refers back to. He wrote this in 1981- _The Bible Code_ wasn't published until 1997. Talk about being "ahead of the curve."
... Read more

Product Description
Scaldingly sarcastic yet enduringly empathetic, The Zap Gun is Dick’s remarkable novel depicting the insanity of the arms race. Lars Powderdry and Lilo Topchev are counterpart weapons fashion designers for a world divided into two factions–Wes-bloc and Peep-East. Since the Plowshare Protocols of 2002, their job has been to invent elaborate weapons that only seem massively lethal. But when alien satellites hostile to both sides appear in the sky, the two are brought together in the dire hope that they can create a weapon to save the world, a task made all the more difficult by Lars falling in love with Lilo even as he knows she’s trying to kill him. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Not one of PKD's better novels.
In the afterword to the edition of The Zap Gun that I read, there is a quote from an interview with Philip K. Dick in which he calls it a terrible novel and says that, "[he] can't even understand the entire first half of it." This would be a surprising statement from almost any author, but it's especially illuminating coming from Dick, considering how confusing his fiction tends to be in general.

And The Zap Gun is, indeed, a confusing mess of a novel. It takes place in a future where, despite humanity having colonized most of the solar system, the Cold War between the Western democracies and the Eastern communist dictatorships has continued to escalate until the alliances of NATO and the Warsaw Pact have coalesced into giant nations, with both sides employing what can only be described as psychic weapon designers who go into trances and pull weapon schematics out of thin air. But secretly, the two sides have signed an agreement to make sure all these weapons are actually useless for their stated purpose, and instead are "plowshared" into mass-manufactured consumer junk. The so-called "cogs" who run the governments and industries of the world know the truth, but the vast majority of people ("pursaps", or "poor saps") have been fooled into believing that there are hundreds of incredible weapons at their government's disposal, ready to lay waste to their enemies if war should come.

The plot in itself is fairly straightforward. Alien satellites suddenly appear in Earth's orbit, seemingly out of nowhere. This creates a panic in both governments as they suddenly realize that, with the very real threat of an alien invasion upon them, they have no weapons with which to resist such an incursion. (I guess nukes don't count. Or maybe they've all been dismantled. It isn't really touched on in the book.) Thus the "weapon" designers of each government -- they only have one at a time, for some reason -- are forced to work together to attempt to devise a real weapon that can destroy the alien probes.

The protagonist of the novel is the Western bloc's weapon designer, Roy Lederby, a man completely out of his depth. Throughout the book he is manipulated by virtually everybody else, including his mistress, his government contacts, the Eastern government, and Lilo Topchev, the East bloc's weapon designer, a woman who Roy is unaccountably fascinated by despite not knowing anything about her.

The weapon that ultimately defeats the aliens turns out to be one of psychology rather than brute force. Unfortunately, like much of the book, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

There is also a fairly pointless subplot about a conservative gun-nut stereotype who gets randomly selected to be one of the "concomodies", the citizens who decide what the various parts of the weapons Lederby designs will be made into for the plowsharing program. It's pretty much just there for padding, but it does provide the only humor in the novel, so it isn't a complete waste of time.

While The Zap Gun has some interesting ideas, a lot of them get thrown away almost as soon as they are introduced. Characters appear and are dropped only to appear again a hundred pages later, and many of them lack any real characterization. The climax of the book relies on possibly the stupidest concept for a weapon ever conceived, and the ending seems to serve no purpose except to pave the way for a sequel that never materialized.

Bottom line: This is not one of PKD's better works. If you're already a PKD fan and are just wondering if you should bother with The Zap Gun, I would advise you to give it a try, but not to expect too much. If you've never read a novel by Mr. Dick, however, this is not the place to start. I'd advise you to try Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or Time Out of Joint.

much better than its title
...although what pk dick novel isn't.This is written during PKD's peak period, and although the plot is not as convoluted as his best, the story is compelling, the main character is more sustained and complex than usual and the world is thoroughly PKD.The elite of earth's two superpowers have called a truce - which the general population doesn't know - and weapons 'fashion designers' make weapons that look and seem terrifying but don't really work.Into this peaceful counterfeit world enters a genuine alien enemy and the bogus fashion designers have to come up with a weapon that will actually do some harm.Hint: it's not really a weapon.Along with the usual darkness, PKD can't resist coming up with a takeoff of contemporary SF (early 60's) as a subplot, of which the title - I guess - is a sample.

Beware -- recycled short stories
Much as I love PKD, I have to penalize him on this one for brazenly ripping himself off.While reading this, I recognized elements from (at least) two of his short stories I've read previously.One of them is "War Veteran," and the title of the other (about a toy that teaches empathy) escapes me for the moment; tellingly, I did a quick Google in preperation for this review to try to find it, and while unsuccessfull, I did see a reference to another story of his called "Project Plowshare" which I'm willing to bet is related to Zap Gun, too.

Even if you are not familiar with his vast corpus of works -- and thus are less likely to be bothered by recycled ideas -- I'd recommend skipping this one.The few interesting concepts that come up, such as 'why a pulp comic book writer is telepathically picking up classified blueprints' are hinted at but never explored.Even if I weren't put off by the short-story rehashes, I'd have been frustrated by the unexplored avenues that often were more interesting that the "real" plot.

This book is for PKD completionists only, who cold probably make a game out of recognizing the earlier ideas.

silly, immature and idiosyncratic
This was my first Philip K. Dick book, perhaps I should have chosen a different title to start with. Zap Gun is about an American and a Russian weapons fashion designers dreaming up oddities which they try to pass for weapons but just end up being useless or being "plowshared" for household use. Alien satellites begin to orbit the earth and these two are called in to dream of the ultimate weapon - The Zap Gun. In the, not also entertaining, mayhem, we are introduced to a down-and-out toy designer, a visionary comic book artist, a jump-to-conclusions ESP mistress, a time-traveling war veteran and uptight American & Russian bureaucrats.



The plot (alien satellites) was slow to get rolling but finally did 40% of the way through the book. From there on, a number of out-of-the-blue & unnecessary sexual references are made for what can only be written for immaturity. This book wasn't as "visionary" or "trippy" as I've heard other Philip K. Dick books have been. This book was silly. What offset the silliness was the vocabulary. I wasn't sure half the time if the author was using idiosyncrasies or using actual words. One point for vocabulary, but minus one point for shoulder-shrugging silliness. The work-up to the end and the ending itself were unsatisfactory (and silly).

Lighter on the brain than most PKD books
I am generally a PKD fan.Most of his books have so many sub texts and paranoia that it takes a little neurosis to understand.This is one his few books where this is a little less intense.The plot and character interactions are straight forward.Themes are reitierated in a concise language.And the book has an unusual optimistic feel in the ending.Which, it being a PKD book, freaked me out. ... Read more

Product Description
Philip K. Dick's VALIS trilogy and Exegesis began with a series of startling mystical experiences in February and March of 1974.Find out what happened, and how he explained it, through the eyes of his wife, who lived through it with him.This personal look at Phil's "pink light" experience and the work that it spawned covers the final ten years of his life, with some background from his earlier years.This edition is expanded- Chapter Three is new. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

More insight into the mind of PKD
Any material that can add to the experience of knowing about Philip K. Dick (PKD) is something that I want to read. Especially from his wife Tessa. She has always been willing to cooperate with interviews about the late great author. I have read all of what has been published, and a lot of what hasn't been published (Exegesis), and I have the utmost respect for his writings and fascinated by his personal life. I was part of the original PKD Society and worked on two of his posthumously published books.

But here are some experiences I had never heard of before, and hearing about them from an inside source makes it all more incredible. Thank you Tessa Dick for sharing some of your knowledge about the man and your life together.

Remembering Firebright
This book not only sets the record streight on PKD
I also found it a touching story..and yes I believe
in soulmates and lessons learned..

A STAR RISES IN THE AMERICAN LITERARY HEAVENS
While reading Tessa Dick's memoir PHILIP K. DICK: REMEMBERING FIREBRIGHT I turned down the ears of perhaps fifteen pages I meant to come back to and speak of when writing this review--but at last I was overwhelmed with questions. Nonetheless, as you can see, I give the book five stars for its corrections of the PKD myth and for a certain naiveté in the writing that adds to its interest. This is after all by the woman PKD married twice, lived with for most of his last ten years, and left as his widow. Her ingenuousness here and there should not disqualify the book from the PKD canon of commentary. How could it, although on Amazon she takes issue with Lawrence Sutin's biography of PKD, a book I've not read.
Tessa Dick at first seems saner than her fear-ridden and wobbly husband. But within a few pages after she marries him (she's 18, he's 42) she falls hip-deep into his paranoia and for much of the book seems as nutty as he. How do I mean nutty? It would be unfair to Tessa and perhaps to PKD himself for me to list their mass of shared illusions, since she often accepts them as just and sane. However, during their later years her interest in taking a few college courses makes him fear she'll find a younger lover and this thought drives him into leaving Tessa, renting another apartment, divorcing her and taking on another helpmate. But Tessa's soon back with him, editing A SCANNER DARKLY (which they worked on for eight years, and is perhaps his best written and most poised long work). She helps gather together what he completes of the VALIS trilogy and cares for him during all of his unending and relentless breakdowns. She makes clear that his breakdowns did not stem from drugs. She never saw him take an illegal drug during their marriage(s).
I won't describe Phil's phobias since she defends his lifelong raptness with them and tries to explain their sources. The reader even begins to believe that the U.S. government may indeed have been gathering information about Phil. I've read the government's stupid Cold War files on Arthur Miller and Norman Mailer from the same period and greater blunt-brained idiocy would be hard to find.All youngish and unread government agents who gather info and write reports about liberal and radical writers seeking change and yet have not read these writers' works are dunderheads. And PKD fearing himself on the FBI's Cold War hit list read their intelligence-gathering into every little twist of events.
She tells us that "Contrary to popular belief he did not churn out a complete novel every few days.He did type furiously for about three weeks, but he didn't even sit down at the typewriter until he had worked out the entire story in his head and in conversations with me and others."
None of the eight films made from his works gets her full approval and she points out their flaws, most often in the scripts, and yet admires the partial successes in BLADE RUNNER and the stunning A MINORITY REPORT and much of A SCANNER DARKLY. By the way, TOTAL RECALL (taken from WE CAN REMEMBER IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE) is now being remade, and she hopes it will be more faithful to Phil's vision than the Arnold Schwarznegger version (which I found quite enjoyable largely because of Arnold. Let me add that for me the single most powerful character in a PKD movie adaptation was that by Robert Downey Jr. as James Barris in A SCANNER DARKLY. Downey gives a master class in acting and making the text your own).
As for PKD's famous vision in 1974 that produced the unfinished VALIS trilogy, he'd had oral surgery and later been given Percodan for his pain. Earlier this year I broke a hip and was given Percodan and had the very same colored lights and shapes and dots that Phil had but I did not call them a divine invasion, as he did. But then I am not paranoid and my firebright sphere did not channel me to masters of the mysteries of the universe as did Phil's. And last summer when my cat lay down and died on the lawn I did not think that the cat had taken its death as one that was meant as a hit at me. In Phil's case his cat Pinky saved Phil from cancer. Tessa herself suspects that "Given the presence of powerful electronic equipment in the apartment next door, it is most likely that we were exposed to microwaves."
"Phil held two beliefs at the same time. First, human agents had brainwashed him. Second, demons had attacked him. They were not mutually exclusive. . . The demons, or the agents, might have followed him from San Rafael to Canada, abducted him and subjected him to both interrogation and mind control. We didn't worry about whether the demons were real, but only about whether we could stop the psychic attacks. . . "
"Phil theorized that we were actually living in ancient Rome. . . The world of 1974 was an illusion, and no real time had passed in almost two thousand years. The modern world was simply overlaid, resting on top of ancient Rome. The Empire never ended. He was informed of this fact, not only by his visions, but also by time travelers who instructed him. He said that they were hiding in the corners of our living room. . . Phil said that they were very timid and expressed shock when they realized that he could see them."
It's only fair that I mention that, despite being the second edition, this work is self-published and has many misspellings and errors that would not take place in a well-edited book. And yet Tessa Dick speaks often herein of proofing her husband's work, not to speak of the editorial authority lent to her by her master's degree and published stories and other literary work. Nonetheless, most of these textual mishaps cannot be defended. She has written THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT, a novel which I believe means to complete the VALIS trilogy pretty much as Phil may have meant it to end. I haven't read it but looking through it I sense its pages have gone through more rigorous editing.
I read PHILIP K. DICK: REMEMBERING FIREBRIGHT with interest and at times amazement. Library of America, by the way, has brought out three volumes of PKD's novels, edited by Jonathan Lethem, and in October will offer these three volumes boxed. That's pretty nifty; and even adds some heft to Tessa's books as commentaries on a star risen in the American literary heavens.

Interestesting material
Tessa Dick writes about her late husband.

The result is not a formal biography, but more like a running monologue of what she experienced, and what she felt at the. It's good for its gossipy feel, and chatty references. I hope she can bring up more material from her memories and enlarge the book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Awesome story teller what a brilliant mind
I've been a HUGE fan of PKD for many years now. (And not just because I weigh close to 300 pounds!) I own nearly every book/story that he's ever written and this collection is just as good and not one bit worse than any of his other collected series of short stories on the market.As a professional sci-fi writer myself it is with great pleasure and enthusiasm that I recommend any PKD body of work to the literary neophyte as well as the old hand.If you're a sci-fi enthusiast you can't go wrong with PKD.Intelligent Sci-Fi?You bet!

Strange and Wonderful...
The minority report is a great book if you like short science fiction. Phillip Dick is one of the masters of the genre. Dick also wrote the stories for Blade Runner and Total Recall in case you didn't know. The title story [made into the Tom Cruise movie] is only a small part of this collection. Frankly, the story has a slightly different ending, and in my opinion, more conceptually pleasing. What I enjoyed about this book is that there are lots of stories. Some are hits, and some are misses, but all of them illustrate Dick's ability to create worlds and characters that are flawed and believable. There are no clear-cut heroes in the stories - they often have ulterior motives. The one common thread running through all of his works is that they are strange. It is almost as if his mind worked differently than the rest of the human races. He sees things, and has ideas that are so complex and innovative that it baffles the mind that people like Dan Brown gain fame for the Da Vinci Code, and Phillip Dick died Poor, and largely unrecognized outside a small group of science fiction fans. If you want the challenge yourself, and expand your mind, buy this book and give his writings a chance.

Relic113

One of Phillip K. Dick's better collections of short stories
The Minority Report is volume four of the collected shorts of the late, and very great, Phillip K. Dick.This collection spans his writing period between 1954 and 1964, but you may be surprised at how up to date the feel of Dick's fiction is.In spite of their age, these stories have maintained a freshness that can only be found with excellent human characterizations nestled inside technical sci-fi.

Along with the short, The Minority Report, which the 2002 Spielberg movie starring Tom Cruise was based upon, there are many other strange treats in store for your science fiction palate.Here are a few of my favorites:

Autofac, where a post-war network insists on running the world for the good of the citizens.The Mold Of Yancy, a lovely yarn about a seemingly harmless autocrat on an outer colony.The Unreconstructed M, where murder comes in small, shifty boxes.Explorers We, a never-ending cycle of hopes dashed.War Game, the harmless, or not so harmless, tactics of market domination.What The Dead Men Say, exploring a world where half-life after death is expected.Oh, To Be A Blobel digests the aftereffects of infiltrating the enemy's forces by changing appearances.And my favorite, The Days Of Perky Pat, where survivors of the last great war fight their battles with dollhouses.

I believe that this is one of Dick's better collections, so if you are hankering for some good, old-fashioned sci-fi that will let you kick back into the future, pick up The Minority report, and Enjoy!

TOC:
AutoFac
Service Call
Captive Market
The Mold Of Yancy
The Minority Report
Recall Mechanism
The Unreconstructed M
Explorers We
War Game
If There Were No Benny Cemoli
Novelty Act
WaterSpider
What The Dead Men Say
Orpheus With Clay Feet
The Days Of Perky Pat
Stand-By
What'll We Do With Ragland Park?
Oh, To Be A Blobel

Enjoy the book!

Interesting--to say the least
This was my first introduction to PKD, and although all the stories aren't the best they do entertain. My biggest complaint is many of the stories overlap in odd ways, and in turn make them feel a tad repetative. An example is the pre-cog (used for full effect in 'Minority Report') is brought up in numerous other stories although these stories take place in alternate futures. Dick seems almost obsessed with a nuclear fallout future, and although some of these stories are interesting, many are just dull.

I enjoyed the stories as a whole, and recommend them to anyone who enjoys looking into the art of the short story and the mind of PKD.

Dick the Revelator
A decade ago, Philip K. Dick's complete short stories were published as a five volume series. Prospective buyers should note that this is simply a reissue of the fourth of those five volumes. It isn't a "best of" short story collection; you get the brilliant along with stories tossed off to keep bread on the table. It's still worth four stars. (The fifth volume is also particularly worth owning, and all five are still in print on backorder.)

You can't compare Philip K. Dick to any other science fiction writer.About the only other author he can be fairly compared to at all is Franz Kafka - but a workingman's Kafka, shorn of all pretension or artiness. All his heros are the same besieged everyman as K., wrestling with elusive metaphysics, impossible transformations, a cosmic bureaucracy, and a dysfunctional society - but also with overdue rent bills, insistent advertising, and messy divorces.

Precogs show up in many of Philip K. Dick's works, but Dick himself was not particularly in the prediction business. Nearly every world he created, large (in his novels) or small (in stories like these) was a future dystopia. But whereas the dystopias of other sf writers make you shudder and think, "Yes, it could be like that... If Things Go On," Dick's have a different flavor, a different kind of immediacy.

And the reason for that is, that Philip K. Dick was not so much a science fiction writer as a prophet. He showed us a future that mirrored the present so faithfully that he could convince us of what he always felt - that dystopia is already here; apocalypse is already here. All you have to do (the original meaning of apocalypse) is tear away the veils.

Many people are going to take a fresh interest in Mr. Dick's writings because of the movie Minority Report.For them, I give this advice: go first to his novels (some of the best ones are "Ubik", "A Scanner Darkly", "Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"). You have to immerse yourself in his world to grasp where he's coming from, and short stories don't give you room to do that. The novels do.

For those who already know his stuff, this book is a treat. Besides the great title story, you'll see the seeds of severalof his novels here ("Palmer Eldritch" prefigured in "Days of Perky Pat", "Simulacrum" in "The Mold of Yancy", and "Ubik" in "What the Dead Men Say"). ... Read more

Product Description
The fifth and final part of the complete collected stories shows Philip K. Dick at the very height of his outstanding powers. The twenty-five tales were written between 1963 and 1981, just a few months before he died, and include two stories which have been turned into box office smashes: the title story, filmed as Total Recall, and "The Little Black Box", which grew into his masterpiece Blade Runner. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

GREAT COLLECTION
This is a great collection of his short sorks.the title story is the inspiration for "Total Recall" and is a great story of its own right. ... Read more

Product Description
The fifth and final volume of the collected short stories of the science fiction writer, Philip K.Dick, covering the period 1963 to 1981, the year before he died. The 25 stories include, apart from the title volume, "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" and "A Scanner Darkly". ... Read more

Product Description
2+8: Collected Work of Philip K. Dick is a collection of two novellas and eight short stories from one of the world's greatest speculative fiction writers. ... Read more

Product Description
Yielding to a compulsion he can’t explain, Ted Barton interrupts his vacation in order to visit the town of his birth, Millgate, Virginia. But upon entering the sleepy, isolated little hamlet, Ted is distraught to find that the place bears no resemblance to the one he left behind—and never did. He also discovers that in this Millgate Ted Barton died of scarlet fever when he was nine years old. Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that it is literally impossible to escape. Unable to leave, Ted struggles to find the reason for such disturbing incongruities, but before long, he finds himself in the midst of a struggle between good and evil that stretches far beyond the confines of the valley.

Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Youthful Efforts Aren't Always Worth It
Of course, we have to be generous in our thinking."Cosmic Puppets" was only PKD's second completed novel, and he was still feeling his way.Not unlike his main character here, Ted Barton.

Here comes Ted, on vacation with his terrifically annoyed wife Peg, driving from New York to the little valley town of Millgate, Virginia, where he was born and raised to the age of nine.He's got this unexplainable urge to visit, although he hasn't been there in 20-odd years, but when he shows up everything has changed.And not in the usual "You Can't Go Home Again" way, either - the names of the streets are different, absolutely none of the people he knew are there anymore, the buildings look like they've been rotting in place for at least a half century or so.What's more, according to the files of the local newspaper, he himself died of scarlet fever in his childhood.

Not a bad setup, all told, but somewhere along the line PKD forgot to include anything like a reason why we should care about Ted Barton or Millgate.You get the reason later - much later - but why on Earth should you sympathize with a man who drags his wife down south in the summer heat just to see some little town in a Virginia valley, when she has made it perfectly clear that she's bored out of her mind?She's not a very nice person, but then again, neither is he.And how pleasant would you be after hours and hours on the road in a non-air-conditioned car with nothing to see but mile after mile of mile after mile, nothing to drink but warm beer, and a husband who keeps yammering about his hometown and doesn't pay the slightest attention to anything you say?

Well, as the title implies, Ted Barton is under the influence of some pretty powerful forces, so he's got some excuse.Unfortunately, you don't learn what that excuse might be until long after it would make any difference.This is one of those puzzle novels; mysterious things happen for pages and pages, and when you find out what's behind the mystery, the story is over.Which is all very well if the characters are sympathetic, or the issues at hand bear some personal weight, or the writing style fascinates, or your favorite celebrity turns up and gives you a million dollars, or something.Having said that, I don't think I need to tell you that none of those things are present here.There is a rather clever, though sexist, joke in the novel's last line, but you'll have to decide for yourself if that laugh is worth the previous 140-odd pages.

Given the fact that you don't learn the big secret until the novel is at least two-thirds over, it scarcely matters what that secret is.To be sure, it's fairly impressive that PKD decided to explain Ted Barton's predicament by reference to the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism.I can't say much more without giving the game away, but clearly PKD's interest in religion bore some fruit even this early in his career.On the other hand, again given the fact that you don't learn the big secret until pretty late, the religious elements strike one as little more than a gimmick.Whereas science fiction is the literary exploration of the plausible, fantasy like this is the literary exploration of the possible, and with that enormous freedom comes an equally enormous responsibility for the fantasy author to control his or her elements such that they don't just land on the reader out of a clear blue sky.Alas, "Cosmic Puppets" is an object lesson in just that sort of error.Zoroastrianism or no Zoroastrianism (try saying that three times fast), "Cosmic Puppets" contains an explanation because there has to be an explanation.Any other would have done as well.Sorry, that's just not good enough.

And I've got a couple of other questions, too.For one thing, the Millgate Ted Barton remembers is a bustling, morally upright business center straight out of Disney's Carousel of Progress, where all the shops are on the main thoroughfare to take advantage of the tourist traffic, whereas the Millgate Barton finds himself in is sleepy, rundown and relaxed.The message is clear - it's better to conform to the capitalist idea and grow, grow, grow than leave things to their natural course, mostly because it means no one's picking up the trash.Would someone please explain to me why the first should automatically be the better course?Especially in a novel by Philip K. Dick?

For another thing, I can tolerate a certain amount of boilerplate fictional language from a developing author, such as PKD was here, but was it absolutely necessary for his characters to ask all those rhetorical questions in italics, so we know just how serious the whole thing is??

And finally, is it obvious that this review comes from a disappointed fan?I've said it before, like many more credible readers, and I'll say it again; PKD was among the most imaginative, lunatic, fascinating authors that America produced in any genre of fiction, and when he was bad he was horrid.

But at least you get one of PKD's favorite themes - the unreliability of our perceptions when it comes to reality.He even put in scenes of a kind that we can see in his later work, such as the one where a man watches an entire building disappear before his very eyes.There's a scene just like that in "Time Out of Joint".So go read that one.

Benshlomo says, There are some things that even youth does not excuse.

Dated, but still a fun quick read
I am not a big PKD fan but I picked this one up at the library on a whim.It is a very quick read at less than 150 pages.I enjoyed it.It is very much in the vein of a dark fantasy Twilight Zone episode.A classic it is not, but I enjoyed it.

Archetypes a-plenty!
PKD wrote very little pure fantasy, but when he did, he tapped into something raw & primal. (See his short story "Upon the Dull Earth" for an especially powerful example.) This early work is considered lesser PKD, a first & tentative exploration of themes he would develop more fully in subsequent novels. Previous reviewers rightly compare it to the Twilight Zone in its basic plot.

But it has a genuinely eerie tone & intensity to it, as if the contents of his troubled & brilliant psyche are unmediated by the more rational structure of science-fiction. The imagery verges on the Bosch-like in places, and the reader can feel the overwhelming power of the unconscious ready to erupt in full force at any moment. PKD's fascination with Jung is clear to see in these pages. No wonder he stepped back a bit & took a more controlled approach to such material in his prolific science-fiction work!

Yes -- it's short, its basic themes are more roughly hewn than in his later novels, and there's a definite sense of a writer still not entirely sure of himself. But there's also a glimpse of something so powerful that it almost blinds the conscious, logical eye, leaving an afterimage that lingers for a long while. Most of his work provides much food for thought; this slim work goes directly to the core of the Collective Unconscious. Most highly recommended!

He's right, Twilight Zone it is.
I am going to search around for the level to which the 1950s were Twilight Zone domain. This could well have been a TZ script. Very nicely done, very much a "lifting the veil of perception" type of book.

NOT DICK'S CUP OF TEA

THE COSMIC PUPPETS is not Dick's usual genre.It belongs to the J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter bunch which, of course, it preceded.It is occult --pitting good against evil -- the eternal struggle.Few of Dick readers are familiar with Zorastrianism, with Ahriman, the the destroyer god and spirit of darkness, with Ormazd, deity of goodness and light, or with golems, formed from inanimate clay.So it was an experiment, a showing off, that really didn't pan out.

In the story he presents only one or two human characters, Ted Barton and William Christopher, neither very convincingly.Most of the story is revealed from behind smoke and mirrors.The two gods, Good and Evil, have decided to play a game using the town of Millgate Virginia, to see who could maintain their version ofthe streets, parks and buildings.There is, of course, no such town outside of Dick's imagination.

Did it make any difference whether the real, older town of Millgate or the fake town won the game?Besides being entertainment for the gods, was there any point to the transformation or to returning the town to its original shape and form?Did this story matter to anyone reading it?Yes, it mattered to establish the real identity of two of its characters, but the reader couldn't readily relate to either of them.The whole story could have reminded one of ghost busters, searching an old house for a ghost who wasn't there. ... Read more

Product Description
It's the year 2080, and Earth's seemingly insurmountable overpopulation problem has been alleviated temporarily by placing millions of people in voluntary deep freeze.But in election year, the pressure is on to find a solution which will enable them to resume their lives.For Jim Briskin, Presidential candidate, it seems an insoluble problem -- until a flaw in the new instantaneous travel system opens up the possibility of finding whole new worlds to colonise. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Incredible transcribed interview with PKD.
Only for PKD fansn w that want to know more abot PKD's personality and creative process.

Transcribed uhsand ahs...so you get everything he said,''

Start Here
If you have not read The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, start with this interview. It will deepen the experience.The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

A look at the scenes - not behind
A comfortably disorienting walk with a old friend.
When I 1st was introduced to P.K.D. in the mid 70's It came, like so much of my life during that time, from one I admired, trusted and learned ao much from. "Ever read Phillip K. Dick?", he asked seiing that I was looking for my next book. "No.", I said, takimg the book.
Even though I was a reader from an age not old enough for school yet, and though sci-fi was my subject of choice most often the author was new to me. I can't recall the title of the novel but if my memory is not as shot as some tell me it is, the story was 'different' to say the least.
Today "different' is the highest compliment I give to art, music and stories. I remember Sister Dominic answering this 3rd grader's question (somwthing most nun's had come to dread or ignore) about the difference between creating and making something. Always to the point, she told me "men make things. Only God can create a thing/ Things are made from other things. Creations come to be from nothing." It was probably the only reply from the catholic school I have come to hold as 'gospel'.
the worlds P.K.D. created were as origional, complex, mysteries luring the reader into an almost overwhelming existence.
This book is time spent with the creator and the interviewer asking questios and soliciting reflection on things we, had we been there, would have asked.
If you're a P.K.D. reader then you want to read this.

Astoundingly little content for the price
PKD is fascinating as always, but at $17 I expect a lot more than 20 pages worth of content clumsily spread across 200 pages via narrow paper, wide margins, huge type, blank pages and double-spacing.This is a magazine article pretending to be a book!For your best bang-for-buck PKD insights, save your pennies for Sutin's excellent Divine Invasions.

PHILIP K. DICK Lives On
Was it chance or fate that led Gwen Lee to record these last words of PKD?
Whatever, this book is a must read for anyone who wants to probe the depths of the PKD spirit.Here Dick laid out the plotline and central character, Ed Firmley, for his next great novel, THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT.Who needs more of it actually written?Any reader can fill in the blanks.Dick was taking the next giant step to solving the puzzle of man's existence here on earth.By positing the existence of this Nanoman race from a planet without music or sound, Dick set up the premise for another brilliant novel.

The very notion that an other world Nanoman, could implant himself via biochip into Ed Firmley's brain is ground breaking.That this would transform this hack musician into a Beethoven like composer is a light year ahead of man's current understanding of himself.What a gas that Firmley would then make the choice to allow himself to implanted into the brain of this celestial Entity.Yes, Firmley did have to exchange this puny earthly existence for a world constructed from rainbow colors.But to him it was like dying and going to heaven. ... Read more

Product Description
While sightseeing at the Belmont Bevatron, Jack Hamilton, along with seven others, is caught in a lab accident. When he regains consciousness, he is in a fantasy world of Old Testament morality gone awry—a place of instant plagues, immediate damnations, and death to all perceived infidels. Hamilton figures out how he and his compatriots can escape this world and return to their own, but first they must pass through three other vividly fantastical worlds, each more perilous and hilarious than the one before.

Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

Hamilton's heart softened. "You donkey."
When I picked this book up second-hand, I thought I had never read it before. But as I read, it became clear that I had read it earlier-- probably very young, probably long before I really had any sense who Philip K. Dick was. There was an age when I simply read every book in our local lending library's science fiction and fantasy section, and I guess I read it then. I'm assuming I was young because I missed understanding of a whole lot of the content-- the sexlessness of the characters at a particular moment, for instance. It was a strange feeling reading a familiar bit of text with an entirely different understanding about the meaning. (My memory can be nearly photographic for things I've read in the past.)

This is a nice example of an early Philip K. Dick novel (published in 1957). It is neatly and even quite simply written compared to some his later work, but deals with many themes familiar to fans of Dick's work: McCarthyism, personal realities, God and religion as the tangible extension of the mind, business-military connections.

Fairly said, it lacks some of the weight of later Philip K. Dick novels and couldn't be accused of being his best work. I enjoyed it all the same, and would recommend it-- particularly to people who are already fans.

sci-fi without androids and space travel
this is my favorite philip k dick so far. i'm not a fan of space travel/androids and the like usually but i do enjoy dick's work. this one, despite the slightly odd beginning, is my favorite because it reminds me of something they would have shown on the twilight zone. it makes you think more and relies more on character development and your imagination than on weird space names and sci-fi terms i didn't understand. i liked 'do androids dream of electric sheep' but even before i saw the movie it was too predictable. this one, like i said, is twilight-zone inspiring.

1950's PKD novel
I have read many of Dick's novels and can say with some confidence that this is not the one I would recommend to new readers. It contains narrative themes that I find engaging and challenging but also exhibits Dick's tendency to wander into muddled plot entanglements that could put you into a coma.

The story has our obsessed protagonist Jack Hamilton fired from a California defense research lab because of a suspicion that his wife is a Red. Soon after he is on a tour to witness the first test of a "Proton Beam Deflector" and, well, something goes dreadfully wrong - welcome to alternate universes and a creepy vision of God's eye.

1950's McCarthy-era paranoia is believable especially if you spouse is working in defense, but giving tours of an experimental radiation accelerator during first turn-on is just a characteristically implausible Dick plot contrivance.

The authors descriptions of the God encounters in this novel are hilarious and sometimes very, very weird. It is a theme explored in greater depth in several of his later works. As only Dick could tell us: "Nobert Wiener," Tillingford said. "You recall his works in cybernetics. And even more important, Enrico Destini's work in the field of theophonics." What's that Hamilton asked?" Tillingford raised an eyebrow...Communications between man and God, of course...Destini was able to set up the really adequate system of communication between earth and heaven in 1946."Later a brilliant passage has Hamilton praying to God for his $400 pay and bucket of change rains down upon him. Seems God pay off in coin not currency. This event occurs soon after Hamilton and a friend ascended to heaven on a holy umbrella only to find a gigantic eye.

Eye In The Sky was first published by Ace in 1957. It was the fifth novel by Dick published by Ace in a two-year span. I found the story so untypical of the Ace "space opera" line published in the 50's I was mildly surprised they issued it. But published it they did and it was reprinted by Ace several times with new cover art no less.

Great Story, So-So Formatting
Eye in the sky remains one of Dick's more interesting works because of the attention to detail and well-drawn characters.The book itself is definitely a 3.5 to 4 star story.

The Kindle edition, on the other hand, has a number of annoying typos, on average about one every screen or so.While not really stopping the story, they do cause the reader pause whenever one appears."What was that word supposed to be?"Perhaps someone will take the time to proofread for the next edition, especially since this isn't a free book.Admittedly, 9.99 isn't much, but for the price you would think more care would be taken in the presentation.

Hard Science Fantasy
Writers are always borrowing from each other, twisting classic literary styles, playing ruthless games with plot and character and logic.This, however, may be the first time I've run across a novel that gets its opening setup from a comic book.

That's not to say that Philip K. Dick intended to ring changes on a comic book, or even that he realized he was doing so - his readers know by now that he got inspiration and ideas anywhere he could find them, consciously or otherwise.I only suggest that readers of classic Marvel comics might find more here to identify with than they suspect.

Anyone who reads those comics, or has seen the movies, knows that the heroes often fall victim to industrial or lab accidents and emerge with super powers.The eight major characters of "Eye in the Sky" literally fall into a linear accelerator, and emerge with powers beyond anything that the Incredible Hulk ever dreamed of.They only get those powers one at a time, though.There goes PKD again, taking a standard story idea and showing us that maybe it wouldn't be such a good deal after all.

Lest some non-reader of comics stop there, however, let me assure you that you won't find any costumed oddballs here and almost no lines of dialogue end with exclamation points, so you're quite safe.Aside from the peculiar originating incident at the atomic energy plant, then, this is mostly a sort of scientific/ontological puzzle.Interesting as a brain teaser, but you have to dig for the human content.Happily, it's there.

Unfortunately, it's also a little dry.Jack Hamilton (the author had not yet developed his gift for interesting character names) loses his job at a missile plant because his wife goes to progressive political meetings and signs peace petitions.By the twisted logic of the age, this makes him a security risk.He and his wife, five other characters and a guide go to tour the accelerator, arriving just in time for that accident.The eight of them gradually realize that the world they have awakened in is not quite the one they fell out of.As I said, they also realize that, one by one, they are gaining Godlike powers, or so it seems.They spend the rest of the story in a straightforward attempt to learn what's going on and to get home.

Now, "Eye in the Sky" came out in 1957 and takes place in 1959, so there's plenty of other stuff going on here.The security man responsible for getting Hamilton fired over his wife's activities is part of the group that falls, so we get some commentary on the Red Scare of the 1950s and its effects.The group's guide is a student of advanced physics, but he's black and has to take relatively menial jobs, so we get some commentary on the early civil rights movement.Some of the characters have psychological disorders to deal with, and because of the nature of the crisis they fall into, everyone else has to deal with those disorders as well.

In other words, this novel is somewhat more than just a hard science romp.It turns out that this accident and its aftermath give Jack Hamilton the chance to confront his latent racism, to uncover his paternalistic attitude toward his wife and the buried cracks in his marriage, to consider just how he feels about his country and what's happened to it, and I think I'm not giving anything away by saying that he emerges as a stronger and better man.All of this is touching in its own way, and well worth the ride.

Maybe it's just the industrial setting, or the Cold War politics, or the episodic nature of the storyline, but for all the emotional upheavals, "Eye in the Sky" is sort of plain vanilla.The ideas and environments are typically more interesting than the characters, which can be a dangerous state of affairs - in clumsier hands, it can leave the reader nothing to care about, and even here it makes the book drag in spots.This is the last thing one expects from Philip K. Dick, as is the hard science content.Still, even leaving that aside, the book is a trifle drab.It's also frustrating that we don't get a very clear sense of anyone's inner life other than Jack Hamilton's (and when you read the book, you'll know how ironic that statement is).At least there's a genuine eye in the sky, even if it disappears about halfway through.

Nevertheless, "Eye in the Sky" is a good read, with enough spice along the way to keep the interest level going.And for those who take an interest in Philip K. Dick's work, this novel shows us some good early promise.You can see the author working out his interest in paranoia and obsession, his distrust of political systems, his concern for working people and for married couples, and his obvious love for his characters, even the horrible ones.He was also clever enough, this early in his career, to end on a slightly ambiguous note, letting us wonder if all will be well.That he got his mass-market pulp SF publisher to put it out with that kind of conclusion is an accomplishment in itself.

Perhaps that's what I respond to in "Eye in the Sky" - you can feel Phil Dick revving his engines here.A couple of years later he published "Time Out of Joint," using a lot of the same thematic materials to astoundingly better effect, and he was well on his way.So were we.

Benshlomo says, One man's trashy read is another man's practice swing. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (18)

The official bio on PKD
This one is dense so I'll keep it brief. Read this about 15 years ago. Lawrence Sutin's bio is the official one, though Anne's(Dick's 3rd wife?)is a great addition. It's jam-packed and Sutin did his homework for sure. There is everything from his home and personal life, to writing in Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dickthe SF "ghetto," philosophies, places he lived... the usual bio material, but very well crafted and researched. Sutin was a friend and gathered some great material on Phil. There are also some plot summeries of key novels, and the events under which they were written. It's dense as hell and fun to read. A must for any Philip K. Dick fan or collector. There is so much information, it is overwhelming... but also a great reference on this special man and his work. Snag it up!

Should have been titled "The Relationships of Philip K. Dick"
Far too much time is spent on Dick's relationship with women and rarely is any of this material truly enlightening about Dick (or, for that matter, his wives and girlfriends) - it pulls too many punches.As well, far too little time is spent discussing Dick's fiction - most of this is unhelpfully relegated to an appendix as if the author could not find a way to incorporate this material into the main text. It betrays a limited understanding Dick's work and how the work and the life integrate, something all good biographies manage to accomplish. That being said, the closing chapters dealing with A Scanner Darkly, Valis and the as-yet unpublished Exegesis are revelatory, but primarily as an afterthought. It's a serviceable biography but it comes up short and is ultimately disappointing. For that reason, I can't recommend this book to a general audience unfamiliar with Dick's work, nor can I recommend it for a Dick aficionado. For now, it will do, but the subject awaits an authoritative biography.

Many facts, few answers
Divine Invasions presents a detailed account of the life of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, but left me unsatisfied.A disproportionate amount of space is given to Dick's religious "visions" of the early 70's.These visions occurred long after he had written his best books and stories and seem largely irrelevant in a biography about a writer.Sutin wants to make the case for Dick as a religious visionary, but it's a shaky case.

Instead the text shows Dick as a needy, emotional, moody, paranoid man, often too afraid to leave the house or even eat in front of others, often physically abusive to his many spouses, often neglectful of his family, often strung out on amphetamines for days on end, all in service to his work, for which, for most of his life, he didn't make enough money to survive on.I'm not sure he's someone I would have liked to have known in life.His life story at times felt painfully sad, especially during the early 1970's when he wasn't writing, doing massive amounts of drugs, and suicidal.But once his "visions" began, I got bored, read the final 90 pages in a single, quick sitting, and put the book aside.

As other reviewers have said, if you are a fan of Dick's work and want to find out more about his life, this book has all the facts.I was not a great fan before I read this, and after finishing I'm still not convinced.Compared with another great writer of the 1960's, Kurt Vonnegut, Dick's writings leave me wanting.Dick's major theme, "What is real?" doesn't resonate with me.I'm far less concerned with the question, "What is real?", then with, "How do I deal with this?"Most people struggle with the meaning of life, how to create a project to deal with life, not, is this life real?Dick's question is a valid one, just not for me.

Excellent literary biography
I happened upon the writing of Philip K. Dick many years before the Blade Runner fame. I was profoundly impressed by the raw paranoia, the questioning of what is real, and the real tension generated in the gut upon being drawn into the worlds of his characters. At the time I had no idea these characters were dramatizing philosophical and spiritual issues inspired by Gnosticism; and that the author who created these dramatizations was living out this investigation into the nature of reality in a radically intense way. Although I found this biography to be quite interesting, I'm glad it wasn't available in those days to "explain" the books. That was left to my imagination, and gave me much to ponder. However, for anyone who would like to know more about the background of Dick's unique writings, Sutin has written a remarkably detailed account of the life of an author who was so obscure during most of his career. The chaotic nature of Philip K. Dick's life is not much of a surprise; it could almost have been inferred from the kind of books he wrote. I found the most interesting parts of the biography to be the accounts of Dick's mystical experiences and the description of the "Exegesis", his lengthy record of his personal attempts to divine the nature of reality. Sutin did a believable job of showing how the novels and stories evolved out of Philip Dick's personal psychological condition. This biography will probably not impress those who have never been Philip K. Dick enthusiasts, but for those who have, it should be quite worthwhile.

mixed feelings
I have mixed feelings about this book.Sutin gives the impression that he interviewed me extensively, but he actually used quotes from other interviews and never met me, although I did briefly answer three of his questions by letter.Furthermore, I must disagree with most of his conclusions.Since I spent ten years with Phil, and those were the last ten years of his life, I believe that I know more about him than a biographer who never met him and simply read about him. ... Read more

Product Description
This Halcyon Classics ebook is SECOND VARIETY by acclaimed science fiction author Philip K. Dick.Dick (1928-1982) is best known for his novel DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?This novel was adapted for the big screen as the film BLADERUNNER.

The claws were bad enough in the first place—nasty, crawling little death-robots. But when they began to imitate their creators, it was time for the human race to make peace—if it could!
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