For the last couple of months I’ve been reading a LOT of Philip K. Dick. For those of you that have never heard of Dick, he’s arguably the greatest science-fiction writer of the 20th century. So far, 7 of his novels (he wrote over 40) have been made into motion pictures. You might have heard of some of them…

Blade Runner (1982) – adapted from the novel “Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep”
Minority Report (2002)
Total Recall (1990), based on the short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale “
A Scanner Darkly (2006)

I’ve been a huge fan of the movie “Bladerunner” for years, but I’d always heard that the book is so much better, and was it ever! Even the title for the book is better. Has there ever been a cooler title for a book than “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”? I don’t think so. I understand why the book would never make a good movie – no action what-so-ever, but they left some of the best concepts out of the movie adaptation. It’s really hard to explain if you haven’t read the book, but Dick does a fantastic job of playing religion vs science and human nature vs technology. I highly recommend this book if you enjoyed the movie.

I just finished reading “A Scanner Darkly” and it blew my mind. It’s not the Sci-Fi that people usually think of with spaceships and aliens and all that crap. It’s way more subtle than that. Dick uses the characters to tell the story instead of relying on cheap props of future technology. The story is enthralling and unique, and the fact that it takes place in the future is almost insignificant. Darkly was recently made into a movie by Richard Linklater starring the always dudefull Keanu Reeves and the perpetually stoned Robert Downey Jr.. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but the previews look like they stayed pretty faithful to the novel, which is always a good sign. Not to mention the fact that the whole movie was shot with live actors, then animated over using some newfangled “rotoscoping” technique (much like the movie Waking Life). It looks incredible.

I’m currently working my way through a large collection of his short stories. PKD died in 1982 at the age of 52 after suffering a severe stroke – perhaps the years and years of psychedelic drugs caused it? I wonder what he might of pondered in his last seconds of consciousness before he died…

“In my writing I even question the universe; I wonder out loud if it is
real, and I wonder out loud if all of us are real” -PKD