Classic scifi novelist, or meme author?
>>7758130
schizo genius.
>>7758130
Both because scifi is a meme like all other genre fiction.
>>7758130
>meme author?
Please fuck yourself. That doesn't mean shit.
PDK was damn cool. Not my fav scifi author but if you're into philosophy, the nature of reality, mental illness and drugs, he's your guy.
He has some very underrated novels.
>Eye in the Sky
>The World Jones Made
I enjoyed these a lot and nobody ever mentions or reads them.
>>7758145
>a meme like all other genre fiction.
Please die.
>genre fiction
Please die again.
You're the sort of absolute moron who think Vonnegut was literature because he made it clear that nobody would write "science fiction" on the covers of his books, even though it absolutely is SF.
Please, please kill yourself.
There isn't a single book you can't categorise as genre fiction, you shit for brains.
>this is why /lit/ has the worst reputation
>fucktwits who know jackass try to show off because they've read a few classics
Let me fucking laugh. Nowadays, science fiction is more relevant than any other genre, ESPECIALLY the sort of pathetic, arrogant crap written by young men with nothing to show for living beyond a degree in humanities.
If you don't like stories, never say you like fiction. You piece of shit.
>>7758162
Mad
What are his good books? I liked Scanner Darkly and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Not as much as Martian Time Slip though.
Classic and meme have the same meaning
General consensus here is that he had great ideas but unreadable work. Maybe just bad prose.
>>7758162
epin
"How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later" is still one of the best philosophical essays I've read.
>>7758162
>There isn't a single book you can't categorise as genre fiction, you shit for brains.
This is what genreautists actually believe.
K he has good books. But also a few memes. Ubik was good. The man in the high castle was a meme. I got memed on that one. Cunt.
>>7758264
>great ideas but unreadable work.
faggishly exaggerated as usual
>>7758249
I believe Ubik is supposed to be his best, but idk I've never read it
>>7758249
valis
pretty dope. read 17 of his novels and haven't gotten tired of him yet.
not even trying to be contrarian, but two of his most popular - the man in high castle and android dream of electric sheep - are two of his weakest
really want to read his exegesis but it's pretty expensive and i've yet to see it at a used store
>>7758480
His prose is legitimately terrible so the only exaggeration is the part about his ideas, which aren't anything special.
>>7758502
I wouldn't call his prose terrible. pedestrian maybe. disinterested.
it's not the focus and doesn't pretend to be.
shout out to bolaño for getting me into DICK
>>7758502
you're retarded.
>>7758565
No u
>>7758480
This, his ideas were shit.
>>7758455
>implying it's not true
Retard.
>>7758714
It's true in the sense that you can always do some mental gymnastics to rationalize putting anything into a genre. At that point you're essentially writing fan fiction though.
i downloaded 117 of his short stories in a .mobi linked here last year and am just getting to the end now. it was about 2,200 pages total. really really enjoyable. i feel like reading pkd has made me more creative, and slightly nostalgic of the near-future he imagined: monorails, cigarettes, and pre-cogs.
>>7759001
his novels are notoriously bloated with filler, but his ideas are far more developed in his novels because he wrote most of his short stories early on
definetely check out some of his novels if you enjoyed his short stories
>>7758130
neither.
prophet
tormented demiurge
with some deficiencies of craft
>>7758150
>The World Jones Made
I've read that one. I think it's probably on about the level of a lot of his other acclaimed stuff. Maybe as good as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but not on the level of his best stuff.
Which should I read next?
Maze of Death
Eye in The Sky
Divine Invasion
Crack in Space
>>7758490
What are your favourites?
>>7758162
this is the kind of guy who got butthurt in fiction workshops because they didn't let him write his brony fantasy novel
Only thing of his I've read is Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, and I didn't like it very much. Is it representative of his other work, or should I give him another try?
>>7758249
time out of joint is his best
>>7760201
I like it but I also think it's a bit odd compared to the rest of his work. If you want to see some 'woah, crazy' LSD-trip type stuff I'd recommend The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Ubik is also good.
The Man in the High Castle is probably the most straight-forward and readable thing he ever made but I don't think it's as interesting. There are some great parts which resemble the stuff that's made him famous but it's a bit dull compared to the rest of his work. I think he gets a bit too caught up in trying to tell a conventional story in that one at times.
>>7760214
Thanks for the feedback anon. I keep hearing Ubik, I think I'll give that one a try.
>>7760201
its very representative of a certain batch of his books. some of his works are more well rounded scifi/speculative fiction works, (androids / high castle / ubik / deus irae/ scanner darkly ) some (most(?)) are these zany explorations of high concept ideas (what if you woke up in a universe where you didnt exist? / what if the nazis won? / what if time went backwards?) usually accompanied by a weak filler subplot that doesn't mesh well with the main plot (totalitarianism in flow my tears / coorporate warfare in three stigmata / time travel in lies inc ), the VALIS AND BEYOND type novel that is semi autobiographical, "literary" and deals with drugs, god, and people sitting around discussing drugs and god (valis, divine invasion, tim archer, radio free albemuth, arguably scanner darkly) and lastly the SERIOUS FICTION that that is less popular non scifi stuff like gather yourselves together and confessions of a crap artist
I like his work but his weird delusions about reality are off putting.
>>7760271
your sheeple mind is offputting
>>7760227
Lol ubik is great. That shit is hilarious. Was the lock on his door coin operated or something? Haven't read it since high school. Something was coin operated and it was hilarious.
>>7760295
everything in philip k dick is coin operated/and or embedded in a wall
>>7758130
He kinda looks like The Zizek in that photo
>>7760271
Why would you like this work if the disintegration of reality that is almost always central to dicks work is ''off putting''.
>>7758130
Everyone here saying he was philosophically anything beyond mediocre has never actually read Jung, Plato, or any of the other references they loved so much from valis. Philip K Dick was a wildly mediocre author with a loose understanding of the things people on drugs talk about.
>>7758162
urban fiction is the descendant of science fiction. science fiction was all about going on holiday to the moon or galifrey, meeting ayy lmaos and advanced technology.
well I still use an internal combustion engine to mow my lawn and get to work. urban fiction is the depression that follows the complete lack of scientific progress over the past 50 years
he had some sort of disorder, didn't he? I remember watching some docu on him and I remember hallucinations being mentioned, plus he never really left the house
>>7761315
>the complete lack of scientific progress over the past 50 years
posted Anon, on the internet
>>7761321
He did many drugs, this seemed to induce some kind of schizophrenia. It seems if you are somewhat hardwired to develop such a disease, LSD will bring it out in you much faster than natural progression.
Is The Man in the High Castle his worst creation? The alternate history as I inferred from the map is what made me refuse to read his works all this time.
>>7761286
I read 6 works of Jung (Red Book, Aion, Synchronicty, Collected works on Psychological Types, Soul of a Modern Man, Memories Dreams & Reflections) plus countless secondary material on him. I'm halfway through chewing my way through the dialogues. I read a lot of apocryphal scriptures (Nag Hammadi + several others). And many other works mentioned in Valis, such as Faust, fragments of Heraclitus, Parsifal,...I don't even remember.
I love Dick. He was anything else but mediocre. He went in extreme detail when exploring and appropriating the different gnostic world-views and trying to reconcile them with his own revelation (read parts of the Exegesis, you can find it on web - fascinating stuff).
I think you are very wrong in your assessment there, friend.
>>7761446
Have you actually read the book?
>>7761321
That's one explanation (that he himself carefuly considered). The other is that all of us are insane and living in a false hostile universe that works like a chinese finger-trap.
I might be a looney, but I am convinced I've had enough evidence in my life to support the latter view.
>>7760271
I imagine they would be, for someone who doesn't live them.
>>7758249
Ubik is his classic book. Really good. You can read Flow My Tears, the policeman said, one of my favs
>>7758465
I don't know about meme. I read The man in the High Castle last week and was very disapoiting book. The week before I read the biography written by emmanuel carrere and TMitHC seemed like an excuse to just show how much he liked i-ching.
>>7758249
You can pretty much read anything he wrote, it's not like he has ever written anything shitty.
Whoops, guess I shoulda posted my thread in here. Just finished pic related and I'm looking for my next PKD book to read; any suggestions? I thought it was great btw
>>7760271
His weird... perception of reality (who am I to say it was a delusion?) is what makes him interesting though, without that overtone he's just another Asimov/Heinlein/Clarke type. Just compare his early works to the ones he wrote AFTER seeing a giant metal face in the sky, it's a massive improvement.
>>7765242
VALIS and Divine Invasion are both connected to Palmer Eldritch thematically and they're considered a trilogy, I'd suggest those. VALIS is killer.
>>7765242
Flow My Tears the Policeman Said
Or you could just pick one at random. That's how I've been doing it and I've only been disappointed like twice
>>7765967
Palmer Eldritch is not part of the VALIS trilogy. You're thinking of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
>>7758130
well his last name is dick
>>7766008
(not that guy) Yeah. Although I'd say that the Three Stigmata is more similiar to Divine Invasion and Valis than Transmigration. I don't know - the Transmigration is somehow just too connected to the real world stuff that it somehow missess the flair of the two predecessors, atleast that's my feeling.
Also Divine Invasion is a pretty underrated piece. That stuff about the two macro-realities seamlessly switching (the Black Iron Prison and the Palm Tree Garden) throughout the plot is an amazing portrayal of the gnostic reality in flux.
