The Essential Philip K. Dick • Hacker News Board

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#111

Post by gmuslera » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 1:36 AM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #6

PKD is one of my favorite sci-fi writers and I recommend Ubik if you're a new reader, although like the article mentions, you definitely need to be in a certain mindset to "get it." The Man in the High Castle has an interesting concept but I don't think it's particularly well-written. One thing that I think goes unnoticed about PKD is how some of his earlier short stories are undeniably, unquestionably bad. Fair Game…

Reading most of his short stories in order is a great experience. Yes, you hit some not so great stories, but from time to time you hit gold. Beyond Lies the Wub, Meddler and Paycheck are some of his early works that worth a read.

Regarding Ubik, there is a Russian movie, Koma, that looks like it had Ubik as inspiration, and in that probably is more faithful than most Hollywood adaptations of his work.

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#112

Post by dankwizard » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 1:37 AM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #32

utopcell wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you posting the archive link, but the problem is that if the article is not accessible, this becomes an ad posting for the site.

Check the HN FAQ. Paywalled sites are fine for submissions as long as there's a workaround (and there is here), and whining about it (as the person I responded to did) is considered off-topic. It takes about 10 seconds to pull up an archive link and maybe 5-10 seconds more to submit it, only slightly longer than it takes to write and submit a useless comment about how it is paywalled.

Which is crazy to me. This websites policy is "Hey, websites that want their writers paid fairly can only be submitted if us users can find a way to bypass this and pirate their content for free".

I'm not going to sign up to NYTimes, but journalists do need to receive payment for the work they do and you've got essentially one of the biggest tech forums actively helping users avoid that.

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#113

Post by cocacola1 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 1:38 AM UTC

For anyone interested, Library of America has a wonderful 3-volume collection of some of PKD's books: https://www.loa.org/books/311-the-philip-k-dick-collection-3...

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#114

Post by danbmil99 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 1:52 AM UTC

My pop turned me on to PKD years before he was all that jazz. He gave me a copy of "Man In The High Castle". That was also my introduction to the I-Ching.

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#115

Post by Finnucane » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 3:06 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #106

e12e wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps Bruce Sterling and Frank Herbert (in particular "Dune"). Absolutely Samuel Delaney IMO. For something similar to pkd, but perhaps more refined(?) Alfred Beater, "The Stars my Destination".

Bester is criminally under appreciated.

Stars my destination and The Demolished man are the best sf novels of the 1950s. By a wide margin.

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#116

Post by ggorlen » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 3:49 AM UTC

yarg wrote: post #68

keiferski wrote: post #6

PKD is one of my favorite sci-fi writers and I recommend Ubik if you're a new reader, although like the article mentions, you definitely need to be in a certain mindset to "get it." The Man in the High Castle has an interesting concept but I don't think it's particularly well-written. One thing that I think goes unnoticed about PKD is how some of his earlier short stories are undeniably, unquestionably bad. Fair Game…

He also had a problem with women (to be fair, he was a professional writer - and apparently his wife wouldn't let him use the house). I don't think I've read a single well-meaning intelligent woman in a PKD story. I remember being surprised at the start of one of his books, that the female character introduced at the beginning was clearly competent - turned out she was evil.

PKD was largely a product of his time in terms of gender roles, but his short story "The Impossible Planet" may be a counterexample.

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#117

Post by fastball » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 3:53 AM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #101

keiferski wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it seemed a bit generic to me, but maybe I'll take a second look.

It's not really worth a second look. It started out fairly strong but didn't seem to go anywhere.

Kinda like the novel, tbf.

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#118

Post by wrp » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:10 AM UTC

NikolaNovak wrote: post #94

sbf501 wrote: post #84

I've read 45 of all 49 PKD novels on the Wikipedia page. It was a goal I set about 7 years ago. I tried to read the books in order, but had trouble finding some. His style goes from Twilight Zone / Amazing Stories, do thought-provoking alternate reality, to alternate people, to alternate "reality" which is different than what I said earlier. There is "alternate reality" where we are in a different timeline, or aliens…

A few of us in the old country read about ~50 of Agatha Christie's 84 fiction books together in our mid-teens (there was reasons/context:). They were definitely "more of the same", but Agatha has the kind of stylistic English language that made the process itself enjoyable; it's like going on a bike ride, you don't have to see spectacular new sights to just enjoy the journey. My preference is SF though, but it's beca…

> ...it's the ideas that are the draw for me; if the ideas start repeating themselves...it becomes a lot harder to read a lot faster.

I read for the ideas, too. It's typical for me to discover a wonderful book, search out everything from that author, only to observe the ideas becoming repetitive over a long output. Even Terry Pratchett felt very samey to me after a dozen books.

High-output writing seems to be inevitably uniform in outlook. You can easily change the setting of your plot, but it's a lot harder to alter your philosophical view.

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#119

Post by Jedd » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 4:17 AM UTC

theptip wrote: post #43

For anyone that liked “Blade Runner”, it’s fascinating to go back and read PKD’s “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep”, which Blade Runner was based on. You can see the threads of similarity but it’s a way more surreal paranoid bad-acid-trip vibe. Can’t remember another adaptation with such a striking difference from the original.

> Can’t remember another adaptation with such a striking difference from the original.

Are we talking in general, or just PKD?

Next - with Nicholas Cage - was a film I actually enjoyed, but is a far cry from The Golden Man (short story).

I read an anecdote after Ex Machina came out about the 'freaky alternative ending' that wasn't used, which felt like a nod to the Golden Man:

"... So in that scene, what used to happen is you’d see her talking, and you wouldn’t hear, but all of a sudden it would cut to her point of view. And her point of view is completely alien to ours. There’s no actual sound; you’d just see pulses and recognitions, and all sorts of crazy stuff ..."

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#120

Post by fsckboy » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 5:33 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #105

pmoriarty wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Short story not mentioned but is worth reading if one has not, Second Variety." The movie The Terminator has some similarities to Second Variety , and I wouldn't be surprised if the movie was somewhat influenced by the story.

PKD has a much stronger claim on that than Harlan Ellison ever did. A writer of great talent who inexplicably chose to drown it in a barrel of pomposity.

according to this, Cameron said he ripped off Ellison https://www.cbr.com/terminator-harlan-ellison-credit/

the article describes it as the opening time travel part, though it's not clear that's what Cameron said.