Love Lem, especially The Futurological Congress
Talk about mind bending. By the way, there’s a movie somewhat based on it with Harvie Cartell. Worth a watch.
"The Congress" (2013) probably?
Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)
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Re: Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)
#132If a committee can produce the Cyberiad, books should always be written by committees.
Re: Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
He wrote Transmigration of Timothy Archer because Ursula LeGuin took him to task about this
If you have any links or book recommendations to share on that history, I for one would love to know them. I find the history of the interactions of SF authors strangely compelling -- e.g. the book "Hell's Cartographers" is a personal favourite, and it's just a set of autobiographical essays from NY 40s-70s SF authors talking about their time in the scene.
Re: Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do retain their power because of the notoriety of the stories they head. It's a matter of taste and thus hard to argue, but I do think his titles were kind of clunky. Can you imagine if Blade Runner retained the title of the work it was derived from?
> Can you imagine if Blade Runner retained the title of the work it was derived from? ... or even some parts of the plot ... It would have been more interesting than the shooting based thriller we got instead.
FWIW the Adventure game adaptation, is -really- interesting from everything I've seen on Youtube, especially because it's apparently randomized in various ways on each play-through...
Re: Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)
#135Wow this reads like the plot of a bad romcom! I can totally imagine Dick sitting angry in his study getting all worked up over how badly Lem hated US SF and how mean that is, not realizing Lem actually loved his work. All this lacks is the grand finale where the misunderstanding is revealed and they kiss & make out.
Philip K. Dick was vindictive, continually broke, terrible at titles, unlucky, and a wonderful writer. He never had a happy ending.
He was very good at channeling his mental issues and insecurities into brilliant plots. I wonder if his books would have been as good if PKD hadn't been so fucked up as a person. Paranoia seems to be a surprisingly effective muse.
Re: Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Arguably according to whom?
The parent. Look up the definition of arguably.
Sure, if you are reading the word "arguably" completely literally, but that's not the colloquially understood implication of the term when used to describe a work. Obviously the author of the parent comment is implying they they would possibly consider it the best PKD novel, but the colloquial meaning implied when someone uses the word arguably, generally isn't just to describe one's own opinion, but a significant portion of the popular or critical consensus.
One person could take a position opposed to the general held consensus on any topic, but if one person is the only one to hold this opinion, in english, it would generally not be described as a position that is "arguably" the case, even though if you read the word literally, one person is technically arguing it.
Also, I asked because I wanted to get the above user's opinion on the matter, not your dismissive comment which isn't contributing anything. I've read the VALIS trilogy, but I've never heard any of VALIS trilogy novels described as possibly PKD's best work.
Re: Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)
#137Wow this reads like the plot of a bad romcom! I can totally imagine Dick sitting angry in his study getting all worked up over how badly Lem hated US SF and how mean that is, not realizing Lem actually loved his work. All this lacks is the grand finale where the misunderstanding is revealed and they kiss & make out.
Philip K. Dick was vindictive, continually broke, terrible at titles, unlucky, and a wonderful writer. He never had a happy ending.
Pretty sure his editor(s) created most of his titles, but could be wrong.
Re: Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious why you like these so much as titles. Tastes differ, but in my opinion, "A Scanner Darkly" is the only standout winner here. Without knowing anything of what the story was about, would "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" convey anything important to the reader? Even as a standalone metaphor it's confused: humans don't dream about sheep! There is an old trope of counting sheep to fall asleep, but that's…
maybe because English is my third language, but i always loathed the scanner darkly title. so empty and try-hard.
It’s a reference to a biblical passage.
1 Corinthians 13:12, "For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then we shall see face to face".
There wasn’t any clear glass back in Paul’s day. Looking through glass meant that your vision was obscured.
Re: Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
>... terrible at titles... I disagree. Here are some that retain their power all these decades later and will likely do so for the foreseeable future: Time Out of Joint The Man in the High Castle Martian Time-Slip The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch Clans of the Alphane Moon The Simulacra Now Wait for Last Year Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)/Blade Runner (1982) Ubik We Can Build You Flow My Tears, The…
I grew up in the USSR and then Russia, so I was exposed to Stanislaw Lem's books and I loved them. Much later, I tried reading Ubik and I just couldn't get into it. What's the point of the story? It feels like it's written under the influence of heavy drugs. Yeah, it's absurdist but somehow far less fun than the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Another thing that really grated on my nerves, is that women are barely…
> It feels like it's written under the influence of heavy drugs.
That is broadly true with respect to PKD. Wait until you see VALIS...
Re: Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)
#140I have immense respect for PKDs writings, he was far far ahead of his time, sad that he was such a mess mentally. His themes about the malleability of reality are just so prescient about the problems of the digital era. Neighbors no longer share the same narrative about what is actually happening in the world. I often wonder what PKD would say if he were alive today. Heck, I wonder what he'd be doing today in the dig…
Sometimes it's the small details. Remember all the microtransactions in Ubik? "insert coin to open this door" (to his own apartment!) etc.