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Best Philip K. Dick novel?

foxmulder710

foxmulder710

Lieutenant Commander
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I really liked The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and most of the movies based on Dick's stuff (i.e. Blade Runner, Paycheck, Minority Report)...

And now, I'm finally starting to read his stuff...And I was looking for opinions about what I should read. What's his best work?

I'm interested in mysticism and Gnosticism and Western Esotericism (esp. Kaballah), which I think VALIS will cater to, but I don't want to miss anything good that he wrote...

Oh, as an aside, does anyone know to what extent VALIS was based on Dick's actual "mystical" visions/experiences?
 
I've only actually read two of his novels myself, VALIS and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Both are highly recommended.

I just finished VALIS the other day, and I think you'll find it very rewarding. I think there's different ways you can take it. At the very least, it has some fascinating ideas and notions. It can be a confusing read at times but also very gripping and thought provoking. At least that's how I felt.

I don't know to what extent exactly Dick's own experiences are reflected in the book. All I know is that it is partly autobiographical and that one of the characters is a science fiction author called Philip K. Dick - which should indicate that this is more personal than some of his other works if not all.

It's so sad that he died at only 53 (I think it was 53). He was such a gifted writer and visionary. I had to think of Douglas Adams when I was reading up on Dick since he also died far too young (Adams didn't even make the 50).
 
I find it impossible to pick the best PKD novel. Ubik, The Man in the High Castle, Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Martian Time-Slip, VALIS, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the source for the movie Blade Runner,) all have excellent aspects to the writing and deep exploration of Dick's characteristic themes.

Most have something slovenly in the execution, though. For instance, the babble about Mercerism (a takeoff on Scientology partly) in DADoES is totally unnecessary thematically (whatever he thought,) and worse, was altogether too crankish---it undermined the believability of the world created in the novel. Everybody just isn't going to turn into a Mercerist/Scientologist, and on some level the reader knows this even while reading the novel. I suppose to Dick had to crank out too much wordage in too short a time. In one sense, Dick never wrote a best.

Other notable PKD novels I think were Eye in the Sky (very early but still characteristically Dickian,) The World Jones Made (logically wouldn't precogs foresee what comes after death?) Game Players of Titan (the death of the Ganymedean slime mold nearly brings a tear!) We Can Build You (Lincoln is a great character,) Galactic Pot Healer (uncharacteristically sweet,) Clanes of the Alphane Moon (mental illness triumphant!) and The Divine Invasion (Linda Ronstadt fans might not know that the Fox was modeled on her.)
 
foxmulder710 said:
I'm interested in mysticism and Gnosticism and Western Esotericism (esp. Kaballah), which I think VALIS will cater to, but I don't want to miss anything good that he wrote...
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If you're into Gnosticism, you need to read The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. It's one of Dick's mainstream, contemporary novels, rather than one of his science fiction novels, and it deals with Gnostic ideas. (The book has an interesting explanation of Jesus Christ, for instance.)
Oh, as an aside, does anyone know to what extent VALIS was based on Dick's actual "mystical" visions/experiences?
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Based on biographies and such, I would say that VALIS is fairly accurate as compared to Dick's mystical experience of 2-3-74 and its effect on Dick's life. However, Horselover Fat's Exegesis is nothing in comparison to Dick's Exegesis, for instance, and I have no idea what the VALIS film corresponded to in reality. It's also worthwhile to read Dick's alternate history flipside, Radio Free Albemuth.

Speaking of the Exegesis, the whole thing runs to approximately one million words. (Compared to Horselover Fat's, which when compiled in VALIS, is two pages.) While passages have been published in the past, they were chosen apparently at random. There was a movement to have its entirety published, possibly as a CD-ROM of PDFs. I'd be open to that. :)
 
A lot of the best ones have already been mentioned here. There are a lot of books about Philip K. Dick, some literary criticism, some biography, and it might be worth reading some of those. Likewise some of PKD's essays and letters (see The Dark-Haired Girl, The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick, the various volumes of the Selected Letters). He often talked and wrote about his major themes and obsessions (androids, alternate realities, and, yes, dark-haired girls) even before he started obsessively writing about the 2-3-74 visions. His life and personality can sometimes seem stranger than his fiction, which is probably why he's been used as a character in other writers' books (Michael Bishop's Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas, also published as The Secret Ascension, and Thomas M. Disch's The Word of God: Or, Holy Writ Rewritten.)

Almost none of it was published during his lifetime, but his mainstream fiction can be interesting, too. You can see some of the same obsessions play out in different ways.

Also, for people interested in movies based on his fiction, it should probably be mentioned that most of the PKD-inspired movies were adapted from short stories rather than novels, and that in several cases you could read the story and see the movie and never spot a connection between the two. (Worst case probably being Next, supposedly based on The Golden Man.)
 
At the risk of being burned at the stake-I never cared for his stuff. I read tons of his shorts over the years and several novels but he left me feeling like he couldn't quite spit the ideas out coherently. The Man In the High Castle left me feeling let down-I'd read better A.H. stuff prior to picking it up, and Do Androids... and Scanners were kinda dismal in atmosphere, leaving me depressed. I much preferred Clarke or Heinlein, Ellison or Laumer. TO each their own.
 
^
Indeed. I love PKD's stuff, but I had a really hard time getting through Gibon's Neuromancer, for example.

I like Clarke as well though I must say I was really let down by 2061 and (to a lesser extent) 3001.
 
Mistral said:
The Man In the High Castle left me feeling let down-I'd read better A.H. stuff prior to picking it up,
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I don't really think of TMitHC as an alternate history. Yes, the world it takes place in is a world where Germany and Japan won World War II and divided the world between them. Beyond that, the book doesn't play by any of the usual alt-history rules. Dick makes no effort to justify the world. It simply exists, and the point of the book is that characters either come to a growing realization that their world exists or doesn't exist. The biggest mistake a reader can make in approaching TMitHC is to think of it as any sort of linear novel; Juliana's trip spans a fair chunk of time , while most of the rest of the action takes place over two or three days during the middle of her trip. It's the alt-history elements of the book that confuse people; the book is no more "real" because of them than Martian Time-Slip is "real" because it's set on Mars in the future. As it typical of Dick's work in the mid-60's, this is a book about people piercing the veil between the world they believe they live in and what the world really is. It's a theme that Dick returns to time and again -- see A Scanner Darkly (with Bob Arctor narcing on himself), Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (with the character living in a world where he doesn't exist), A Maze of Death (don't really want to give that one away), and even VALIS (where Horselover Fat comes to believe that the world exists in a "Black Iron Prison" and that humanity is still living in the first century CE, only we cannot recognize it as such). Reading TMitHC as one might read Harry Turtledove is a mistake.
 
Thanks for this thread. The only novel I've read was Do Androids Dream... and that was 25 years ago now. I am going to include Philip K Dick on my "to read in the near future list".
 
Allyn-I didn't take it as literal A.H. His stuff just leaves me cold-I LIKE literal A.H. and Castle was-whatever. If you want trippy try Pavane. Its a much better form of what PKD was trying to do,IMO.
As for the rest of his work-some is good, some is written to put bread on the table and some embarrassed even him. As is true for most pro writers. He's just not my cup of tea and I scratch my head continuously at the fact that Hollywood keeps dipping into that well when there are so many other amazing authors out there. It kind of reminds me of Richard Matheson-if he wrote it, they optioned it whether it's worth making into a movie or not. Where's the Heinlein, the Piper, the Silverberg movies?
 
I find one of the most underrated of his is The Cosmic Puppets. It's one of his first, and man is it fantastic.

I think his strongest are probably UBIK, VALIS, and A Scanner Darkly.
 
I've read a lot but all my books are French translations :lol: (I was young, and I plan on reading the novels again, in English this time, when I'll find enough time). Ubik is still my favorite.
 
I just read Ubik and Do Androids Dream...

The former was most certainly better, as well as the best Dick I've ever read.

The latter was annoying, mostly. It was OK and better than Blade Runner, but not terrific.
 
Unfortunately I have the shame of being a sci-fi fan who has only read one of Dick's books.

That said, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is excellent.
 
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