Dick has been gone for 27 years now, passing away at a far too young 53. But Dick continues to be one of the most influential Sci-Fi writers ever. A number of his stories have been turned into Hollywood blockbuster films including Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall (We can Remember it for you Wholesale), Screamers (Second Variety), Next (The Golden Man), Minority Report, Paycheck, and A Scanner Darkly (all based on the stories of the same name). His 1962 novel, The Man in the High Castle is a fantastic alternate history tale and won the Hugo for best novel. The Philip K. Dick award was established in 1982 and has been awarded each year for the best, original Sci-Fi novel.
Philip Kindred Dick (1928 - 1982) or Philip K. Dick was an American writer. Most of his novels, short fiction and essays are written about science fiction. Philip K. Dick’s works were concerned with political and social structures and how they related to the individual’s sense of self and sanity.
He often presented dystopias that are dominated by political and business hegemonic organizations. Schizophrenia and drug abuse are often represented as leading to transcendentally abject states. Philip K. Dick used these plot devices to explore his larger intellectual interests of theology and metaphysics. Philip K. Dick considered himself a “fictionalizing philosopher.” His novel The Man in the High Castle won the Hugo Award, and his novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Time magazine declared that Dick’s Ubik was one of the greatest novels written in English since 1923. In 2007, Dick was inducted into The Library of America series. Philip K. Dick was a prolific writer, authoring over one-hundred and twenty pieces of short fiction and forty-four novels. Ten movies have been adapted from his fiction. Most famously, these movies included Blade Runner, Total Recall and A Scanner Darkly. Most of Philip K. Dick’s success came late in life or posthumously, and he spent most of his career in poverty.
Philip Kindred Dick (1928 - 1982) or Philip K. Dick was an American writer. Most of his novels, short fiction and essays are written about science fiction. Philip K. Dick’s works were concerned with political and social structures and how they related to the individual’s sense of self and sanity.
He often presented dystopias that are dominated by political and business hegemonic organizations. Schizophrenia and drug abuse are often represented as leading to transcendentally abject states. Philip K. Dick used these plot devices to explore his larger intellectual interests of theology and metaphysics. Philip K. Dick considered himself a “fictionalizing philosopher.” His novel The Man in the High Castle won the Hugo Award, and his novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Time magazine declared that Dick’s Ubik was one of the greatest novels written in English since 1923. In 2007, Dick was inducted into The Library of America series. Philip K. Dick was a prolific writer, authoring over one-hundred and twenty pieces of short fiction and forty-four novels. Ten movies have been adapted from his fiction. Most famously, these movies included Blade Runner, Total Recall and A Scanner Darkly. Most of Philip K. Dick’s success came late in life or posthumously, and he spent most of his career in poverty.
Philip K. Dick’s writing explores the frail border between outward projections of reality and manifestations of personal identifications. His fictions often describe the dissolution or the unraveling of reality for an individual faced with vast conspiracies. Because of narrative degeneration, Philip K. Dick’s narrators are often viewed as unreliable. Perception and the ways it shifts are the key functions of Philip K. Dick’s writings. For Philip K. Dick, reality can never be objective or essentialized. To illustrate this point, Philip K. Dick often returns to the device of the alternate universe or simulacra. These novels recount the stories of the working class.
The psychoanalytical theories of Carl Jung appeared as an undercurrent of Dick’s work. More directly, Philip K. Dick’s Exegesis draws directly and explicitly from Jung. Philip K. Dick often explored the Jungian constructions of collective unconsciousness and archetypes. The characters in Philip K. Dick’s writings often perform critical analyses of their environments and identifications. Many act as Cynics cast into far futures; many simply yet profoundly ask what it means to be human.
Mental illness in that it necessitates alternative understanding of reality is a trope that Philip K. Dick returned to repeatedly. The novels Clans of the Alphane and Martian Time-Slip rely heavily on characters with schizophrenia, autism, and a host of other mental disorders. In 1965, Dick wrote an essay entitled “Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes”. This work explores his interest in a more direct way. Similarly, Philip K. Dick’s characters use and abuse drugs to enter alternate states. Philip K. Dick also used recreational drugs throughout his life—he claims to have written all of his books published before 1970 when he was on amphetamines although his most psychedelic works were written before he experimented with hallucinogenic drugs.
On December 16, 1928, Philip K. Dick and Jane Charlotte Dick were born in Chicago. Dorothy Kindred Dick gave birth twins were premature by six weeks. Both their mother and their father Joseph Edgar Dick worked for the United States Department of Agriculture. Within six weeks, Jane was dead. This early loss colored Philip K. Dick’s life and writing—the “phantom twin” recurred in many of his works.
The psychoanalytical theories of Carl Jung appeared as an undercurrent of Dick’s work. More directly, Philip K. Dick’s Exegesis draws directly and explicitly from Jung. Philip K. Dick often explored the Jungian constructions of collective unconsciousness and archetypes. The characters in Philip K. Dick’s writings often perform critical analyses of their environments and identifications. Many act as Cynics cast into far futures; many simply yet profoundly ask what it means to be human.
Mental illness in that it necessitates alternative understanding of reality is a trope that Philip K. Dick returned to repeatedly. The novels Clans of the Alphane and Martian Time-Slip rely heavily on characters with schizophrenia, autism, and a host of other mental disorders. In 1965, Dick wrote an essay entitled “Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes”. This work explores his interest in a more direct way. Similarly, Philip K. Dick’s characters use and abuse drugs to enter alternate states. Philip K. Dick also used recreational drugs throughout his life—he claims to have written all of his books published before 1970 when he was on amphetamines although his most psychedelic works were written before he experimented with hallucinogenic drugs.
On December 16, 1928, Philip K. Dick and Jane Charlotte Dick were born in Chicago. Dorothy Kindred Dick gave birth twins were premature by six weeks. Both their mother and their father Joseph Edgar Dick worked for the United States Department of Agriculture. Within six weeks, Jane was dead. This early loss colored Philip K. Dick’s life and writing—the “phantom twin” recurred in many of his works.
While he was still a young child, the remaining Dick household relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area. When Joseph Edgar Dick was required to move to Reno, Nevada, Dorothy Kindred Dick rejected the relocation and divorced her husband. After a battle for custody over their remaining child, Dorothy Dick was award custody. She wanted to deny Joseph Dick access to Philip K. Dick, and she moved to Washington, D.C. In the American capital, Philip K. Dick attended John Eaton Elementary School.
Mother and son returned to California in 1938. Two years later, Dick encountered his first science fiction in the magazine Stirring Science Stories. In 1947, Philip K. Dick and famed science-fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin) graduated from Berkeley High School. However, this was nothing more than a tantalizing coincidence since these writers did not know each other. Later when both were established writers, Le Guin would comment on Philip K. Dick’s work. In 1948, Philip K. Dick was briefly married to Jeanette Marlin.
From 1949 to 1950, Philip K. Dick was a student at the University of California—Berkeley. Philip K. Dick studied history, military science, philosophy and zoology. According to his third wife, the required ROTC military training and persistent anxiety forced Philip K. Dick out of school. During this time period, Philip K. Dick became acquainted with the American poets Robert Duncan and Jack Spicer. Spicer would inspire Philip K. Dick in developing his concept of a Martian language.
In 1950, Philip K. Dick married Kleo Apostolides. He worked at a record store in the first few years of their marriage. Kleo Apostolides was involved in left-winged activism, which prompted a visit from the FBI. One of the agents became an intimate of the couple for a short period. Philip K. Dick and Kleo Apostolides marriage ended in 1959. Dick maintained stayed true to the liberal counterculture when he protested the Vietnam War by placing his name on the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge. He vowed not to pay taxes in protest of the ongoing conflict.
Mother and son returned to California in 1938. Two years later, Dick encountered his first science fiction in the magazine Stirring Science Stories. In 1947, Philip K. Dick and famed science-fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin) graduated from Berkeley High School. However, this was nothing more than a tantalizing coincidence since these writers did not know each other. Later when both were established writers, Le Guin would comment on Philip K. Dick’s work. In 1948, Philip K. Dick was briefly married to Jeanette Marlin.
From 1949 to 1950, Philip K. Dick was a student at the University of California—Berkeley. Philip K. Dick studied history, military science, philosophy and zoology. According to his third wife, the required ROTC military training and persistent anxiety forced Philip K. Dick out of school. During this time period, Philip K. Dick became acquainted with the American poets Robert Duncan and Jack Spicer. Spicer would inspire Philip K. Dick in developing his concept of a Martian language.
In 1950, Philip K. Dick married Kleo Apostolides. He worked at a record store in the first few years of their marriage. Kleo Apostolides was involved in left-winged activism, which prompted a visit from the FBI. One of the agents became an intimate of the couple for a short period. Philip K. Dick and Kleo Apostolides marriage ended in 1959. Dick maintained stayed true to the liberal counterculture when he protested the Vietnam War by placing his name on the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge. He vowed not to pay taxes in protest of the ongoing conflict.
In 1951, Philip K. Dick sold his first piece of short fiction. Four years later he sold his first novel. In the 1950s, Dick tried to write mainstream fiction. By 1963, the Scott Meredith Literary Agency sent all of manuscripts back. This event was the end of his attempts at entry into the mainstream literary establishment. However, 1963 was also the year that he was awarded the Hugo Award for his novel The Man in the High Castle. As the mainstream literary establishment rejected him, the science fiction industry embraced Philip K. Dick.
In 1968, Philip K. Dick published Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. This novel would become one of Dick’s most renowned works. In it, Philip K. Dick asks what it means to human and also what obligations do we have to other forms of life. Reality and simulation are conflated, but a sense of the importance of empathy would tie the desperate elements of this dystopia together. In 1982, the novel would be the basis for the film Blade Runner.
The California State University’s Special Collections Library received Philip K. Dicks manuscripts and papers in 1972. In 1974, Philip K. Dick was under the anesthesia for a dental procedure. A delivery woman arrived to give Philip K. Dick additional analgesic. She was wearing what Philip K. Dick called the “vesicle pisces.” For several months, Philip K. Dick had visions. These intensifying visions fueled the VALIS triology: Radio Free Albemuth, VALIS, The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.
Philip K. Dick’s personal life was marked by a sequence of failed marriages. In 1959, Philip K. Dick married Anne Williams Rubinstein. In 1960, Dick’s daughter Laura Archer was born. In 1966, Dick married Nancy Hackett. In 1967, Dick’s second daughter Isolde Freya Dick was born. In 1973, Philip K. Dick married Leslie Busby. Also in 1973, Dick’s son Christopher Kenneth was born.
On the seventeenth of February 1982, Philip K. Dick finished an interview. Later that day, his sight was failing, so he reached out to his therapist. He was instructed to seek immediate medical assistance. Philip K. Dick refused. On the eighteenth of February 1982, he was found passed out in his home. He had suffered a stroke. While undergoing medical treatment, Philip K. Dick has a second stroke that terminated all of his brain activity. On the second of March, Philip K. Dick’s life support was removed. He was cremated and buried next to his sister.
In 1968, Philip K. Dick published Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. This novel would become one of Dick’s most renowned works. In it, Philip K. Dick asks what it means to human and also what obligations do we have to other forms of life. Reality and simulation are conflated, but a sense of the importance of empathy would tie the desperate elements of this dystopia together. In 1982, the novel would be the basis for the film Blade Runner.
The California State University’s Special Collections Library received Philip K. Dicks manuscripts and papers in 1972. In 1974, Philip K. Dick was under the anesthesia for a dental procedure. A delivery woman arrived to give Philip K. Dick additional analgesic. She was wearing what Philip K. Dick called the “vesicle pisces.” For several months, Philip K. Dick had visions. These intensifying visions fueled the VALIS triology: Radio Free Albemuth, VALIS, The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.
Philip K. Dick’s personal life was marked by a sequence of failed marriages. In 1959, Philip K. Dick married Anne Williams Rubinstein. In 1960, Dick’s daughter Laura Archer was born. In 1966, Dick married Nancy Hackett. In 1967, Dick’s second daughter Isolde Freya Dick was born. In 1973, Philip K. Dick married Leslie Busby. Also in 1973, Dick’s son Christopher Kenneth was born.
On the seventeenth of February 1982, Philip K. Dick finished an interview. Later that day, his sight was failing, so he reached out to his therapist. He was instructed to seek immediate medical assistance. Philip K. Dick refused. On the eighteenth of February 1982, he was found passed out in his home. He had suffered a stroke. While undergoing medical treatment, Philip K. Dick has a second stroke that terminated all of his brain activity. On the second of March, Philip K. Dick’s life support was removed. He was cremated and buried next to his sister.