FICTWRI@aol.com wrote:
>
> Just recently watched the movie Blade Runner again
on DVD --- Saw where the
> film is based on a novel by Philip K. Dick's titled
"Do Androids Dream of
> Electric Sheep." This film has "noir" roots and was
wondering if Phillip Dick
> is another name for a more famous PI writer? Anyone
know?
The late Phillip K. Dick was probably the most inventive and
influential modern science fiction writer. Ursula K. LeGuin
described him as "our own home-grown Borges." The look of the
Blade Runner film is not the mood of the novel, which is
really a meditation on what it means to be human. This was
one of Dick's two main themes. The other was: What is
reality? These two themes may be the same theme. He was a
mystic and a metaphysician, which would have been intolerable
if he wasn't also hilarious and deeply compassionate. The
only books he wrote that might conceivably fit into the HB
perspective are A SCANNER DARKLY and FLOW MY TEARS, THE
POLICEMAN SAID, but they're still light years away from the
usual HB sensibility. He died young and spent most of his
life in dire poverty, desperately churning out paperback
originals at a thousand bucks a throw. Near the end he began
to receive some of the critical and financial support he
deserved, and since his death his estate has become worth
millions, mainly from movie sales. His key works include THE
MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, MARTIAN TIME-SLIP (his best novel),
THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH (John Lennon's favorite
book), ANDROIDS, and UBIK. I'm also very fond of GALACTIC
POT-HEALER and CLANS OF THE ALPHANE MOON, although these are
lesser works. A good place to start learning about him
is:
http://www.philipkdick.com/main.htm
BobT
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