philip k dick

ok, i assume there are fans on this board. ive read 'the divine invasion' and 'valis'. wasnt too keen on 'divine invasion' but 'valis' absolutely blew me away. such a bizarre and fascinating book. has anyone read it? id really like to read more of his stuff and am thinking of picking up 'ubik'. whats generally considered to be dicks best book?

i read this fantastic bio of him called 'i am alive and you are dead'. really great book and anyone interested in his work should check it out.

also, this bbc arena documentary is absolutely fantastic. ive seen it a couple of times

blade runner is fucking fantastic

I really liked a scanner darkly

the rest were meh

haven't read a book of his tho, it's on the to-do list

edit: last post

i forgot about a scanner darkly. the movie was pretty cool, but ill bet the book is better..

id love to see a film version of valis. im not sure how youd do it tho..

I'll make it one day.....

and 'The Divine Invasion' is one of my most favourite books ever....

but you are correct, 'VALIS' is his best work, as much as I know, haven't read nearly all of his novels or short stories, but I have feeling that if I did, 'VALIS' would still hold its own as one of the greatest novels ever written...

some folk are making a biopic with Paul Giamatti as PKD, based on his last story idea and his life.....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0840404/

based on this book:

http://www.amazon.com/World-Their-Heaven-C.../ref=pd_sim_b_1

which is a collection of his last interviews....

'The Owl in Daylight' would have been an incredible story...

Died too early....

An incredible human this man was, is and will always be.........

why did you like 'the divine invasion' so much? its been a while since i read it, so its a bit hazy in my memory.. i just remember it leaving me a bit cold

paul giamatti as philip k dick might be interesting..

ive read that book of interviews. i remember buying it because i thought the title was really cool.. but i dont remember a thing from it. time for a reread..

have you read r crumbs 'the religious experience of philip k dick'?

genius

i read a few of his books and i consider him one of my favorite SF writers, if not the favorite. it's been many years since i read a book of his, but i remember Ubik and The Man in the High Castle were both really great.

I don't see much a difference between Dick's insanity and L Ron Hubbard's psychotic ramblings. The only difference is Dick didn't turn his personal theologies into an Mafiaesque New Age cult.

  my usernames always really suck said:

I don't see much a difference between Dick's insanity and L Ron Hubbard's psychotic ramblings. The only difference is Dick didn't turn his personal theologies into an Mafiaesque New Age cult.

agreed. We've had PKD threads before. I'm mixed on the guy. I like him more as an "idea guy" than I like his actual novels. Personally I have a low threshold for paranoid ramblings, misanthropy and misogyny. I also don't consider himself a particularly good writer, in the sense of his command of language and ear for dialogue, etc. I haven't read Valis though.

  my usernames always really suck said:

I don't see much a difference between Dick's insanity and L Ron Hubbard's psychotic ramblings. The only difference is Dick didn't turn his personal theologies into an Mafiaesque New Age cult.

dicks a gnostic, while hubbards a sci-fi opportunist. plus, dicks stuff is only sci-fi on the surface...

The whole "movie" part of Valis is actually another Dick story called Radio Free Albemuth (I think it remained unavailable for a while) and I read a while ago that some small film company was making THAT into a movie

id say the best film adaptations of pkds work have been 'blade runner' and 'total recall'. 'a scanner darkly' was good but i had no desire to watch it more than once...

this is based solely on how good the films are, as i havent read the books they were adapted from...

I'd recommend 'What If Our World Is Their Heaven?' a book of transcripted interviews from shortly before Dick's death, he talks a lot about his unfinished novel The Owl In Daylight which iirc is very electronic music, about a race of aliens who think in music, and put an implant in a hack hollywood composers head or something- its all about the relationship between sound, colour and maths. He talks a bit about having seen an early screening of Bladerunner and is very impressed.

flow my tears, the policeman said

very good.

The style that Ridley Scott is best at is obviously scifi. He should just stick to that genre.

  The CIA said:

He talks a bit about having seen an early screening of Bladerunner and is very impressed.

yeah, i recall reading that. i think he said something like it was just how he pictured it in his head.. although in that doc i linked above they mentioned he apparently was not happy at all with how the decker character was turning out ...

owl in the daylight sounds like it would have been amazing. what a fascinating premise

  Z_B_Z said:

ok, i assume there are fans on this board. ive read 'the divine invasion' and 'valis'. wasnt too keen on 'divine invasion' but 'valis' absolutely blew me away. such a bizarre and fascinating book. has anyone read it? id really like to read more of his stuff and am thinking of picking up 'ubik'. whats generally considered to be dicks best book?

 

i read this fantastic bio of him called 'i am alive and you are dead'. really great book and anyone interested in his work should check it out.

 

also, this bbc arena documentary is absolutely fantastic. ive seen it a couple of times

 

be shure you don't miss Flow my tears the policeman said and Blade Runner..

yes, i also like these obvious threads too

cool, thanks for the smug contribution.

yes, thanks for all these threads.. they are nice and fine

also dark

I know they're making a version of Radio Free Albemuth but I read somewhere that the movie sections of VALIS was based on his own tripped out reading of that Bowie film, the man who fell to earth.

awesome. once again, im glad you decided to contribute.

@tidbit

ubik is fantastic

man in the high castle

eye in the sky (falls apart towards the end though)

intergalactic pot healer

top3 contributers of internet

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jesus christ, im so fucking bored of arguing with people. go fuck off out of this thread. no one made you open it.