Category Archives: Philip K Dick

The Adjustment Bureau movie review

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As a huge Philip K Dick fan, I love to see that his stories are being spread out to a wider audience by making them into movies. But I am somewhat conflicted since most of the movies are mediocre at best. The latest movie to make its way to my HBO subscription is The Adjustment Bureau. Based off a short story from Philip K Dick about a man who accidentally gets a peek behind the scenes of life, the movie pleasantly kept a lot of the same basic ideas with only a change in theme. Dick’s story (“The Adjustment Team”) is about reality (as a lot of his stories are) while the movie is more about predestination. Let’s take a look at the movie. (Warning: Spoilers ahoy).

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Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K Dick

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Flow My Tears, the Policeman said was the last book by Philip K Dick before his VALIS incident. The book is one of my personal favorites. It shows Dick’s growth as a writer, as the book is better written than a lot of his work in the previous decades. His earlier novels are mostly plot centric with Dick’s wonderful thoughts and ideas driving those book forwards. As the 1970s started, Dick was better using his talent and the writing quality became better and better. When combined with his amazing ideas it is clear to see why this book was a Nebula nominee and won the John W Campbell award. So, what is the book about?

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A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

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A Scanner Darkly is a book that could have only come from Philip K Dick in the 1970s. The book deals with Dick’s themes of alienation and identity. This was Dick’s last book before the vision that compelled him to write his VALIS books. It’s a wonderful view of a modern (well 1970s modern) small town and the effects of a drug war on the people chosen to fight on the front lines.

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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick

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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick is one of Dick’s best known novels. Unfortunately it’s mainly known for the movie it inspired, Blade Runner. The book does a lot more than the movie and ultimately does it better. We get a better sense of Deckard, the people he had to deal with and the civilization that he inhabited.

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The Collected Stories of Phlip K Dick

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The CollectedStories of PhilipKDick are an essential read for any science fiction fan. Starting in the 1950’s, Philip K Dick was a successful science fiction short story writer and a failed mainstream novelist. His success as a short story writer is in his ideas. Philip K Dick was always one of the best idea writers of the 1960s. And in the short stories, his ideas are the focus and they truly shine through.

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Older Books You Should Read – The Man in the High Castle

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The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick was a change of pace for Dick as well as the science fiction genre. While there had been some previous alternate history novels, none had the reach or critical acclaim that Dick’s book had. And for Philip K. Dick, it allowed him to merge his two novel careers together. For most of the 1950s, Dick had been trying to be a successful mainstream writer while he was making a living as a science fiction author. With The Man in the High Castle, Dick was able to have a science fiction genre book which was also was very much a mainstream book. There are no robots or futuristic settings or spaceships, only a cast of characters trying to find their way around a confusing situation.

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