Saturday 14 October 2017

Philip K. Dick

I regularly compare Poul Anderson with certain sf writers but not with others, e.g., I am not a big fan of Philip K. Dick. I have just read the opening pages of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, set not in the twenty first century but in 1992. (I think that Dick sometimes made the point that the future is nearer than we think, like Wells pointing out that the protagonists of The Shape Of Things To Come must already be young adults at the time when the book is being published.)

Dick addressed a big philosophical question, reality versus appearance, but did he also deploy the kind of knowledge of history, science etc that we find in Anderson's works? Comments on Dick's sf would be welcome.

4 comments:

David Birr said...

Paul:
I, too, am not a fan of Mr. Dick for the most part, although I believe some of his work has significant value — perhaps GREAT value, even though I don't want to read it myself. I remember one rather Orwellian novel that ended with the narrator being told that the government will shortly execute him ... but has groomed an impostor to write pro-government propaganda under his name. The sense of defilement there ... not to mention that Evil WINS....

Dick wrote one story, though, that greatly appealed to me. This was "The Defenders," about robots called "leadies" being used as proxy soldiers in a war between the West and the Soviets. Jerry Pournelle introduced this story in an anthology with a remark that Dick was fascinated by the concept of loyalty. The leadies turn against their masters' WISHES — but NOT against their masters' BEST INTERESTS....

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, DAVID!

This seems interesting, was the Dick story in one of Pournelle's THERE WILL BE WAR books?

Sean

David Birr said...

Sean:
Yes; the very first of the *There Will Be War* series.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, DAVID!

I might have that book, I will check later.

Sean