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Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of The 1960s / The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Ubik (Library of America No. 173)

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In the 1960s, when he wrote these four novels, Philip K. Dick was not known, as he is today, as an acclaimed "literary" science-fiction writer and visionary who inspired many films. Since his death in 1982, his reputation has steadily soared, a little bit too late, and now this former genre journeyman toiling in obscurity has become the first sf author to be enshrined in a handsome omnibus volume in the esteemed Library of America series. Of course, I had to buy it even though I already owned multiple copies of all these novels. It is a genuine pleasure to read any of the LOA volumes, so lovingly produced they are. And this one especially so, compiled as it was by an author heavily influenced by Dick, Jonathan Lethem. You will never see a biographical chronology so interesting to read in its own right: we even learn that Timothy Leary called Dick during John and Yoko's bed-in and he put the famous pair on the phone to tell PKD that they wanted to film one of the four novels contained here, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Incidentally, Lethem's taste is impeccable. Though Dick wrote no fewer than 21 novels in the 1960s (plus a couple of dozen more before and after), these are without a doubt the four best: The Three Stigmata, The Man in the High Castle, Ubik, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? One could easily compile another such volume with four more extremely strong novels of this period: Clans of the Alphane Moon, Dr. Bloodmoney, Now Wait for Last Year, and Martian Time-Slip. However, the ones collected here are the ones I would pick, if I could have only four. They are all absolute classics and support many rereadings. I remember when in the 1970s, I encountered Three Stigmata for the first time and could not totally make sense of it, but I was intrigued. It was hallucinogenic, it was trippy, it was theological. A few years later I found myself seeking it out again, rereading with a passion, finally really "getting it," and then compulsively seeking out everything I could find by PKD. It took me years but I eventually tracked down every last out-of-print forgotten paperback. Since then all his works have been reprinted and made easily available. But my original "discovery" experience is why this LOA volume means so much to me now. The Man in the High Castle is perhaps the best alternate history ever written, a speculation on what life would have been like if the Germans and Japanese had won World War II. Ubik is a brilliant ontological quest into the very structure of reality. Do Androids Dream, the novel on which the film Blade Runner is based, is among other things a meditation on what it means to be human. These four novels have become like cornerstones in my own life's journey. For them to have been given this respectful and definitive publication is something that brings me a lot of pleasure, and would also, I think, have pleased Philip K. Dick.

The Library of America (LoA) has issued a volume of Philip K. Dick's novels from the 1960's, and in so doing has legitimized PKD as a "classic" American author -- in this case an author of science fiction. You can get this volume by subscribing to the LoA, or by getting it thru Amazon, which at this time is far the cheaper method. (The main difference between the two vols. is that the LoA version comes in blue cloth with a slipcase, while the release to bookstores -- Amazon included -- is a regular hardback with a dust jacket.)

THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE does not take place in the future, as conventional sci-fi does. It is set in the time and place Dick wrote it -- San Francisco in the early 1960s. It is the past that has changed. FDR was assassinated in 1936; his successor, President John N. Garner, remained too isolationlist to re-arm America in the face of growing Nazi and Japanese threats. As a result, the USA lost World War Two, the eastern and midwestern parts of America going to the Nazis; California and the Pacific Northwest to the Japanese. In between lies a Rocky Mountain redoubt called the "CSA," chief city Denver, which is where the novel's multiple, shocking climaxes take place.

HIGH CASTLE has compelling plotworks along two story lines, but what the initial reader will notice is how the Japanese influence postwar San Francisco and how, eventually, they stop being the dictators as much as gentle giants atop of the government and business elite. The story with the Germans in the East is far more gruesome, and fortunately for us is related by one character, a Jew "in the closet," because the Japanese-held CSA would probably have extradited him to the Nazi East Coast for, apparently, what we all fear from Nazis.

THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH takes place in the "not-too-distant future," on an Earth that has almost globally-warmed itself to death. The main character lives in a co-op block in "Marilyn Monroe," a suburb of New York City. On a normal day, the temperature hits 180 degrees F. and ordinary people go and come only after dark, or with the help of intermediaries like pre-chilled taxis.

PKD was good friends with sci-fi author Robert Heinlein, and the Heinlein touch is apparent not only in the satiric tone of the novel but in the neologisms Dick invented. He saw the rise of blogs, although he called them "homeo-papes" (short for papers). Even though many of the terms took different names, the prescient point is that Dick foresaw and foretold them. And the new monikers are easy to figure out though a bit startling -- part of the fun IMHO. The hero, who is Palmer Eldritch's enemy, finds himself drafted and sent to a chilly moon of Jupiter by the resettlement-happy United Nations. Desparate refugees clinging to these moons are truly happy only when ingesting hallucinogens by chewing a specialty lichen!

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? was the origin for the movie BLADE RUNNER. As usual, Dick did not warn of a post-atomic world; neither did he foretell a slick, high-tech and comfortable future. Insted, the grungy L.A. of near history was well presented by director Ridley Scott in BLADE RUNNER. The plot is driven by a Raymond Chandler-esque detective story, but as often happens in PDK literature, a philosophical question emerges: what is human, anyway? Is a machine (android) tuned to be a human and act human of the same stature as a human?

UBIK, first published in 1969, was Dick's most far-out novel to date. It is an imagining of spiritual realities distracting from and then supplanting the ordinary humdrum of unpleasant reality. In essence it takes themes he raised in PALMER ELDRITCH and rode them far into speculation. But the novel is amazingly fun and easy to read for all that.

If, after reading this product, you find yourself interested in this compelling man and his struggles with poverty and schizophrenia (and of course how he hatched many of his ideas!), take a look at the Afterword of this LoA volume, because it really is a nice tight biography of Philip K. Dick.

Want to read more? The LoA has a companion volume with five of PKD's novels of the 1960s and 1970s. Ready for short stories? THE PHILIP K. DICK READER is new, fresh, and packs in lots of stories, including "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale," the inspiration for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie TOTAL RECALL. Also "The Minority Report," which title Hollywood did not change for the movie. Do not look for biographical or critical comment in THE PHILIP K. DICK READER, though; the cost of the book's efficiency is the fact that it has no commentary or biography, just the stories themselves.

Finally: Philip K. Dick gets the recognition and respect he deserves with his addition into the Library of America canon. This volume collects four of Dick's most compelling and visionary novels of the 1960s and serves as a great introduction to PKD's world of panic and paranoia. (The recently published and comprehensive "Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick" makes an excellent companion piece to this edition, but those stories also tend to be gimmicky and hokey where Dick's novels are lean and mean.) For initiates, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" -- collected here along with "The Man in the High Castle," "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" and "Ubik" -- is as good a place as any to start. Deftly combining elements of traditional science fiction with the hardboiled detective novel, Dick explores all of his signature obsessions in this story of a bounty hunter who sets out to exterminate androids in our midst. First and foremost, the novel succeeds as a page-turner -- but it also works on a deeper level, exploring the nature of reality, what it means to be human and the way materialism, or what Dick calls "the tyranny of an object," controls our lives and deepest desires.

This handsome volume of four of PKD's most acclaimed science-fiction novels from the '60s is a pure delight. To be included in the company of John Steinbeck and Saul Bellow (two other authors graced with 2007 Library of America releases) doubtlessly would make PKD smile: finally vindicated! I'm not sure that his days of horsemeat-eating and penny-ante royalty checks are truly assuaged by this posthumous honor--but better late than never. The chronology of Dick's life and works at the volume's close is detailed and heartwrenching. Hopefully Dick's inclusion in the Library of America series will further increase his worldwide status as a major American talent who transcended the limitations of his genre, creating dystopian visions of lasting significance for humanity.

I hope we soon will be feted with a companion volume of four of Dick's mainstream novels--perhaps [...]
Wherever you are, PKD--hat's off! It's not just kibble anymore.

Philip K. Dick, the author of the four novels published in this Library of America edition, suffered from bouts of schizophrenia. He also experimented with drugs, his favorite being amphetamines ("speed").

The title of the book is "Four Novels of the 1960s," & the four novels are: "The Man in the High Castle" (1962); "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" (1964); "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (1968); & lastly, "Ubik" (1969)--an abbreviation of the word "ubiquitous." Understandably then, the book is 830 pages long, with about 200 pages for each of the four novels.

The first novel, "High Castle," takes place in a parallel world in which Germany & Japan have won the second world war. The two countries have divided up the USA into some four territories. The three eastern territories are run by Germany, & Japan controls the Pacific-coast territory. Improved & perfected German rockets take the place of airplanes as a way of traveling to different parts of the world. The fame of the man in the high castle results from a book he has written about a "mythical" world in which the British & Americans have won the war. The high castle book seems to be viewed by people as a religious or prophetic writing. The book moves from one point of view to another until, finally, Juliana goes to meet the man in the high castle.

The second novel, "Eldritch Palmer," also has religious overtones. Palmer is seen as a religious prophet of sorts, or perhaps even a savior. After returning from Proxima, a near-by star, he seems to have gained foreboding mystical powers. The hero appears obliquely & becomes obsessed with Eldritch. The whole book revolves around the Martian penchant for chewing Can-D, a drug that puts you in the parallel world of "Perky Pat" & her boyfriend Walt.

The third novel, "Do Androids Dream," put me in a weird zone. I couldn't figure out why hero Rick Deckard was killing all these androids ("andys"). Eventually, it turned out that the androids had committed violent crimes. Mercerism, THE religion of the time, included consulting the empathy box to interact with Mercer himself (Himself?). Also, it seemed that one of Mercer's precepts was owning & caring for animals. Deckard's ordeal leads him back to his wife with a new understanding.

The fourth & last novel, "Ubik," is often called Dick's masterpiece. I read with fascination, & it didn't disappoint. People would die & enter a half-life & still be able to communicate with the world, usually to a whole range of psychic individuals. This is the story of Glen Runciter, Joe Chip, & the inertial psychics who went to Luna. The excruciating unfolding of the plot will steal your breath.

Philip K. Dick, in his "Exegesis" or daily journal, spoke about a time he called "2374"; that is February & March of 1974, when he had beautiful delusions. He had bouts with problems like this throughout his life. But unlike the typical schizophrenic who would go to a delusional world but would have nothing to show for doing that, Dick takes you into the magnanimous world of his speculations. It seems to me that he has been able to second-guess his delusions & apply them to his life & writings. What an imagination he had! (He died in 1982 of a stroke.)

This book & the four novels in it are a bountiful romp through unknown worlds by a master science fiction practitioner, who not only lived in an exclusive reality, but was then able to tell us all about it... Psychiatrists would call this a "religious preoccupation." I would call it a gift from an imaginative genius to all of us.

I rarely read science fiction, but that was before I was introduced to the work of Philip K. Dick. His prose is clean and precise. His vision of the future from a 1960's standpoint can in one paragraph be eerily right-on and in the next, quaint. It's a future where typewriters and moon colonies, cigarettes and time travel, can all co-mingle seamlessly and believably.

The man in the high castle reads like half a book to me =(. i do not like endings based on assumptions. it left me wanting to read more, but thats the style that dick wanted to use. Ubik is pure awesome, and Palmer Eldrick blows my mind. its scary to see everyone in the world turning into the digital eye and lanky body. i see this as one of the only good points in the book, but maybe because i see things literally: 355 "isnt a miserable reality better than the most interestin gillusion? or is it illusion, barney?" what would happen if i had lived multiple lives?: 414 "because palmer eldrich had lived many lives; there had been a vast, reliable wisdom containewithin the substance fo the man or the creature, whatever it was."

Just finished The Man in the High Castle, a great read that left me with more questions than answers. AND that's the point. This was a very thought provoking read. Already read Androids, and that's one of my favorite sci fi reads of all time. Can't wait to get to the others. A great read thus far. Good price too.

This is a great set - as you'd expect from the Library of America. Nicely bound, quality paper. Edited (i.e. selected) and introduced by Jonathan Lethem. Then there are the novels - among his most memorable, and I'd say among his best (apart from, perhaps, the Valis trilogy).

The Man in the High Castle, one of Dick's early novels and the one that brought him critical attention beyond the enclave of sci-fi readers, depicts an alternate history, in which the Axis won WWII. The former USA is divided into three parts, one controlled by Nazis and another by the Japanese. The titular man in the castle - who may stand as a kind of surrogate for the author - wrote an incredibly popular, but banned, science fiction novel in which the Allies won.

The Three Stigmata is an exhilarating work of metaphysical fiction, depicting a future that in its essentials resembles precisely the world we live in now. Elite and powerful figures control the destinies of ordinary folk by manipulating their desires. We follow the work of a psychic whose aim is to predict what will be fashionable in the future, who works for a company that sells a virtual variation on the American dream - and we follow him into the rabbit hole as a more sinister force arrives intending to addict everyone to what seems an even more sinister obsession.

Do Androids Dream is the original upon which Blade Runner's based - but it's got a quirky edge to it that was only touched upon in the film. The obsession with live animals, the futuristic religion of Mercerism, the obsessive question of what it would take for us to lose our essential humanity (where in the film that's a given and the question is what it would take for us to count androids as human).

Ubik unfolds in a similar world as Stigmata and worries similar themes, but may go even deeper in its reflections on reality and how advertising illusions shape desire and identity.

It's all exciting stuff, the work of a fascinating mind, and reminds that some times the best way to see reality clearly is to read and write good fiction.

I started here myself as I love the American Library Editions and have always wanted to read literary science fiction. I thought that I would probably really enjoy these, but I did not expect them to have as huge of an impact on me as they did. Reading these novels made me wonder why I have not been reading science or speculative fiction to begin with. I have read quite a bit more PKD since these, and I would say that this collection is his best and most representative. Ubik is probably my favorite of the bunch, though it was fun remembering the film Blade Runner while reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep for the first time. As usual, the book is superior and different. American Library Editions are beautifully bound and they make you want to get excited about a classic author. Through this book, Philip K. Dick has definitely become one of my favorite writers, if not my favorite novelist. His visions, his characters, and his storytelling abilities are incredible. I would also recommend this for those who have already read some or all of these, but who want to read them again. Library of America editions are a great size, meaning not very large, and they are made to last. I have the whole PKD Library of America collection. I look forward to seeing what other authors they choose to feature in the upcoming years...