Philip K Dick

Leah

PKD

I know that PKD has become one of the greats in sci-fi. But for me he is over hyped. Put the stone down. Philip K Dick's work often revolves around epistemology and identity.

Or let me put it like this: We have books where, time and time again, the main character is often lead to doubt their senses, or their knowledge, or their identity, or in the case of some of the most popular ones reality.

He leaves you with a sense of how do we know what we know? Which has been handled by other authors much better.

I don't mind books that leave you with a sense of; Can we be sure? Because this sensation can be very rewarding. Not in PKD's case. Let's not forget that he was plagued by schizoid symptoms, and that alone would certainly make him more sensitive to the topics of epistemology and identity.

Just from the way his stories were presented I never felt like they would be for me.

And yet I gave into the hype. After all I had heard a lot of good things from people that I respected about Philip K Dick. I picked up "A Scanner Darkly" and honestly it was an underwhelming experience. And wasn't not impressed by it in the slightest. While the jacket blurb sounded really interesting, I didn't feel that the content delivered on the promise of the blurb.

Was this book a typical representation of his work? I asked myself that for a few years until I picked up another one on the suggestion of friends who couldn't understand why I was not getting it. Was there so much to get I wondered. So I worked my way through "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", "The Man in the High Castle", and "Ubik" much to my chagrin.

What I will say is that his prose is for the most part bad. Some of his ideas and philosophies have merit, and, at least for me, could have been very powerful. But he has a tendency to get in his own way.

Skip anything PKD.