Product Description
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysicalthemes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states.

In his later works, Dick's thematic focus strongly reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology. He often drew upon his own life experiences and addressed the nature of drug abuse, paranoiaand schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences in both his short fiction and novels.

This collection brings together 11 rare short stories and novellas culled from premier editions of such classic magazines as "Amazing Stories," "If," "Galaxy" and "Planets." This Kindle edition contains a linked table of contents for easy searching.

Piper in the Woods
The Variable Man
Beyond the Door
The Crystal Crypt
The Defenders
The Gun
The Skull
The Eyes Have It
Second Variety
Beyond Lies the Wub
Mr. Spaceship

Excerpt from "Piper in the Woods - A Collection of Science Fiction by Philip K. Dick." Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.


Harris nodded. "Chief, can I ask you something?"

"What is it?"

"Are there any inhabitants on the asteroid? Any natives?"

"Natives?" Watts considered. "Yes, there's some kind of aborigines living out there." He waved vaguely toward the window.

"What are they like? Have you seen them?"

"Yes, I've seen them. At least, I saw them when we first came here. They hung around for a while, watching us, then after a time they disappeared."

"Did they die off? Diseases of some kind?"

"No. They just—just disappeared. Into their forest. They're still there, someplace."

"What kind of people are they?"

"Well, the story is that they're originally from Mars. They don't look much like Martians, though. They're dark, a kind of coppery color. Thin. Very agile, in their own way. They hunt and fish. No written language. We don't pay much attention to them."

"I see." Harris paused. "Chief, have you ever heard of anything called—The Pipers?"

"The Pipers?" Watts frowned. "No. Why?"

"The patients mentioned something called The Pipers. According to Bradshaw, the Pipers taught him to become a plant. He learned it from them, a kind of teaching."

"The Pipers. What are they?"

"I don't know," Harris admitted. "I thought maybe you might know. My first assumption, of course, was that they're the natives. But now I'm not so sure, not after hearing your description of them."

"The natives are primitive savages. They don't have anything to teach anybody, especially a top-flight biologist."

Harris hesitated. "Chief, I'd like to go into the woods and look around. Is that possible?"

"Certainly. I can arrange it for you. I'll give you one of the men to show you around."

"I'd rather go alone. Is there any danger?"

"No, none that I know of. Except—"

"Except the Pipers," Harris finished. "I know. Well, there's only one way to find them, and that's it. I'll have to take my chances." ... Read more

Product Description
THE FATHER THING contains the stories written in 1956, just before the publication of Dick’s first novel, SOLAR LOTTERY.The stories are a mix of the previously uncollected and some of his most famous pieces such as "Foster, You’re Dead" a powerful extrapolation of nuclear war hysteria, and "The Golden Man", a very different story about a super-evolved mutant human. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Pick up the actual book instead.
Philip K. Dick, The Father-Thing (Rosetta, 1954)

This is one of the oddest packages I have come across. Instead of being a Phil Dick short story collection, or even a single Phil Dick short story (either of which would be a reasonable assumption), this ebook contains Dick's short story mentioned in the title and a completely unrelated (well, it, too, was written in the 1950s) story by John Novotny called "The Bourbon Lake." Go figure.

The Father-Thing is not your typical Phil Dick story; there's very little detail to it. It's almost as if he had the idea and wanted to get it on paper as fast as he could, then never went back and revised it. (Still, someone could turn this into a wonderful movie, given enough artistic license.) The basic idea; a child's father is eaten by an alien (think Invasion of the Body Snatchers here), and the kid has to go recruit some help to get rid of the alien before it takes over the rest of his family. Now, think about all the wonderful ways you could have embellished that into two hundred pages. Dick sticks with all action and it lasts barely twenty. Most of what we can see here is unfulfilled potential.

"The Bourbon Lake" is nothing more than your typical pastoral shaggy-dog story. Two men (who like their drink) are dragged by their wives on a week's vacation to a town that has no tavern. Lo and behold, while walking in the woods, they discover a lake made of pure bourbon. There are some nifty touches (especially the cantankerous beaver), but there's really not much to the story. Still, the reading of it is a minor pleasure if you can get past the stereotypes (amazing how the two tipplers continuously maintain Irish accents, for example).

You're probably better off finding The Father-Thing in one of the larger collections of Dick's short fiction. ** ½ ... Read more

Product Description
Louis Rosen and his partners sell people--ingeniously designed, historically authentic simulacra of personages such as Edwin M. Stanton and Abraham Lincoln. The problem is that the only prospective buyer is a rapacious billionaire whose plans for the simulacra could land Louis in jail. Then there's the added complication that someone--or something--like Abraham Lincoln may not want to be sold.

Is an electronic Lincoln any less alive than his creators? Is a machine that cares and suffers inferior to the woman Louis loves--a borderline psychopath who does neither? With irresistible momentum, intelligence, and wit, Philip K. Dick creates an arresting techno-thriller that suggests a marriage of Bladerunner and Barbarians at the Gate.


From the Trade Paperback edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

Worth Reading
While it's not "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch," this is still a good book. Lawrence Sutin, in his book "Divine Invasions," gave "We Can Build You" only six stars. I would give it seven. I've read at least one PKD book that I considered "unreadable." This is not one of those. The first-person narrator is intriguing and his actions just fly in the face of his intentions. The secondary characters are either immediately identifiable or bizzarely remote. When deciding which PKD books to read, one must place a line somewhere. This book falls on the side of the line worth your time.

4 and 1/2 Stars -- A Near Masterpiece
We Can Build You is not one of Philip K. Dick's most famous or popular works, and even many hard-cores disparage it, but this long-time fan thinks it a near-masterpiece. I certainly understand why many dislike it, and it is easy to see why he could not get it published originally; it is at once typical of the most controversial and often frustrating aspects of Dick's writing and atypical in missing much of what makes him loved. This seems destined to satisfy no one, but certain fans will take to it enthusiastically. No one should read this first, but anyone who has been through a dozen or so Dick novels and several dozen short stories should try it; some will be very pleasantly surprised.

We is in many ways transitional; written just after The Man in the High Castle, Dick's first real success, it is a somewhat uneasy mix of his mainstream 1950s novels, which were not published, and the 1960s science fiction ones that made his name. Most SF trappings are gone; there are few futuristic gadgets, and space travel is mentioned only very tangentially. The basic setting is essentially early 1960s America, which leads to some interesting - and somewhat distracting - anachronisms considering the then future setting. The major exceptions are what Dick calls simulacra - robots all but indistinguishable from humans. This of course recalls his masterpiece Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and the works have several other similarities. The difference is that this was written just after the Civil War centennial, and without giving anything away, suffice it to say that this whet Dick's muse. As in Do, he uses simulacra to explore one of his perennial themes - What does it mean to be human? He does so variously and quite deeply, provoking extensive thought. Perhaps surprisingly, the touchy situation also leads to much humor, particularly in dialogue. This may be Dick's funniest book, which truly says much; I lost count of how many times I could not read for laughing, and it took great control not to wake my sleeping wife.

The book could have easily been a masterpiece in this regard, but Dick drops the thread about two thirds of the way in, never resuming it. Here we come to readers' ambivalent evaluations. Such things are not uncommon even in Dick's best work, but this is particularly jarring and clearly causes much frustration. We cannot know the reason, but it is important to remember that, for all his genius, Dick was essentially a pulp writer; paid by the word, he wrote quickly and almost never revised. He may have simply lost the thread or - struggling with mental illness, various drugs, money woes, relationship problems, etc. - even forgotten it. Whatever the case, I believe it can be justified artistically.

Which leads to the other main thread - mental illness. "What is sanity?" is one of Dick's other classic queries, and this is one of his fullest expressions. It explores many mental illness aspects, from onset to the worst episodes to treatment; all are thoroughly questioned and somewhat critiqued, provoking significant thought. Dick clearly had great insight into the issue, portraying it with great sensitivity and nuance; at least as importantly, he writes with the understanding and authentic air only experience can give. That this is almost Dick's only first-person novel is very significant here; the protagonist's apparent downward spiral into insanity is one of the most believable and affecting ever written. His self-documented fall is terribly moving; immersing us in it directly is far more absorbing and realistic than outside narration could have ever been. This is where abandoning the other thread is justified; as so often, Dick pulls the proverbial rug out from under us when we expect it least, making us feel the narrator's disorientation, confusion, and doubt as we could not have otherwise. Many will of course think this does not atone, but surely it at least goes a long way.

It is worth noting that this is one of Dick's darkest works even with all the hilarity. The depiction of human relations is bleak; little hope is held out for meaningful communication, while alienation, ennui, and general existential despair are rampant. Dick's love depiction is particularly barren; this focuses more intensely than perhaps any of his other works on a single male/female relationship, and the book as a whole can even be legitimately seen as a sort of very off-kilter love story. But what a depressing one! The book shows love to be an all-encompassing, utterly undeniable force but not in the usual fairy tale way. We instead see just how painful it can be when is not reciprocated - or, rather, when it is frustratingly impossible to tell if it is. This love is cruel, near-mocking - even sadistic. The object of the narrator's love is the mentally disturbed Pris, one of Dick's most fascinating characters; seemingly knowing she was too intriguing to languish, he essentially recycled her in the Do Androids character of the same name. She provides yet another mental illness angle and makes the love portrayal even subtler. It is a tribute to Dick's talent that we truly feel for her and the narrator despite their almost total lack of traditional virtues - or even of sanity.

The book's darkness largely emanates from the love depiction, but there are few bright spots. The ending is so ambiguous that the serial editor apparently felt the need to extend it, which is very understandable from a conventional standpoint but undercuts Dick's vision. Uncertainty is the book's essence; the ending is surely intentional, even if abandoning the first thread was not exactly so. Dick returned to these themes many times, often with more resolution, but this is more than compelling in its own right and arguably at least as legitimate.

In the end, We is essential for fans because it is in many ways unique in Dick's vast canon, though it also has many classic strengths. All will enjoy the latter, and the former just may be an even bigger treat.

Half a great novel
The first half of this novel is quite good.The Civil War conceit actually works, contrary to my expectations.Then, the promising plot sort of melts away, as the narrator and the author become obsessed with the object of their love, an 18-year old schizophrenic.There are Dick novels that make you want to re-write them, and this is one of them.

Strange yet grounded
The same things some hate about Dick's writing I tend to enjoy, and they're all in this book.

For one thing, it changes focus halfway through. I can see a publisher rejecting the book because it does not follow the three-act structure - we open with questions about whether the character will save his business by marketing androids; we end by finding out whether he can save his own sanity and resolve a love-hate obsession with the androids' co-creator, the troubled, dark-haired jail bait, Pris. But to me this feels like the form reflecting the subject. Both love and madness tend to overwhelm everything; you forget all the work with which you've been distracting yourself up to that point. If you are a man, your work life, even if it's futuristic work, is only ever meaningful insofar as it can get you closer to the girl or give you an identity, so falling in love and losing your mind are really the same struggles one experiences at work, only played out more dramatically.

It's a conscious tactic in many of this writer's novels to start with a relatively straightforward SF premise only to disintegrate it and rearrange the pieces into a picture of strangeness and introspection that Dick's matter-of-fact prose always seems to be trying to describe as objectively as possible. This feeling of not being in the same novel you opened simulates the experience of either a psychotic break or an epiphany. In a famous essay Dick says as much: "I like to build universes which do fall apart. I like to see them come unglued, and I like to see how the characters in the novels cope with this problem." Even so, I think there may have been another, pragmatic reason. While he was alive Dick couldn't get his non-SF novels published, yet no matter how strange his SF novels became, his publishers seemed more confident in finding an audience for those as long as they could put a robot on the cover. Dick's workaround for this problem seems to have been creating novels that contain a few SF props superimposed on a largely contemporary setting.

Nevertheless there's a subtler SF element than the androids in this story - the perception of mental illness in the world of the novel is the same as ours to swine flu - scary, yet common and generally treatable. Schizophrenia comes up so often in conversation that characters sometimes refer to it as "'phrenia". It's an interesting projection based on the decreasing stigma about seeking therapy, and people becoming more open about discussing their psychological difficulties.

Even so if you read science fiction primarily for interesting visions of the future I don't think you'll finish this book. For me what saves it is that for all the unresolved questions at the end, Louis Rosen's emotional plot line does have a beginning, middle and end. He may break down and hallucinate but even in his fantasies about Pris he makes her aloof and emotionally unavailable, because that is part of what draws him to her. I wrote about Geoff Ryman's The Child Garden that its unpredictability made me lose interest - sometimes the more anything can happen, the more it feels like the story is about nothing. Dick takes this risk, too, especially in his obsession with unreliable narrators and the fact that almost anything described may not be real, but what keeps it grounded is that the characters are still limited by their personalities - as Dick put it in an interview, no matter how "fantastical" his fiction gets, "in the final analysis the people must be people".

Not one of Dick's best books, but nonetheless eminently readable
Throughout his adult life Philip K. Dick struggled both in his fiction and in his life with the questions of what it meant to be human and what it meant to be sane/insane.WE CAN BUILD YOU puts both of these on display, though the latter more than the former.This is somewhat surprising, because once the simulacra of Edwin M. Stanton is revealed, the reader would anticipate that the novel would deal, much like DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? (with which this novel shares "mood organs," robots, artificial people, and a major character named Pris) with what it is that makes a person a person.Instead, even after the introduction of the Lincoln model of simulacra, the novel veers sharply to the question of sanity/insanity.This is by no means the only Dick novel to apparently start off with one theme and end up with another.As any student of Dick knows, he was not a careful writer, despite his unquestioned brilliance.He was paid by the word, providing not only no incentive for careful rewriting, but a disincentive to spend much time on any particular novel.Even the best Dick novels are rough and a bit unfinished.Some of them are just a mess.In this particular case, we apparently are being given a novel about artificial life and what it signifies, but it quickly is taken over by the notion of what it means sane, as Dick's protagonist quickly descends into an inability to hold onto reality.

I personally think Dick should have stuck with the simulacra in his novel instead of shifting over to questions of insanity.The two most interesting characters in the novel, by far, are the Stanton and Lincoln simulacra.There were moments where it appeared that the self-consciousness of the Lincoln would become the dominant aspect of the novel, but despite being teased in that direction, Dick refocuses on the deteriorating mental state of his main protagonist.

A few themes dominant most of Dick's work:what is reality?What does it mean to be insane?What is the status of a drug altered consciousness?What does it mean to be human and what challenge does artificial life represent to that?Dick also returns again and again to corporations, which is largely sees as evil.His villains are apt to be business tycoons and that certainly holds true here.Interestingly, while one might imagine that his critiques of consumerism and the corporation would make him open to Marxist (though not Communist) critiques, he personally was intensely paranoid about the Soviet Union.For instance, the great Polish Sci-fi writer Stanislaw Lem (who many literary critics believe should have been considered for a Nobel Prize in literature) considered Dick (as do I) the greatest Sci-fi writer who ever lived.Dick reciprocated by imagining Lem at the heart of a conspiracy to destroy his life, orchestrating an investigation into his (Dick's) life from his home in Poland, which Dick saw as ominously behind the Iron Curtain.Nevermind that Lem was not a dedicated Communist.Dick's mind was so messed up by his intense drug use and insanity that was either natural or drug-induced that he did not perceive Lem as an ardent admirer, but a passionate, dedicated enemy.

WE CAN BUILD YOU, therefore, comes very much from Dick's ongoing struggle with his own tenuous grip on reality.What makes Dick amazing as someone writing about insanity is that he could stand back from his own experience with it and view it almost objectively.It isn't unlike the protagonist of A SCANNER DARKLY, in which a police officer -- who is investigating a seller of a drug whose main side effect is to make the user intensely schizophrenic -- doesn't realize the he is himself the person he is investigating.

I don't believe that WE CAN BUILD YOU is one of Philip K. Dick's finest novels, but it is a typical one.And although not one of his finest books -- it is not one of the books that has been collected in the three Library of America volumes dedicated to his major novels -- neither is it a bad one.And trust me, Dick has some very bad books.I think it is a good if not great book, but one that shows how interesting Dick could be even when he was not at his best.There are several such books, like TIME OUT OF JOINT or CLANS OF THE ALPHANSE MOON or even the very early THE COSMIC PUPPETS that cannot be counted one of his best novels, but that nonetheless are books that repay reading. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Microcosm and the Macrocosm reunited- the sundered realms rejoined.
_The basic premise of this series is that a transcendent God (or Vast Active Living Intelligence System) not only exists, but also periodically "breaks through" into our own material world, "the Black Iron Prison." If we are receptive, or desperate enough, it makes itself known (i.e. grants "gnosis"- the knowledge of the true state of things.) I consider PKD to be an expert on Gnosis, after all, it actually happened to him. You see this story is semi-autobiographical. Considering the hell that the protagonist, Horselover Fat, goes through in his interactions with a totally incompetent mental health bureaucracy, and a completely dysfunctional social and family life, you hope that it isn't too close to his actual life. Still, it was no doubt this living hell (coupled with his drug abuse) that led to his epiphany. This is somewhat like true shamanic initiation- the ordeal either kills you, or you break through the veil of this prison world into the "real" world beyond.

_Actually, it is the ideas imbedded in this novel that are its true worth. These are best expressed in _The Shifting Realities of Philip K. D*ck: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings_ by the same publisher.

_The Divine Invasion_ is the only other _Valis_ novel. There was supposed to have been a third, but D*ck died before it was finished. _The Transmigration of Timothy Archer_, while good, is not properly part of the _Valis_ trilogy.

_The Divine Invasion, while set in the far future, does continue the specific themes introduced in _Valis_, and reference is made back to some of the specific characters. You see, this is the time when VALIS, the Logos, the greater face of God, or whatever name you choose to limit it by, breaks through into our "black iron prison" to reclaim it and banish the Empire and the Adversary behind it.

_I admit that the story takes 50 or 60 pages to get up to speed, but by that time the IDEAS that are the real value of P.K.D's writing begin to surface. For instance, the idea of the "Hermetic Transform" and how the microcosm and macrocosm can interpenetrate and become One- and how to God time can run backwards. Pretty deep stuff compared to most of the semi-literate pap that is published nowadays.

_What really leaped out at me though was the fact that D*ck wrote of the Torah as an interactive, holographic, computer code. It predicts the future because it is the blueprint for creation that even God refers back to. He wrote this in 1981- _The Bible Code_ wasn't published until 1997. Talk about being "ahead of the curve."
... Read more

Product Description
Best known for the novels that led to the movies "Total Recall," "Blade Runner," and "A Scanner Darkly," Philip K. Dick started his career writing shorter fiction.This collection brings together some of these stories, many of which have not been available since their original publication in the early 1950's, to provide insights into one of the most important science fiction authors of the late 20th century.Take the opportunity to read these works of his formative years. Included in this anthology: Beyond Lies The Wub, The Gun, The Skull, Piper In The Woods, Mr. Spaceship, The Defenders, Second Variety, The Variable Man, The Eyes Have It, Beyond The Door, and The Crystal Crypt.Resurrected Press is dedicated to bringing high quality classic books back to the readers who enjoy them.These are not scanned versions of the originals, but, rather, quality crafted books meant to be enjoyed! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A wonderful collection!
This book brings together several hard to find, out of print stories from one of Science Fiction's masters, Philip K. Dick.It is a well thought out collection of stories that is a must read for any science fiction fan. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

My Dark Haired Girl was a blonde named Erin
This was not one of Phil's greatest books.Virtually all of his Science Fiction and at least 1 "mundane" novel deserve more stars that this.(I use the term "mundane" in the usage of S.F. fandom to refer something without any S.F. elements.Nothing Phil did or thought was "mundane" in the more typical usage of the word.)

However, I gave it 4 stars because of the considerable importance of the DHG in one of the sub-texts that runs through almost all of Phil's work:Who is human and who is android and what does it mean to be human?

For part 2 of this review, please read my review under Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos) DVD edition.

for fans only, but very interesting
DHG is of biographical interest to us hardcore PKD fans, and I doubt itwould mean much to those who are not familiar with his life. This bookcovers an interesting and gloomy period (circa. 1970) of PKD's life, anddeals with people and events that are given little attention in thatseminal biography, Sutin's Divine Invasions. As the above reviewer hasnoted, the material forms what would later be A Scanner Darkly. The bookitself (esp. the cover art) is very tasteful, and the book is quite rare,so it is one for collectors. PKD one said that his poetry was terrible, andthe poem in this book is living proof of that:-)

The two major essays inthis book, "The Android and the Machine" and "Man, Android,and Machine" are also in the more complete "Shifting Realities ofPKD" so I would recommend that book over this one for those reasons,but for those of us who have to have them all...

An interesting tour through the mind and life of PKD
This collection of correspondence, along with some lectures by Phillip K Dick, published after his death, tell a very interesting and disturbing story of the man.A lot of ideas from his letters can be found in thenovel "A Scanner Darkly"This is worthwhile reading both tolearn about a world most of us barely knew existed, and because it willmake us contemplate our own lives. ... Read more

Product Description
This Halcyon Classics ebook collection contains ten short stories and novellasby acclaimed science fiction author Philip K. Dick.Dick (1928-1982) is best known for his novel DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?This novel was adapted for the big screen as BLADERUNNER.

This ebook is DRM free and includes an active table of contents for easy navigation.


Contents:

Beyond the Door
Beyond Lies the Wub
The Crystal Crypt
The Defenders
The Gun
The Skull
The Eyes Have It
Second Variety
The Variable Man
Mr. Spaceship
... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Minor PKD title
Nick and the Glimmung, we are informed on this book's flyleaf, is Dick's sole surviving young adult novel written in 1966 and available for the first time in the U.S., and the first time anywhere in twenty years.

The story is typical of much of Dick's works: brilliant ideas and concepts, disjointed and confusing plotting, thin character development and a conclusion with a barrel of loose ends unresolved. In other words a story that will delight Dick's many fans and perplex the casual reader.

The story concerns young Nick and his cat Horace. You see cats are illegal on Earth so Nick's family decided to emigrate to Plowman's Planet instead of giving up their pet. Upon arriving at there destination the family is quickly introduced to several different alien species that speak perfect English and become entangled in a struggle concerning a magical book one of the aliens lost and was recovered by Nick. Nick also discovers pod people growing outside his home, an intelligent rodent-like species talking 1950's slang and a being that replicated home appliances like toasters that don't function properly.

The Subterranean Press edition of this title is an exceptionally well-designed book with four full-page Phil Parks color illustrations supplementing the 121 pages of large font text.

Acceptable as a Young Adult novel
In the dystopic future Earth of 1992, jobs are so scarce they are rationed. Nick's Dad is lucky to work 15 hours a week.

Everyone lives in highrise apartments.

Nick's teacher has multiple classrooms and she teaches by television.

And, pets are illegal.Nick and his family are hiding a pet cat.When the cat escapes, they are visited by the Anti-Pet Man, who tells them they will have to surrender their cat.

Rather than do that, they immigrate to Plowman's Planet, which is nothing like the brochures.There's a war going on and the family quickly falls prey. Worse, the fearsome Glimmung is after Nick.

"Nick and the Glimmung" in no way representative of the author's usual style.It's intended as a children's story and for the most part, works as one.I'd recommend it for very young readers, grades 3-5, because I think this more sophisticated generation of readers will not buy the story as well as younger ones will.

Rebecca Kyle, March 2009

Ah...okay Mr. Dick, what exactly were you on, er thinking?
For all the brilliant science fiction that Philip K. Dick wrote in his life - and for the average science fiction that Philip K. Dick wrote in his life - he also wrote some real stinkers...and *Nick and the Glimmung* is one of those stinkers. This book is Dick's attempt at an illustrated kid's novel...and attempt at a paycheck most likely.

Take a brilliant, often mentally ill writer who was most likely not too normal as a child himself and task him with writing a story that would appeal to kids while he was dropping acid or some such and you can imagine this mostly bad book. Nick and his family move to a distant alien planet called Plowman's Planet to escape the Anti-pet Men who want to confiscate Nick's cat. (okay, so far? Yeah right!) From there the story really doesn't make enough sense to write a coherent review of it. As a Philip K. Dick fan, I have to admit that this book makes no sense to me; none, zilch, nada.

There is a war going on the Plowman's Planet; the Trobes and Wrejes and Spiddles and Printers of the planet are battling an unseen evil force...I think. It is called the Glimmung, and it has it out for Nick...I think.

And throughout all this turmoil, the Anti-pet Men tell Nick and his family they can return to Earth and all is forgiven...whatever. Philip K. Dick is one of the most brilliant science fiction writers of the 20th Century, but he was also one of the worst. For every *Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep* or *The Divine Invasion* or *A Scanner Darkly* there was a book like *Nick and the Glimmung*. [...]

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A Guide to my Book Rating System:

1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.
2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.
3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.
5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.

An oddity


Yes, this is THE Philip K Dick. The fellow who wrote avant garde science fiction like "Blade Runner" and "Three Stigmata" also wrote an illustrated children's book. Apparently the book actually sold pretty well in Britain!

The story itself deals with Nick, a small boy, and his family's emigration to a mysterious alien planet. There, he encounters a dreadful creature called the Glimmung. The story is largely patched together from various other stories by Dick - I recognised "The Father Thing" and "Pay for the Printer", and I have a feeling the Glimmung himself turned up in another book.

Nevertheless, the book has a nice style, with the last scene being very puzzling. Why is Nick's double so compassionate? Is there any significance in the fact that a non-human creature like the double can show empathy? What is the significance of the long walk towards Nick's double? Is it a Jungian symbol?

OK, I made that last bit up. The book is largely an attempt by Dick to make more money using as little effort as possible. Only the last ending is typically Dickian. Like the end of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", we are left wondering as to its true significance. ... Read more

Product Description
Edited and selected by noted scholar Gregg Rickman, The Early Work of Philip K. Dick, Volume One: 1952-1953, and Volume Two: 1953-1954, encompasses a total of twenty-six stories from the early years of Philip K. Dick. With extensive story notes and introductions by Rickman, and packaged to belong on any shelf, The Early Work of Philip K. Dick promises an early peek into the many worlds created by one of the acclaimed masters of science fiction and fantasy. ... Read more

Product Description
NOTE: This edition has a linked "Table of Contents" and has been beautifully formatted (searchable and interlinked) to work on your Amazon e-book reader, Amazon Desktop Reader, and your ipod e-book reader.

'Dry My White Noise Tears' is a collection of stories written by acclaimed science-fiction author, Philip K. Dick. He explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in stories dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states.

Nine of his stories have been adapted into popular films since his death, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly and Minority Report.

In 2005, Time magazine named him one of the one hundred greatest English-language sci-fi authors.

Included in this volume:
Story One: The Skull - Conger agreed to kill a stranger he had never seen. But he would make no mistakes because he had the stranger's skull under his arm. One of Philip K. Dick's usual mind-bending plots and fans will find it interesting to see his early plot devices.

Story Two: The Defenders - No weapon has ever been frightful enough to put a stop to war--perhaps because we never before had any that thought for themselves! Written in the vein of "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

Story Three: Beyond Lies the Wub - A space crew have had food spoilage so they go hunting on a planet and capture a "wub";--a sloppy appearing piglike animal that should be good for a pork loin dinner. One problem though: it's intelligent and likes to talk philosophy. Not what the hungry crewmembers really counted on...

Story Four: The Crystal Crypt - Stark terror ruled the Inner-Flight ship on that last Mars-Terra run. For the black-clad Leiters were on the prowl ... and the grim red planet was not far behind. Told in a beguilingly simple manner yet timeless. A Philip K. Dick classic.

Story Five: The Gun - Nothing moved or stirred. Everything was silent, dead. Only the gun showed signs of life ... and the trespassers had wrecked that for all time. The return journey to pick up the treasure would be a cinch ... they smiled.

Story Six: Beyond the Door - Larry Thomas bought a cuckoo clock for his wife--without knowing the price he would have to pay.

This are the original and unabridged versions of these tales. A must-have for science fiction fans! ... Read more

Product Description
A solid grouping of classic science fiction short stories by various award-winning authors. Featured authors include H. G. Wells, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Lester Del Rey, Fritz Leiber, James H. Schmitz, Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert, and Andre Norton. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Partial list of titles - good stories
Three of the titles included on this are "The Door in the Wall" by H. G. Wells,"All Cats are Gray" by Andre Norton and "The Moon is Green" by Fritz Leiber. The most difficult part of this book is NOT getting a specific list of titles.Should be required on any anthology listing. The stories are excellent.Just finished listening to one I would dearly love to know the title and author, but I didn't catch that title.Hope this helps other buyers.

Great hard-to-find stuff!
Super science fiction stories, many of which are hard to find.The narrators are spot-on, and it's fun to listen to. ... Read more

Product Description
A master of science fiction, a voice of the changing counterculture, and a genuine visionary, Philip K. Dick wrote about reality, entropy, deception, and the plight of being alive in the modern world. Through his remarkable career Dick has established himself as a writer of the first order and his dreams of the future have proven to be eerily prophetic and even more prescient than when he wrote them.

Vintage PKD features extracts from The Man in the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, VALIS, and stories including “The Days of Perky Pat,” “A Little Something for Us Tempunauts," and “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon,” along with essays and letters currently unavailable in book form.
 
Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the great modern writers, presented in attractive, affordable paperback editions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

More handshake than introduction
In the quarter-century since Philip K. Dick's death, Hollywood has trounced us with multiple adaptations of his work. A partial list would include Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly and Minority Report. Each of these films does something different, but what none of them, with a couple of possible exceptions, manage to do is fully expose the viewer to the conceptual richness and edge-of-sanity viewpoint of Dick's work.

This anthology from Vintage Books, Vintage PKD, aims to change that for neophyte readers of the PKD canon. Contained within this slim volume (less than 190 pages) are a couple of short stories, an essay or two by the man himself, and chapters excerpted from several of his novels. Wisely, the Vintage editors stayed away from the works that have been adapted for the screen, as well as some of the more heavily anthologized works, such as his 1959 story "Time Out of Joint." Since PKD was so prolific -- despite dying at age 53, he managed to get more than thirty novels and hundreds of short stories published -- this left a lot to choose from. Of the works excerpted here, the best-known one may be The Man in the High Castle, the 1962 alternate history of an America divvied up between the Japanese and Nazi Germany after the Allies lose WWII, which won PKD a Hugo Award.

As a sketch of the artist's development and talent, Vintage PKD is successful, in that the alert reader will discover the strength and flow of his writing, the progression of his abilities and the warmth and good humor that ran hand-in-hand with his paranoia and deep-seated rage against the universe and its injustices. However, as even an incomplete portrait of the concepts PKD struggled with, this volume is an unqualified failure.

The majority of PKD's work revolved, even early in his career, around questions of reality and identity, individuality vs. autonomic reflex, and very little of that is seen here. Only the short story "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" and the essay "The Zebra Papers" explore this in any detail, leaving the rest of the works here to either hint vaguely in that direction or ignore it altogether. Considering that most of PKD's works delved into this at length, not addressing these concepts in richer detail does an injustice to his work.

Additionally, the matter of his personal exegesis, a document that explains or interprets scriptural writings, is left unaddressed. In the 1970s, PKD had a massive religious experience, one that colored his thinking and philosophical explorations for the rest of his life. Several of his novels, including VALIS and Galactic Pot-Healer, can trace their lineage directly to this experience, and PKD himself documented this experience and its intellectual aftershocks for years. Only a few oblique references in "The Zebra Papers" and the chapters from VALIS even mention this. To read an overview of PKD that doesn't touch on this or the questions of reality and humanity is like reading an overview of Nietzsche that fails to mention the übermensch.

Overall, Vintage PKD is not a bad anthology; the works within are well-written and enjoyable, and may serve as a nice reminder to people who are passing familiar with his work but haven't read any in a while. For the uninitiated, however, the picture this book presents is frustratingly brief and tantalizingly incomplete. No electric sheep need apply. ... Read more

Product Description
In Counter-Clock World, one of the most theologically probing of all of Dick’s books, the world has entered the Hobart Phase–a vast sidereal process in which time moves in reverse. As a result, libraries are busy eradicating books, copulation signifies the end of pregnancy, people greet with, “Good-bye,” and part with, “Hello,” and underneath the world’s tombstones, the dead are coming back to life. One imminent old-born is Anarch Peak, a vibrant religious leader whose followers continued to flourish long after his death. His return from the dead has such awesome implications that those who apprehend him will very likely be those who control the fate of the world.


Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Flow My Tears, The Reviewer Said
Maybe it's not such a great idea, reissuing PKD's back catalog. To be sure, many of PKD's novels are sheer brilliance, even if flawed. But as more and more of them come back into print it becomes equally evident that many of his novels were more flawed than brilliant. Sadly, this is the case with "Counter-Clock World."

According to this novel's fascinating premise, time is running backwards: the dead return to life and begin getting younger; people smoke butts which become full-length cigarettes they put back into the package; one is greeted with "goodbye." It's a fascinating idea, but not altogether clear.

In Martin Amis's Time's Arrow a similar thing takes place: the dead are resurrected and forced to relive every moment in reverse. Forced, because their lives unwind like a film. Amis's book is brilliant in that the reader must make sense of events that become all too clear, but only upon reflection. Specifically: Amis's character is a former Nazi doctor, and he --like the reader-- must try to make sense of his acts. The gimmick --time running backwards-- isn't really a gimmick at all; it's a successful endeavor to force the reader to consider an old story in a new way.

By comparison, PKD's book seems juvenile, and I say this as a fan of PKD. Not only are the metaphysics of this world unexplained (time goes backwards on Earth but not on Mars; people must smoke in reverse but still have free choice); more damaging still are PKD's own metaphysics. One constantly has the feeling that PKD is really just trying to work though some ideas himself --and failing at it. "Just a rehash of Plotinus and Plato and Kant and Leibnitz and Spinoza" (216). That's about right, but without the developed arguments. If you're familiar with the philosophical arguments, PKD's handling of them will not impress you.

Worse still, the characters (none of whom you particularly like) change so radically with regards to their core values --who they love, who they hate, who they want to kill-- that the effect is, oddly enough, not unrealistic but too realistic. That is, too painfully close to the author's own confused life and relationships. That doesn't make the characters any more developed or credible, but it does perhaps explain why.

I think this is honest writing and a sincere attempt to represent the world PKD thought he was living in. For this same reason, it is actually quite pathetic.

World Without Beginning, Amen
You might say that science fiction tells two kinds of stories most of the time, "if this goes on" stories and "what if" stories."What if" stories give more play to the author's imagination, but there's a problem with them; you can't tell stories about whole worlds.They have to be about people.That is, you can't write a story about what would happen if time ran backwards; the real question is, How would people get along in their lives if time started to run backwards?That's what Philip K. Dick gets into here.

He was no quantum physicist, he was in many ways a mystic, and therefore the anti-time technicalities in "Counter-Clock World" don't quite come off.Inconsistencies abound.This story occurs some years after time has started to rewind, and people have been crawling out of their graves, growing younger, and eventually creeping back into the womb.They take cigarette and cigar butts out of packages, puff on them until they get longer, then put them in ashtrays.The even regurgitate food instead of eating it, cursing by saying "Oh, food!" and "You're a mouth-hole!" instead of the idioms you and I are used to.Nevertheless, they continue to walk forwards, they speak English that we recognize, and as far as I can determine the sun continues to rise in the East.

Take the scene where a man wakes up in the morning, opens up a box of whiskers, smears them all over his face and roots around for dirty clothes to put on before going into the kitchen to disgorge his breakfast.Fine, he's doing the reverse of the usual morning routine, but shouldn't he be waking up in the evening?And disgorging his dinner?And...well, you get the idea.

Don't try to figure this thing out.If you want a time-reversal story that makes logical sense, check "Time's Arrow" by Martin Amis.You don't come to PKD for logical consistency anyway, so if that's what you want you're in the wrong house.This isn't really a story about time reversal; as I said before, it's about how people cope with time reversal.

Sebastian Hermes is a twice-born - someone dug him out of his grave some years before (or after) our story begins.Now he's in business doing the same thing.He, his much younger wife and his staff find people calling out from their coffins, dig them up, and make them available for sale to the highest bidder, usually some relative.It's distasteful, obviously, but it's a living.Then he locates the grave of a man named Thomas Peake, who founded a new religion based on the idea that all humans are one, and developed a sacrament to demonstrate that truth by means of a drug-induced collective experience.Since his death, the Udi have turned their services into a kind of circus attraction - it's become quite popular and a source of enormous power to its leadership.Now Peake is about to wake up.

Here's another important detail; Sebastian sends his wife to do research on Peake and the Udi at the People's Topical Library, a place dedicated to eradicating all knowledge, bit by bit, as time flows backwards.That is, if Philip K. Dick emerged from the grave and had to un-write "Counter-Clock World", the Library staff would be there to make sure he did it.(Shouldn't that happen automatically if time is running backwards?)When it comes to Peake, though, they're concerned - what if he wakes up and tells everyone what life after death is really like?He's a religious figure that people would listen to.A new thing would be created rather than eradicated.

So, having located Peake's grave and determined that the man will be resurrecting soon, Sebastian Hermes has a lot of decisions to make and a lot of people after him.That's what this book is about.

Like all great sf and most of the good stuff, the technical speculation is really just an excuse.In this case, it's an excuse not only to take a look at what ordinary people under pressure are capable of, it's also an excuse for some surprisingly subtle metaphysical speculation.There's no point in getting into specifics about this, but what else can you say about a book that kicks off by asking what rights a person might have by saving another person's life?That's just for openers.PKD spent a good part of his life examining gnostic Christianity, and each chapter in "Counter-Clock World" begins with a quote from a metaphysical philosopher like Aquinas or Boethius on the nature of God, the human experience of time, the power of relationships, and all like that there.

The characters, too, spend way more time discussing the morality of their deeds than pretty nearly anyone else would do in a futuristic adventure tale.And that's what this is, make no mistake about it; unlike some of PKD's weaker stuff, "Counter-Clock World" is full of desperate flight, battles large and small, love and hatred.Some of the characters go so far as to die, and others grieve piteously for them.PKD was prone at times to get distracted, but not this time; this novel begins at the beginning and goes right through to the end with few, if any, tangents, despite the philosophical debates.

"Counter-Clock World" is, I gather, considered by many to be minor PKD, hardly worth mentioning.I can't imagine why.Its closing scene is overwhelming; a man stands in a graveyard at night listening to the dead wake up and beg for help.What's more, the novel earns that dramatic close.On second thought, don't bother with "Time's Arrow" - good as it is, read this one first.

Benshlomo says, Rejoice, PKD fans - the critics were wrong.

a mish-mash of action, societal analysis, and science fiction
'Counter-Clock World' is a decidedly odd offering from the decidedly odd yet enormously talented Philip K. Dick.In this counter-clock world we have people who inexplicably rise from the dead and grow younger until, well, they are placed back into a womb.Without much explanation, this world seems to progress nicely until a Martin Luther King-like figure rises from the dead.His followers view this as a messianic revival, his detractors think otherwise, and then there are those who want to exploit this event for money.Most of the book focuses on these various forces vying to gain control of the reborn spiritual leader.

As an action story 'Counter-Clock World' moves fairly nicely and at times is a page-turner.But the science fiction element to the story, although intriguing, is really half baked.A shame really, because the overall premise of the story is quite original.


Bottom line: sort of a "one trick pony" oddity of book.Best left to loyal fans of the author.

Good metaphysics, poor time paradoxes
If someone else had written this book, I would give it 5 stars, but it is not of of Dick's best. This book hassome interesting metaphysics, which would figure more in later books. What, if anything, would you learn if you died and came back to life? Especially if you are a major religious leader? As usual the characters are plagued by self doubt and having unsuccessful relationships.

Some parts are funny, such as 'sorghum', being imbibed through pipes and whiskers being plastered at the beginning of the day. I liked the idea of LSD grenades and a region based on a sharing of minds brought about by using a drug called DNT (presumably DMT.)

What bothered me was the lack of consistency in the backwards world and the neglect of detail. What happens if you were cremated not buried? Or died a violent death, your body dismemebered? Why are some things backwards, some not?

AN UNTIDY & UNHAPPY ENDING


The rough draft, now called COUNTER CLOCK WORLD, must have lain at the bottom of Dick's manuscript trunk many years.But a lot of deep thoughts, about god and about man's existence, went into writing this novel.Someday in the future, if man ever gets over his petty attitudes toward life, toward what reality is, these scraps could become an important work.

But science has not yet absorbed the significance of nano-scale and pico-scale reality, the tiny seeds from which life springs.Dick's dead characters, born again with the reversal of time, could only report how terribly small they felt while dead.Their deaths had imparted to them a new perspective showing them the huge, immensity of the universe.

As always, Dick transcended common thought.Here he uncovered another zany, hidden world.The dead arising from the grave, babies re-entering the womb, none of this made any sense.But nutty stories were what Dick was all about.What he gave the reader was an opportunity to free him/her self from the reality that tried to imprison Dick within his own mind.Read it! ... Read more

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An Excerpt:

Customer Reviews (1)

397 pages ?!?
"Product details" for this Kindle Book says: "Print Length: 397 pages". So I though I bought a novel.

But it's in fact a ten pages long short story. So those 3.40 dollars was no bargain at all! ... Read more

Product Description
A biography of the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick by his wife Anne, originally published in the mid-1980s. It portrays the writer as both person and artist, giving insights into his work habits as well as the sources and inspirations of many of his stories. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Interesting exercise in exorcising internal dilemma of PKD!
While I have read many books relating to Philip K. Dick, this is the first from somebody who lived with him day to day that I have read.Anne Dick, while making many interesting observations does not really tell me anything that makes me understand exactly who PKD is/was.

She spends quite a bit of time looking through her eyes at how she could have been, should have been, and how PKD treated her and his family.It is though she is working at providing her own cathartic needs through the book.The descriptions of living conditions, friendships, relationships, while all interesting, leave me wanting something more.I'm not quite sure what, and possible Anne was not as well.This book was written many years ago and then revised for this publication.It shows.Sometimes the book seems to ebb and flow with the older stuff being broken by newer material.

Don't know if this would be the best introduction to PKD the man and the writer, not at almost $100.00.But, for a true "Dickhead" as we who enjoy PKD and his works are called, this gives us another piece to the enigmatic puzzle that is known as Philip K. Dick ... Read more

Product Description
"Mr. Spaceship" is a short story by Philip K. Dick first published in Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy magazine, in January 1953. It is a story about a human brain-controlled spacecraft. Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose published work during his lifetime was almost entirely in the science fiction genre. This early time period from Dick's life was a difficult and impoverished time for him.Dick wrote "Mr. Spaceship" in the early years of his career for a popular science fiction magazine. This story is selected here as one of the best of over 120 short science fiction novels that he wrote for the magazines. It is a pleasure to publish this new, high quality, and affordable edition. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (15)

A spolied little man..
Well in defense of this book, I couldn't finish it so maybe it ended better. I was about halfway through the book, or at least I read as far as when he started hurting his wife and stopped reading. He was a drunk, he was spoiled, and it seemed like he and his sister had a thing going on. It wasn't worth wasting my time on anymore. Maybe this guy can write really well, I don't know, because this was my first book by this author. However, I doubt if I try one of his books again.

Street Hassle
It sounds like some sort of revolutionary manifesto.Actually, this title is a reference to a scene where one of the characters notes the sounds of machines and people passing by after a horrible accident.As a reflection of the story contained in this novel, it doesn't work very well.Then again, a lot of Philip K. Dick's titles seem rather arbitrary.Which is interesting in itself; "Voices from the Street" was PKD's second completed novel, and in addition to the arbitrary title, it contains a lot of things that would echo down the man's entire career.

Like several of PKD's subsequent protagonists, this novel's Stuart Hadley is a television salesman.He works for a man named Jim Fergesson at Modern TV.He doesn't get along too well with his wife, and he is prey to some horrible paranoid fantasies, especially when under the influence.He struggles to find a deeper, more spiritual meaning to his life, going so far as to explore a cultish religious organization.Not to give too much away, but nothing seems to work - although there are hints of an ambiguous redemption for Hadley at the end, the immediate results of his dissatisfaction get pretty violent.

The paranoia, spiritual yearning, altered consciousness, difficult relationships and hope all show up regularly in PKD's later work.He was not, however, one of those writers who springs into full-blown excellence right away."Voices from the Street" came about two years into his career.He had just sold his first short story.It would be three more years before he sold a novel."Voices from the Street" didn't come out until 55 (count them, 55) years after he wrote it and more than 20 years after his death.With all due respect to the genius he became, there's a reason for that delay.

Not all novels have a classical shape, of course, where the opening shapes the conclusion; some very good novels just pick up and go until they come to a stop."Voices from the Street" does that, but it's not one of those very good novels.Whatever peace Hadley finds at the end of his story (and even his wife isn't sure it's real), he seems to find it more or less by accident.He gets excited about a religious group, then abandons it upon meeting its leader, who doesn't measure up to his messianic expectations.He meets up with his sister and brother-in-law for the first time in two years, stranding a couple of friends in San Francisco in the process, and finds them disappointing, too.He develops some ambitious plans for his place of employment, but drops them when he gets the opportunity to implement them.He even gets the chance for an extramarital affair with a woman who believes in his ability on very little evidence, and devolves into a rapist and car thief.Let's face it, this guy is a loser.

Again, there are good novels about losers, but this isn't one of them.I've said before that PKD was not a particularly good stylist, but at the very least he developed into an concise and imaginative writer.In "Voices from the Street", he hadn't gotten there yet.All too often, he falls victim to that occupational hazard of imaginative writing, the temptation to describe everything two or three times.Take so simple a thing as a suit of clothes: "...rumpled and threadbare, a hard suit, very ancient, stiff and formal, too tight around the wrists, too short at the cuffs."Too many adjectives, too much metaphor."Voices from the Street" is one of PKD's longer works, and the excess verbiage slows it way down.

As the plot and style are overstuffed, so is the theme.The book includes a few dozen different discussions on religion, antisemitism and racism, business principles, ontology, and a great many other things that PKD took an interest in.All of them interesting in their own right, all of them occupying eight to ten pages, and all of them utterly gone once the scenes that include them are over.The book doesn't even partake of this author's gift for humor, which showed up all over his science fiction but often got lost in his mainstream work.PKD improved over time at choosing one thematic line and sticking to it, but it looks like he had to throw in the kitchen sink at least once before he learned that lesson.

The book's supporting characters, too, appear and disappear at random, such as that religious leader, another of the leader's adherents, Hadley's would-be mistress, his sister and brother-in-law, and a few bartenders and waitresses and assorted hangers-on.This abundance of character and subplot figured heavily in PKD's later work, and functioned pretty well, especially once he learned to tell one story.Not so much here.

In short, "Voices from the Street" may be PKD's most fractured narrative of all, which is saying something.And yet, as frustrating and shapeless as this novel can be, it has some magic about it, maybe because Stuart Hadley never gives up no matter how awful things get for him.We might say of early PKD what Hadley's wife says of her husband - that there was at this time something wonderful in him trying to find expression.If it had remained pent up, "Voices from the Street" would be no more than a curiosity.As it is, this novel is one of the pieces that eventually gave rise to "The Man in the High Castle" and "A Scanner Darkly" and the rest.We can put up with it out of gratitude for that, if nothing else.

Benshlomo says, The wise learn from their teachers' mistakes.

A superb portrait of mental illness...
Based on some of the other reviews, I think a lot of people will miss the whole point of this novel.I think the underlying cause of Stuart Hadley's discontent with his world is that he is mentally ill, more than likely clinically depressed.I have the same condition and I identified with Hadley's character a lot.

Everyone in Hadley's life is trying to stuff him into a box from his wife at home, his sister and brother-in-law, to his boss at a television store. Hadley doesn't know what he wants out of life and everyone around him tries to make that decision for him - which, if you know anyone with severe depression, is the worst thing one could do for a depressed person.It only pisses them off more.

His mental illness amplifies everything he does and how he thinks.He goes to extremes in thoughts and deeds, trying to find something that satisfies him.Some reviewers say that the character whined too much.Hadley does whine a lot but in my opinion, that is another indication of his emotional ailments.

Hadley is a lot like the alcoholic who tries to switch from liquor to beer to wine to try and find a way to face life and the ups and downs that go with it.He throws himself into a religious cult, an affair, and eventually, a plan to completely reinvent himself.His descent into madness is violent and destructive.Call me crazy (hah, I would), but I think a lot of people have acted like Hadley at least once in their lives but would be too self-conscious to admit it and that is why they find Hadley so distasteful.

The one thing in the novel that I would criticize most is that Philip K Dick cannot write realistic women characters.But that is true for a lot of his novels.All of Dick's female characters seem to be these neurotic, half-witted twits.

This book is NOT science fiction although it can be found with all of Dick's other sci fi novels in your big box bookstores.There is nothing science fiction about it.If you're expecting Dick's characteristic science fiction, you won't find it here.Reviewers have said that a bad thing about this novel is that it's depressing.Yeah, it is but then again it's about a very sick man.Whoever would expect this novel to be light-hearted and fun should skip reading it and go back to watching TMZ.

Quiet Desperation
The time is 1952, the place Oakland.Stuart Hadley lives a life of quiet desperation, putting in time as a salesman in an appliance store, marrying, having a child, putting his pants on one leg at a time and feeling miserable.Dick captures the ennui/paranoia of the time, with everyone certain that the Atomic Bomb would soon bring life on earth to a quick and meaningless end.

Unfortunately the bleak subject matter isn't helped any by Dick's not-quite-developed-yet style.Long stretches of the book consist of endless (and rather pointless) dialogue, preachy diatribes and unmotivated character actions.There are some nice turns of phrase here and there, but it's readily apparent why this manuscript, alone among all of his effects, remained unpublished during Dick's lifetime.He must have felt that it was unworthy of his later work, and who are we to disagree.

Stuart Hadley begins the story in jail, and ends it with brutality against the women in his life.In between the reader is treated to lots of casual bigotry and McCarthy-era fear-motivated conformity.It's an unflattering portrait of a not-pretty time in our history, and the flow of language used to tell it is not yet masterful.

Dick fans (like me) will probably read it just to fill out the collection, but once will certainly be enough.

gutter noise
A reader who is not already a Philip K. Dick fan is unlikely to enjoy Voices From the Street.Publishers had plenty of good reasons to avoid this manuscript for the past 50 years.More than most of his work, Voices reeks of Dickian narcissism.Thoughts, emotions, motives, dialog, and descriptions are dominated by the trite and trivial.The humor, inventiveness, and free association that justify Dick's science fiction are totally lacking.

Dick fans will recognize many autobiographical characteristics in Stuart Hadley - his borderline personality, TV shop identity, and obsession with high school German.

The most interesting aspect of Voices is how Hadley's injuries immediately prior to his emotional "resurrection" (teeth, eye, and rib) prefigure The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, arguably Dick's most mature novel. ... Read more