― max, Monday, 26 February 2007 19:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― max, Monday, 26 February 2007 19:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF, Monday, 26 February 2007 19:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― max, Monday, 26 February 2007 19:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― max, Monday, 26 February 2007 19:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF, Monday, 26 February 2007 19:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF, Monday, 26 February 2007 19:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― shieldforyoureyes, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― shieldforyoureyes, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:47 (seventeen years ago) link
― shieldforyoureyes, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt #2, Monday, 26 February 2007 23:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 26 February 2007 23:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 00:46 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 00:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― remy bean, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 02:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 05:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― peter in montreal, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 08:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― peter in montreal, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 08:47 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt #2, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 09:46 (seventeen years ago) link
so I read "The Adjustment Team" a few days ago cuz it's online (public domain) and I have to review the new, no doubt hugely inflated and freely adapted Matt Damon movie made from it tonight. I take it it's not considered a major work, and Hollywood just liked the price?
The best Dick-based film I've seen (tho I like Blade Runner) might be Barjo, a French adap of Confessions of a Crap Artist.
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 17 February 2011 12:49 (thirteen years ago) link
"I take it it's not considered a major work, and Hollywood just liked the price?"
You are correct.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 17 February 2011 13:11 (thirteen years ago) link
I dig the B-movie vibe of Screamers actually.
― sex cells (S-), Thursday, 17 February 2011 13:17 (thirteen years ago) link
william mayne, earthfasts (not the sequels)joan aiken, the wolves of willoughby chase (and the sequels, maybe)
― thomp, Thursday, 17 February 2011 13:57 (thirteen years ago) link
You've taken a wrong turn methinks.
― Also unknown as Zora (Surfing At Work), Thursday, 17 February 2011 20:28 (thirteen years ago) link
Do Andoids Dream of Electric Sheep?Martian Time SlipGalactic Pot-HealerA Scanner DarklyConfessions of a Crap ArtistFlow My Tears, the Policeman Said
I really need to read VALIS.
― Also unknown as Zora (Surfing At Work), Thursday, 17 February 2011 20:32 (thirteen years ago) link
Is Barjo available anywhere? I was looking and it's not on Netflix, but that's no surprise.
― w/no hesitation (mh), Thursday, 17 February 2011 20:33 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah Hollywood is not equipped to deal with his major works, they pretty much stick to his early, more easily adaptable short stories
― never meant to heart anyone (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 17 February 2011 20:34 (thirteen years ago) link
It appears that Barjo was only released on VHS eons ago.
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 17 February 2011 20:39 (thirteen years ago) link
I get a little excited by those promos for Adjustment Bureau because, with the exception of the melodrama and chase scenes in the trailer, the John Slattery/Terence Stamp scenes really scream that it's a PKD work.
― w/no hesitation (mh), Thursday, 17 February 2011 20:43 (thirteen years ago) link
I read the Hugo award winning The Man in the High Castle last year. My only complaint is that it is unfinished - the ending was anticlimatic. Dick was too disturbed by WWII that he could never gather the strength to write the sequel (and he tried several times - often resulting in other books). The BBC One is supposedly making a 4 part miniseries of The Man in the High Castle to be directed by Ridley Scott but I haven't heard any new news since October 2010.
― call me king bubbles and sound like a sheik sheik (CaptainLorax), Thursday, 17 February 2011 20:43 (thirteen years ago) link
The Man in the High Castle is overrated
― never meant to heart anyone (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 17 February 2011 20:48 (thirteen years ago) link
I mean it's good, but it isn't anywhere close to his best
― never meant to heart anyone (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 17 February 2011 20:49 (thirteen years ago) link
Does anyone actually think it's his best though? Just because people thought it was the best sci-fi novel the year it was published doesn't mean they think it was his best novel.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 17 February 2011 20:55 (thirteen years ago) link
Was gonna say that in 1998 Thomas M. Disch thought it was, but now I see that, though he liked it a lot, he said "Dick blossomed as a writer after finishing The Man In The High Castle"
― Poll Man River: The Jerome Kern Poll (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 17 February 2011 21:00 (thirteen years ago) link
I thought it was the only major award he ever won but now I see he got some memorial award for Flow My Tears and some Brit award for A Scanner Darkly
― never meant to heart anyone (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 17 February 2011 21:02 (thirteen years ago) link
Flow My Tears won the Campbell and was nominated for Hugo/Nebula.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 17 February 2011 21:03 (thirteen years ago) link
Losing to the Dispossessed for both btw (334, which is better, was also nom'd for the Nebula.)
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 17 February 2011 21:05 (thirteen years ago) link
1963 was a weak year for sci-fi novels judging by his Hugo competition.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 17 February 2011 21:08 (thirteen years ago) link
Not a lot of love for H. Beam Piper around here.
― Poll Man River: The Jerome Kern Poll (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 17 February 2011 21:10 (thirteen years ago) link
kinda agree that 334 > Dispossessed > Flow My Tears. Flow My Tears is pretty good, but it's basically an extended Twilight Zone episode. Linklater's OTM in that the best/most striking thing about it is the weird biblical allegory towards the end
― never meant to heart anyone (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 17 February 2011 21:11 (thirteen years ago) link
As I said on another thread I love Dick, but its not like he's some unassailable giant of sci-fi. There are dozens of sci-fi authors from the 50s-60s-70s who were equally great writers and just as prolific.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 17 February 2011 21:16 (thirteen years ago) link
PKD has never clicked with me, despite 2-3 extended good-faith attempts to get into his work. Dunno why.
― old man yells at poop first thing in the morning (pixel farmer), Thursday, 17 February 2011 21:17 (thirteen years ago) link
Reminds me that skot just said something about sci-fi writers and graphomania.(xp)
― Poll Makossa (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 17 February 2011 21:19 (thirteen years ago) link
I love his mid-to-late 60's stuff the most, I think. Sure there's lots of other good writers but I don't know of anyone who wrote more deliciously paranoid, dystopian short stories.
all 5 collected storiesDr. BloodmoneyRadio Free AlbemuthWe Can Build YouClans Of The Alphane MoonThe Simulacra
― sleeve, Thursday, 17 February 2011 21:21 (thirteen years ago) link
Lots of writers are nuts, lots of writers are coherent, but I do think it's a rare commodity to be coherently nuts like PKD, which trumps a lot of other things, like say writing good endings.
― Philip Nunez, Thursday, 17 February 2011 21:23 (thirteen years ago) link
at the very least books like cosmic puppets and galactic pot healer have at least one image or bit that stay with me (in puppets, the realization that the curvature of the earth is actually a person, and in pot healer, the concept of everyone dreaming the same dream at night, and can enter a contest to write the dream everyone dreams)
― flappy bird, Friday, 16 December 2016 05:04 (seven years ago) link
The Library of America box set of PK Dick is really nice. There are six novels in the collection that I had not read before. I'm reading Ubik for the first time, it's the last novel of the first volume.
Reading 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep', 'Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch' and 'Ubik' back to back to back there were some small mentions and themes that almost seem to reference each other like they are of the same world.
― earlnash, Friday, 16 December 2016 06:25 (seven years ago) link
i still haven't read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep but was reminded that I need to, after watching Blade Runner again the other night.
There isn't a thread for the Man in the High Castle show, I guess? Even though the second season just started? I just watched all of S1 for the first time a few weeks ago and was pleased to learn that the second season was coming out now. Accidentally great timing. It's really good, I think.
― Karl Malone, Friday, 16 December 2016 07:04 (seven years ago) link
I read the book quite a while ago and don't really remember too many details, so I can't speak to the differences, but my guess is that they've added some characters and plotlines, and those additions were a good move. Man in the High Castle is obv one of PKD's more highly regarded novels but to be honest it was never one of my favorites (Ubik and Valis are my current faves), but the tv version is pretty gripping.
― Karl Malone, Friday, 16 December 2016 07:07 (seven years ago) link
Blade Runner is definitely different than the book. The novel is much more sad and gets into some other thematic areas that the movie doesn't utilize. The movie seems to be a scifi nod to the LA detective like Sam Spade, it's fantastic but it is a very different. Deckard in the book is much more of a sad sack obsessed with his pet book and is married. There is a very PK Dick future religion called Mercerism and a device called a Mood Organ that are somewhat elements in the novel.
Re-reading the original novel a couple months backa nd then checking out the Wiki page is how I found out that there was actually two Blade Runner sequel novels written by a KW Jeter. I'm guessing the first one "Blade Runner: The Edge of Human" is going to be partially the basis for the film that is coming out. From what I gather this sequel novel utilizes some of the John Isidore story line from the original novel, whose character was somewhat adapted into the Sebastian character in the movie, but was tied in a totally different way. These sequels can be gotten for a penny plus shipping at Amazon, but I haven't been curious enough to buy it to check it out.
― earlnash, Friday, 16 December 2016 07:25 (seven years ago) link
i'll add do androids dream of electric sheep? to my spring 2017 reading list. that way at least something good will happen next year.
i'm surprised there isn't more of following for the show here. esp compared to the number of posts expended on a show like Westworld. i think part of it comes down to the way they're released - there's no reason to have a high castle thread because they all come out on the same day, so there's always going to be someone with the flu that watches the whole season in a single day and hovers over the thread like a demigod. whereas with westworld there are always 6 more days before the next very obvious plotpoint is revealed in a manner that subtly references the other dozen times that the twist was foreshadowed 5 million times earlier in the season.
every character in high castle seems so much more believable to me
― Karl Malone, Friday, 16 December 2016 08:05 (seven years ago) link
earl, KW Jeter is an excellent writer, at least in the non-franchise original novels I've read. He was also part of the little gang of young california writers whom Dick befriended and played poker with on the regular (Jeter, Tim Powers, and James P. Blaylock). I'll wager the Jeter BR novels are worthwhile.
― his eye is on despair-o (Jon not Jon), Friday, 16 December 2016 16:00 (seven years ago) link
I wrote what I thought of Man in the High Castle somewhere on this board. I thought the characters and/or actors were kind of weak (with the exception of the Obergruppenfuhrer), but I thought it got much better by the last couple of episodes and am actually looking forward to season 2.
I'm hoping it turns into one of those shows where the first season is kind of terrible but they eventually figure it out and it gets good.
― silverfish, Friday, 16 December 2016 16:53 (seven years ago) link
Jeter's got some great stuff and I will stan for him altho I haven't read his franchise novels (incl Bladerunner). He tends to be more mysanthropic and gorier than PKD.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 16 December 2016 17:03 (seven years ago) link
I bought one of the Jeter sequels (I think it cost a dollar), I read part of it, eventually I figured out that it was actually the second book of the series (or third if you think of the movie as the first). It did not seem particularly good.
If you want more bladerunner, a better option is maybe the 90s videogame, which I remember being pretty good.
― silverfish, Friday, 16 December 2016 17:12 (seven years ago) link
after taking a ~6 month PKD break, I just started A Maze of Death, psyched to get into it. Over the summer I finally got to The Divine Invasion and Transmigration of Timothy Archer. Loved the latter, thought it was remarkable how well PKD could write from the POV of a female character.
― flappy bird, Friday, 16 December 2016 18:13 (seven years ago) link
i absolutely love transmigration - it really feels like a development in his writing for exactly that reason, which makes it even sadder that he died before he had the chance to properly follow up on it
― Rush Limbaugh and Lou Reed doing sex with your parents (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 16 December 2016 18:19 (seven years ago) link
all three of those are great, for v different reasons.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 16 December 2016 18:58 (seven years ago) link
Electric dreams
Impossible planet on channel 4 now and it's not bad at all
― passé aggresif (darraghmac), Sunday, 24 September 2017 21:34 (six years ago) link
I haven't seen the first yet. According to the Graun review last week, that was the best ep and subsequent ones are not as good. But I might dip into this at some point. Brooker not having anything to do with it is a plus.
― calzino, Sunday, 24 September 2017 21:41 (six years ago) link
Flow My Tears, the Policeman SaidUbik A Scanner DarklyVALISNow Wait for Last YearEye in the SkyThe Three Stigmata of Palmer EldritchGalactic Pot-HealerThe Transmigration of Timothy ArcherThe Cosmic Puppets
reading Androids rn. gonna read Dr. Bloodmoney next
― flappy bird, Sunday, 24 September 2017 23:31 (six years ago) link
Newcombers also note philip k dick C/D, S+D
― dow, Sunday, 24 September 2017 23:46 (six years ago) link
Not read the story but I thought Impossible Planet was a snooze and the ending a let down.
― Shat Parp (dog latin), Monday, 25 September 2017 07:55 (six years ago) link
Brooker not having anything to do with it is a plus.
Other script writers thinking they can improve on Dick's stories is a minus.
― angelo irishagreementi (ledge), Monday, 25 September 2017 07:59 (six years ago) link
decent enough I thought, despite Channel 4's annoyingly aggressive advert schedule
don't know most of the short stories but most of what I love about PKD is unfilmable so
― be the cringe you want to see in the world (Noodle Vague), Monday, 25 September 2017 08:03 (six years ago) link
it's generally a good thing to have a series of self-contained 1 hour SF dramas without a fecking story arc or a fecking canon tbh
― be the cringe you want to see in the world (Noodle Vague), Monday, 25 September 2017 08:05 (six years ago) link
I don't care about canon but 99% sure Dick had more interesting ideas than anyone working in TV today. But ok I'll wait until I've seen this episode and discovered how far it differs from the original story before imparting my negative opinion.
― angelo irishagreementi (ledge), Monday, 25 September 2017 08:16 (six years ago) link
as I say, he's too good to be dramatized imo and that's largely because of the ideas he deals with, but his name is surely attached to this mainly for advertising purposes
― be the cringe you want to see in the world (Noodle Vague), Monday, 25 September 2017 08:19 (six years ago) link
they advertised an eighties synth-pop compilation called 'Electric Dreams' during Electric Dreams lol
― Shat Parp (dog latin), Monday, 25 September 2017 08:22 (six years ago) link
― be the cringe you want to see in the world (Noodle Vague), Monday, 25 September 2017 08:05 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
V much the spirit in which I watched
― passé aggresif (darraghmac), Monday, 25 September 2017 10:01 (six years ago) link
Looked like some kind of first draft script where they hadn't quite figured out the characters' motivations yet. Interesting premises left hanging, out-of-character behaviour at the climax, the whole thing salvaged by Geraldine Chaplin's performance. The feel of it was more like a Ray Bradbury story than PKD I thought.
― めんどくさかった (Matt #2), Monday, 25 September 2017 10:44 (six years ago) link
Better than the first one I thought, at least it didn't jettison a perfectly good story in favour of some flimsy rubbish. "Out-of-character behaviour" was I presume due to oxygen deprivation.
― angelo irishagreementi (ledge), Thursday, 28 September 2017 20:15 (six years ago) link