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	Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch ... Philip K. Dick Library of America, 2007 - 900 pages average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This Library of America volume brings together four of Dick's most original novels. The Man in the High Castle (1962), which won the Hugo Award, describes an alternate world in which Japan and Germany have won World War II and America is divided into separate occupation zones. The dizzying The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) posits a future in which competing hallucinogens proffer different brands of virtual reality. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), about a bounty hunter in search of escaped androids in a postapocalyptic future, was the basis for the movie Blade Runner. Ubik (1969), with its future world of psychic espionage agents and cryogenically frozen patients inhabiting an illusory "half-life," pursues Dick's theme of simulated realities and false perceptions to ever more disturbing conclusions. As with most of Dick's novels, no plot summary can suggest the mesmerizing and constantly surprising texture of these astonishing books.

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A Great Introduction to the World of Philip K. Dick

This is the first of two volumes in the Library of America series containing novels by Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) published during the the 1960's and 1970's. At present, they represent the only volumes of the LOA series devoted to SciFi material. While I had never read any Dick, only heard about him from folks like Michael Dirda in his weekly Wednesday webpage book discussion (Washingtonpost.com) and his recent "Classics for Pleasure," I found this collection of 4 novels (some 818 pages worth) to be a great introduction to his impressive work. Many have suggested Dick was the premier Sci-Fi writer of the second half of the 20th century, and these novels illustrate why that claim may be merited.

Included are the classic "The Man in the Castle" that won the Hugo award in 1963, which employs an alternate or parallel world approach to a yarn set in post WWII San Francisco, with the twist that the Germans and the Japanese won the war and divided up the U.S. "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich" is full of religious and hallucinogenic imagery and reflects Dick's exposure to the LSD culture in SF. My favorite, and I guess that goes for many readers, is "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" that served as the basis for "The Blade Runner" film. How Dick deals with virtually human androids in this context (one of his favorite themes) is amazing to behold. And finally, "Ubik" which made a recent "Time" list of the best 100 novels published since 1923. This one is set in a future world where the dead remain in "half-life" and can be contacted, while privacy is vulnerable given the power of certain individuals to predict the future ("precogs") or to explore the minds of others and probe their thoughts.

To say that Dick's imagination is inconceivably rich would be an understatement. Every paragraph of each novel is just crammed full of interesting ideas. Dick also has a sense of humor, especially evident to those of us who were around in the 1960's-1970's period. His ability to conclude with surprise (almost "Twilight Zone" type) endings adds to the effectiveness of his writing. It is easy to get hooked on Dick, if these stories are any indication. THe LOA edition has helpful notes, and a wonderfully extensive chronology of Dick's unsettled life is included. As is true with all the LOA series, this volume is well produced, nicely printed, on excellent paper, and easy to hold for a book in the 800 page range. I look forward to the second volume for another scintillating reading experience.

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A "religious preoccupation"

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.

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Revernt treatment of science fiction classics

These four novels are Dick, whose erratic brilliance lead to frustration in his lesser works, at his finest. "The Man in the High Castle" in particular is brilliant piece of alternate history elucidated by some of the best prose the author ever wrote. For those only familiar with the film "Blade Runner", the subtlety and humor of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" will be a real eye-opener. This fine volume is highly recommended both for science fiction fans and for those who want to complete their knowledge of twentieth century literature.


Welcome to the dark, thrilling, paranoid world of PKD

Plaudits to the Library of America for adding the unique and radical genre fiction of Philip K. Dick to their canon of American masterworks. Science fiction fans have long espoused the genius of Dick's revelatory vision of a future world gone wildly out of control. His prose is never wordy, pretentious, or convoluted - the plots are already confusing enough. The typical Dick story is hyper-fast-paced, dropping the reader right into the action with little preparatory exposition, and no sooner do you think you've got a handle on what's going on than he starts throwing major league curves at you. In the dangerous and unfriendly future, Dick's characters are always frantically caught up in the struggle to survive, only to find out that their situation isn't nearly as cut and dried as they'd believed. In contrast to Proust, who tried to show us that life was only what we thought it was, Philip K. Dick, amidst the turbulence of the 1960's, deals with the discovery that your life is NOT what you thought it was. What's often missed is how skillfully Dick fits this revelation into the context of his novels; we aren't so much suddenly in a different world than we were at the beginning of the story than simply more aware of the reality (or non-reality) of our situation than we had been. This sometimes causes some major plot malfunctions, since after all, once you realize that you're dead (for example) priorities can change dramatically, and that's why the conclusions usually don't tie things up in a neat little package. Dick tends to disdain predictable plots and pat endings. Often there's no real resolution at all, but merely a recognition of the true state of affairs, and yes, some readers will find this off-putting, but isn't this more realistic than having the hero beat the villain and then living happily ever after? Like all of Dick's work, these novels are dark, crazy, explosive, and suspenseful and often very funny as well. But if you're self-assured enough to face a world gone totally mad, Dick has some thrilling tales to tell.

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Great Volume of Sci-Fi

"Mindbending" is a frequent adjective used to apply to Philip K. Dick's works; after reading through all of the Library of America's first Philip K. Dick volume ("Four Novels of the 1960s), it seems entirely appropriate. The man can make my brain hurt, in a good way. The four novels included here are "The Man In The High Castle", an early alt-history where Germany and Japan won WWII; "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", where a hallucinogenic virtual reality tycoon is threatened by sudden competition; "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", the basis for the movie Bladerunner, where a bounty hunter has to track down escaped, almost human androids; and "Ubik", which follows a group of anti-psychics after a disastrous mission.

A common thread among these 4 of Dick's books is leaning more heavily on plot and setting than on characterization; especially with shorter length the characters tend to lead towards the archetypal over the complex. However, since his plots and setups are unconventional - even a straightforward alt-history uses a slightly unorthodox caste - and the novels brief, this doesn't become a problem. The dizzying world of "Palmer Eldritch" and the empathic, authenticity-obsessed world of "Electric Sheep" don't have stereotypical responses, and are intriguing enough on their own.

The author has admitted that the I Ching was not only on his mind when he wrote "The Man In the High Castle", but was used in plotting the book. Set on the Japan occupied west coast of the US in a world where Germany and Japan won WWII, the book doesn't dwell too much on how the Allies lost the war, but doesn't depend too much on it either. The cast, which includes an antique dealer and a couple forgers, initially seems like an odd mix; but as the novel progresses it becomes clear where Dick is going with everything (for once).

Dick also has the conceit of a alt-history book within his alt-history; a (somewhat suppressed) tale of the Allies winning the war is an important plot thread. There's actually some nice subtleties in the way the inner book is plotted, in it's own way more of a reflection of the world they're in than the world being written about.

"The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" is perhaps the hardest to describe. The initial plot is simple enough - a drug tycoon selling hallucinogenic VR drugs to colonists desperate for escapism is threatened when a famous traveler returns from an alien solar system, hawking a competing drug. But with precognitives that can see the future and the complicated realities of the drugs, you end up dealing with far more than expected.

Dick has long been famed for his drug-infused writing, and "Palmer Eldritch" shows why he became so - reality is undermined without ever losing coherence or stuttering into cliches. And here it moves smoothly, even as Dick needs to reveal a lot of what is going on. The denouement escapes disappointment by leaving enough interesting questions while resolving the plot.

Bladerunner is rather well known as a movie, so it's interesting to see where it diverges from the source text "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". The Voigt-Kampff test, designed to separate humans from androids is a test of empathy, and the idea of empathy - for animals, and for fellow humans - is a foundational religious concept in the culture. It's a more central concept here than in the movie.

But how much of it is a difference in empathy, as opposed to a difference in the targets of empathy? Deckard is increasingly battered and dependent on obscure, sterile tests that lack much of the empathy and emotion they're supposed to test; and the subplot of Mercerism adds in a dimension that the movie couldn't have reasonably had. Much of the themes and basic plot carried over to the movie, but there's still a fair amount that's distinct here.

"Ubik" is another of the more elliptical works; it doesn't work quite as well as "Palmer Eldritch" does and ultimately ends poorly. Still, the tale of dubious realities and sparsely lived half-lives following death is still a reasonably good read. Dick oddly leaves a couple of plot drives largely on the floor as he switches up, but this is as much due to a surfeit of ideas as anything else. The slow deterioration and disappearances that move along with the novel are extremely creepy even without bringing in everything the book was setup with.

The Library of America edition itself is well made; the texts are slightly cleaned up (typos corrected) versions of the first printings, the paper is thin but good, and the binding is very nice. "Four Novels of the 1960s" is well worth the premium price, both in content and in this edition.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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