on “PKD”

Two Twitter contacts also report that they or close family members are also in a period of Philip K. Dick immersion. It’s funny how often this sort of thing happens.

I’m still trying to formulate my feelings about Dick’s universe, but will try to do so in the coming weeks. What I can already say is that he “gets away with” doing something that is central to most science fiction, but which doesn’t normally succeed with me for some reason.

Namely, any science fiction universe will by definition depart from our accustomed “realistic” universe. And for some reason I am usually annoyed by the purely arbitrary (though necessary) invention of other planets, weapons, monsters, social customs, and so forth, that make up the heart of science fiction and fantasy alike.

First, I’m trying to figure out why it annoys me, because obviously that’s the whole point of these genres. And in some cases it obviously does work for me, since in principle I vastly prefer fantasy and science fiction to mainstream realistic fiction. So I guess what I’m trying to figure out is why this sometimes works and other times not.

In Dick’s case it does work very well, even for a hesitant sceptic like me. I’m not bothered when he starts mentioning, out of the blue, revolutions that occurred or robots that were invented in a fictional 1987. I was not annoyed when Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? began with the positing of a “mood organ” that allows people to dial requests to be put in certain moods, though in lesser hands it probably would have moved me to bored sighs.

Another interesting feature of his writing is this… On the surface, he looks rather cynical about human nature, and even more cynical about human society and its destiny. Yet the total effect is somehow energizing and affirmative.

I have no good theories about any of this yet, but will think it over as I read a few more Dick novels.