What did I just read?

Maze of Death is fun, a whodunnit with strong religious and spiritual undertones. Ending twist is shite though

A genrepleb.

But even people like Pynchon use elements of genre in their fiction, look at Inherent Vice for example

The exegesis is a fucking rollercoaster.

Do you think Philip K. Dick ever reflected upon his dick?

His later preoccupation with what seems to be Gnostic Christianity is fascinating. Either he was mentally ill, or a genuine Christian mystic in the tradition of Hildegard and Julian of Norwich.

He wasn't a stable person, but I think it's been too easy for people to dismiss him as 'crazy', he was obviously capable of rationalizing his thoughts.

In one interview he claimed to have a previous life as a monk during Roman times, and that he had been fighting them for hundreds of years, and that the Roman empire had now taken the form of the U.S. government. This was shortly before he died, the interview was based around the Blade Runner film

>Throughout February and March 1974, Dick experienced a series of hallucinations, which he referred to as "2-3-74", shorthand for February–March 1974. Aside from the "pink beam", Dick described the initial hallucinations as geometric patterns, and, occasionally, brief pictures of Jesus and ancient Rome. As the hallucinations increased in length and frequency, Dick claimed he began to live two parallel lives, one as himself, "Philip K. Dick", and one as "Thomas", a Christian persecuted by Romans in the first century AD. He referred to the "transcendentally rational mind" as "Zebra", "God" and "VALIS". Dick wrote about the experiences, first in the semi-autobiographical novel Radio Free Albemuth and then in VALIS, The Divine Invasion and the unfinished The Owl in Daylight (the VALIS trilogy).

The absolute madman

I'm actually reading VALIS and he explains this concept through the Black Iron Prison. The Romans being 'The Empire never dies' or whatever it was. Worth a read. It's all heavy Gnosticism.

I think you meant to reply to this post

An user posted a while back about how he had an .epup with all of PKD's short stories, 117 or somewhere or around there, but the asshole never shared it, and I can't find it anywhere.

Anyone happen to know about it or have it?

That one I haven't read

Dr. Bloodmoney
A Scanner Darkly
Exegesis

Using elements of a thing isn't the same as doing it.

Oh man, I love Dick!!

Ubik. I think that throughout his life he tried to write one book which would best express his thoughts and paradoxically it's Ubik not Valis.

No, the majority of PKD's books is genre trash. PKD fans who actually have read beyond his later and most popular titles acknowledge this.

I feel like Ubik didn't have too much going on compared to the rest of his work. Certainly not less but nothing really struck me about it.

I suppose that what made Ubik seem unique to me was that rather than one bizarre revelation cracking the whole thing open it was just a never-ending procession of the things right up until the last page. Was that Dick's life? Some new world-shattering revelation every hour which might not even matter because the world as he knows it might not even be real?

That sounds pretty shitty. I'm never touching LSD.

>I'm never touching LSD.

pleb

You are now aware that if you are living in any kind of story it is a science fiction story. You're entire life is genre trash, kill yourself.

I've read ubik, man in the high castle, and a scanner darkly and none of them are genre fiction

That's fine but it doesn't refute what user said. PKD wrote some amazing stuff but he also wrote a lot of potboilers to make money. Vulcan's Hammer, for example.

DUDE
WEED
LMAO

Yo nigga black haired girls, space Gnosticism all these here drugs, what's real? idk, do u? John Dowland can fuck my wife any time. Too much bureaucracy in these whack ass totalitarian systems.

Anyone read Eye in the Sky?

I just finished that one. Pretty good PKD that is not often discussed. Liked the characters moved from one world to the next.

...

So you've read a lot of his stuff then? Which are the essential ones in your view? VALIS, High Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, what else?

I love Dick

I liked this one a lot. Lots of fun and neat imagery.

His main works are the ones most talked about, there isn't really any hidden gem that has been ignored among the rest.

That isn't to say there is nothing to consider in his potboiler stuff at all, though; someone with an interest in him as a writer will see his main ideas and themes poking up in early form through his sloppy short stories (rarely recommended since they develop these themes too little to be worthwhile on their own yet enough to make his better works repetitive),
and even as firmly genre a novel as OP's book begins with a funny and somewhat Veeky Forums-related intro (the language game; the common readers out there would likely think of that whole office-life sequence as imitation-kafkaesque).

Did you forgot a pic or are you talking about Pot-Healer?

meditation about the nature of God

This has got to be one of the worst titles for a book ever. What was he thinking?

no wonder Terence McKenna was obsessed with him—they look exactly the same

It made me read it...