Nah. I think it's fucking rad.

But some of them are great books, who cares what they are called? It's a few words on the front of a book containing thousands of others.

is this a parody thread?

He was just ahead of his time. Look at all the stupid band names rocking around these days.

I like his titles.

I also like the word 'Wub'.

A title DEFINES a book. And if he's such a great writer, why does half his catalogue have execreble titles?

He's carving out a particular kind of language for himself.

Some are worse than others. "The Name of the Game is Death" is probably the worst on this list.

Although I am bothered by the lack of gender agreement in "Mr Computer falls out of its tree".

oh god.

http://mono.whatevz.net/images/Ben-KingsleylTGgOu.jpg

he should start threads on messandnoise instead.

...even.

dick's short stories

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said are brilliant titles

I thought 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' was a shit title until I read the book.

A lot of his stuff was crap, but the ones where he put his heart into it were amazing.

> Psi-man Heal My Child!

band name alert

BEYOND LIES THE WUB dammit

He did have a history of drugs

they're all great. stop being a baby.

He's the literary title equivalent to Anal Cunt.

Cobblers are dumb, btw

I agree with Badalex..ahead of his time.

I haven't read Dr Bloodmoney yet. I think I'll tackle Ubik next.

1975 rolling stone article on Phil Dick, scanned and presented in PDF here...

The Divine Invasion is fairly fucking rad.

You can kinda tell he wrote these very quickly, and without a definite idea in mind re: how the plot would finish.

That's 'cos he was a crazy speed freak.

Thanks tigers.

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale

= RAD.

I picked up a Philip K. Dick reference in an episode of Babylon 5 last night.

Nerd out on that, cunts.

what was the reference?

i'll check back on monday.

Is Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep any good? I got it for a few bucks the other day.

I haven't read that one yet but it's widely regarded as one of his best.

Is Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep any good?

i didn't finish it. some people rave about it, though.

my favourites are ubik, cosmic puppets, flow my tears the policemen said, valis, radio free albemuth and confessions of a crap artist.

Yes, it is good.

Picked up ''We Can Build You'', ''Humpty Dumpty in Oakland'' and ''Radio Free Albemuth'' for $10 a piece at The Book Grocer on Sydney Rd over the weekend. Still had a few left.

Or order them here, free postage: http://bookgrocer.libro.com.au/book-search/search.do?authorName=&title=&isbn=philip+k+dick&all=philip+k+dick&keywords=&sort=&txtQuery=philip+k+dick

you can't beat * Cadbury, the Beaver Who Lacked *. You just can't beat that shit

I've read ''Cadbury, the Beaver Who Lacked''. It's in one of the short story compilations, it's pretty good. Poor old Cadbury, things just never go right for him. Mostly though, it's his own doing. I can relate to Cadbury.

Anyway, I really like the oddness of his titles.

Radio Free Albemuth trailer:

http://bit.ly/f1N6Er

Was 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale' a Twilight Zone episode?

Jesus he is horrible at everything. I'm glad he's dead.

“…today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups—and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudo-worlds right into the heads of the reader, the viewer, the listener. Sometimes when I watch my eleven-year-old daughter watch TV, I wonder what she is being taught. The problem of miscuing; consider that. A TV program produced for adults is viewed by a small child. Half of what is said and done in the TV drama is probably misunderstood by the child. Maybe it’s all misunderstood. And the thing is, Just how authentic is the information anyhow, even if the child correctly understood it? What is the relationship between the average TV situation comedy to reality? What about the cop shows? Cars are continually swerving out of control, crashing, and catching fire. The police are always good and they always win. Do not ignore that point: The police always win. What a lesson that is. You should not fight authority, and even if you do, you will lose. The message here is, Be passive. And—cooperate. If Officer Baretta asks you for information, give it to him, because Officer Beratta is a good man and to be trusted. He loves you, and you should love him.

So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later. Or at least that is what my editors hope. However, I will reveal a secret to you: 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. I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it. Do not believe—and I am dead serious when I say this—do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous realization, because it tells us that we must eventually part with much of what is familiar to us. And that hurts. But that is part of the script of life. Unless we can psychologically accommodate change, we ourselves begin to die, inwardly. What I am saying is that objects, customs, habits, and ways of life must perish so that the authentic human being can live. And it is the authentic human being who matters most, the viable, elastic organism which can bounce back, absorb, and deal with the new.”

• Philip K. Dick

Great article - HILOBROW: PHILIP K. DICK

I didn't get all the way through it yet, but that is a great biography. So much weird and amazing information that I didn't know about the man.

''In 1976 Dick’s fifth wife left him and he attempted suicide again, washing heart pills, high blood pressure pills, and antidepressants down with a bottle of wine, slashing his wrists, and locking himself into the garage with the car running. Somehow, he survived.''

That just really blew my mind. Such manic, over the top dedication to ending his own life that it's almost comic if it weren't so tragic. And yet he still fails and winds up back in the shit hole of life to slog it out some more. A lot like his characters.