Entering The World Of Philip K Dick
Now that I have decided to abandon reading the LOTR books, I must find a suitable replacement book to read. Otherwise, I might find myself in a difficult situation where I can no longer show off and brag to unwitting folks with all the new and cool books I have read. Because of that, my ego will not be fed, and that is a problem. With that in mind, I looked back into my extensive notes and found that I should go back to reading what I really love, science fiction.
Obviously, Isaac Asimov is my favorite. Yet, you don’t see many movies that are based off Isaac Asimov. I think that’s because Asimov novels were so interconnected, and pointed to a broader picture. The stories spanned centuries and in no way would they be covered in 90 to 120 minutes. Further, there was no single protagonist to latch on to for the readers. Also, a lot of stories were either small scale — affecting one or two individuals — or very large scale, like affecting the entire universe. There was no middle ground. Bottom line, the chances of any foundation novels ever becoming movies are almost nil.
Of course, we did get that Will Smith action movie I Robot, but that is nothing like any Isaac Asimov Robot story, ever. It does ask some of the same questions that the standard I Robot stories asked. In that way, it could be considered a love letter to the Robot stories of Asimov and that’s about it. It’s a good action movie but it’s not a good Asimov story adaptation.
I have read most of the Asimov stories. Unfortunately, much of the collection is not available on Kindle. Paper books are cool (and they make for some great Instagram photos) but it’s hard to manage them. Kindle books are the only way to go forward with any reading habit. Multi-device syncing, unlimited book storage and fantastic reading options. E-books are the zing, baby!
Arthur C Clarke is another option but other than the Rendezvous with Rama, the other books did not really appeal to me. If anything, Rama provided inspiration to that last scene in Interstellar with that cylindrical space station, which is just awesome. Then there is that another movie, 2001: The Space Odyssey, which has that weird ending where everything goes out of the window.
That means, I am left with only one science fiction author to sample, Phillip K Dick. This guy clearly wrote more practical science fiction. Blade Runner, Total Recall, Paycheck, Next, Minority Report are all movies of varying coolness. Each of them, based on stories or novels by Dick. Perhaps the most awesome movie of all these must be total recall, and that movie (and the story it is based on) reflect the type of narratives that Dick weaved most of the time.
In Total Recall, it is a futuristic world, of course. A company is in the business of giving vacation memories. Let’s say you are one of those folks who is too busy to take a vacation. Explore the dark corridors of mars. The deep space. The floating mountains of Pandora. You want to do that but you can’t. No problem. This memory company will imprint those memories in your head. Since everything we do in life is about collecting memories, as far as you are concerned, once the memory is in your head, you did it!
The movie starts off standard and then, does a double flip but it does not tell you if the double flip happened or is it simply a memory? That is where the mind screw begins. Did the protagonist have a secret past life of a secret agent or is it simply a vacation memory? Did he liberate mars or did he not? Did he end up with the woman of his dreams, or is he sleeping next to his fake wife and dreaming about being with that woman of his dreams? When the credits roll, is it some imagination or actual reality? The movie asks the same questions that modern movies such as Matrix asked, but in the early 90s. Of course, the story itself was written 1966.
From the research, I have been doing about Dick, most of his stories are like this. Questioning the reality of life itself. If I am typing this post, am I really typing it or is it just my imagination? The internet advises me to read the Dick novels and stories in the order they were published. This gives an insight to the mind of this crazy author and try and picture what he was doing and what he was thinking when these stories and novels were being written.
Perhaps one challenge with reading stories of Dick is that they are scattered all over the place. Most of the novels are available on Kindle but the short stories are not available in one single place. There is a possible explanation for this. During his existence, Dick was not particularly popular and that means, he did not make much money from his full-time writer occupation. Since magazines can only publish so many stories from a single author, he was selling his stories to whichever magazine was buying that month. That meant, the rights to his stories are spread all over the place.
Still though, Kindle does seem to have most of the books. That’s good news for me. So, I am going to start my journey into the world of Philip K Dick with The Man in The High Castle. I am already intrigued by the premise. It’s an alternate history where USA did not win the world war 2 and that means, the Axis powers took over the world!
