Philip K. Dick was born in Chicago in 1928. While attending UC at Berkeley,
he dropped out rather than take ROTC training. There he stayed to write some 36
novels and 5 short story collections. He won the 1962 Hugo for The Man in the High Castle
and the 1974 John W. Campbell Award for Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said.
He died of heart failure caused by a stroke in 1982.
Over the years, Philip K. Dick's novels and collections have slipped in and
out of print. However, in 1991, Vintage, a division of Random House, the
folk who bring us Ballantine and Del Rey titles, began an ambitious project
to reprint many of his novels. While not all of them have reappeared, a fine
selection have. It is their covers (for the most part) which supplement this list
(© date appears in brackets).
Philip K. Dick Reading List
Installments
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A Maze Of Death (1970)
Fourteen strangers come to Delmark-O, thirteen by the usual method and the other by praying. Once
there, they all find that even praying is useless, for it is a place where the very
atmosphere is steeped in paranoia and psychosis. It appears that God is either absent from
Delmark-O or bent on destroying His creations in this metaphysical thriller.
A Scanner Darkly (1977)
Bob Arctor deals a lethal, addictive drug called Substance D. Fred is a cop assigned
to tail and to bust him. To do so, he goes undercover as a drug dealer named Bob Arctor.
He's addicted to his wares, the principal effect of which is to split the brain into two
distinct, combative entities. Fred doesn't realize that he is after himself.
Clans Of The Alphane Moon (1964)
Here is posed a disquieting question of where sanity ends and madness begins. Who among us
is qualified to make such a judgement. The small, habitable moon was once an insane
asylum. It's patients, abandoned long ago, formed clans based on their different psychoses. The
result is a bizarre parody of our own society. This fragile equation becomes unbalanced
when Earth and the alien Alphanes vie for control of the moon's resources.
Confessions of a Crap Artist (1960)
Jack Isidore is a crap artist - a collector of crackpot ideas and worthless objects.
He believes sunlight has weight and the Earth is hollow. His sister, Judy, and
brother-in-law, Charlie Hume, want to rescue Jack from real life as he isn't equipped
to handle it. It soon becomes apparent that they are just as alienated as Jack but
their reality is a good deal uglier. It was turned into a French film, Barjo, in 1992.
Counter Clock World (1967)
Joseph Tinbane wasn't suprised to hear a voice speaking to him from below ground. With
the Hobart Phase in effect, it was another of the old-born giving him
notification that it was ready to be dug up. Yous see, things have changed; time
has reversed itself. The dead come back to life and people grow younger instead of older.
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A Maze Of Death (1970)
