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
|
1 | 2 | 3 |
4 | 5 | 6 |
7 | 8 | 9 |
10 |
|
|
Galactic Pot-Healer (1969)
The Glimmung wants Joe Fernwright, a ceramic repairman in a drab future where skills
such as his have little value. What's a Glimmung? Well, it looks something like
a cross between a gyroscope and a teenage girl. Oh, yeah, it also looks like
the contents of an ocean and it may be divine. And, like some gods of old Earth,
it has a bad temper. But what could a god want with a humble pot-healer?
Martian Time-Slip (1964)
On Mars, the only thing more precious than water may be a ten year-old boy
named Manfred Steiner. He has schizophrenia and the UN has slated children like
him for deportation and destruction. But Arnie Kott, member in good-standing
of the Water Worker's Union, isn't so sure for he thinks Manfred and those
like him may be the window into the future. But what sort of future?
Mary and the Giant (1987)
Mary Anne Reynolds yearns to escape the confines of Pacific Park, CA,
to escape her abusive father, to escape her stifling existence. Her struggle for identity
leads her to the California jazz scene, to several older men, and to a reality
as strange and gripping as any of Dick's other work. It is a deeply affecting tale
of hope and tragedy as seen through the eyes of a frighteningly real young woman.
Now Wait For Last Year (1966)
Dr. Eric Sweetscent has problems. His planet is in an unwinnable war. His wife is
addicted to a drug that whips its users helplessly back and forth across time. She's
hell-bent on making him suffer along with her. His newest patient is the most important
man on the planet and also possibly the sickest. Secretary Gino Molinari has turned
his mortal illness into an instrument of political policy. Eric can't tell whether his
job is to heal Gino or to keep him poised just this side of death.
Our Friends From Frolix 8 (1970)
Thors Provoni had gone to the stars in search of help for his fellow man. They were
under the influence of a cabal of genetic freaks who used telepathy, precognition, and the
fix leaving their normal brothers little chance to rise above their second class
state. A message from Provoni indicates he found some help and he was bringing back
someone from Frolix 8. But what was the price to pay for such help?
|
Galactic Pot-Healer (1969) 
