What other collectible has as devout a following?

[Zonker]

 

redhook,

Which do you prefer: Man in the High Castle, Scanner Darkly, Valis, or Timothy Archer? (Any others in the running for best PKD book?)

 

 

I know you asked Redhook, but my .02

 

's best period is in the early to mid 60's and not the mid to late 70's. My favourite though is actually Flow My Tears which is about '74, but I think it was written a few years earlier. Good books from around '64ish are Man In High Castle, Martian Timeslip (although some hate this) and 3 Stigmata. Also Now Wait For Last Year, which never get's the plaudits it deserves. Most of these involve narcotics of a type that most brains could never even conceive of.

 

A Scanner Darkly is also excellent, about '77 and I think the last good book he wrote.

 

To me, those 6 are probably the core books, although I've possibly forgotten something obvious.

 

Valis and Archer come from a very confused period in his life. There is a Crumb strip which I think was published in Weirdo which goes into some explanation of what was going on here - 's divine revelations and explorations of Eastern mysticism and the insanity that was King Felix (uh oh, that's me on the CIA death list). The guy wrote great books, but was seriously .tup

 

No prob, gpcove-- I just wasn't sure how many PKD readers we had on the forums (hmmm, redhook, you, me, chrisco, khaos, anyone else?). I never though Flow My Tears was topnotch PKD, but I ought to re-read it now based on your recommendation. Scanner's probably the laugh-out-loud funniest book he wrote (though also very dark indeed). The Valis period is certainly not for everyone, but it was my first exposure to Gnosticsm. did study Eastern mysticism, but it is his take on Western mysticism (in particular, the Christian Gnostic heresies) that are most interesting to me in Valis and Archer.

[Mushroom]

For the record...........I store my albums alpabetically.

 

Anyone who doesn't store alphabetically isn't a true music fan. I hope you're chronological by artist as well !

 

by release date not recorded date....................

[Red Hook]

 

redhook,

Which do you prefer: Man in the High Castle, Scanner Darkly, Valis, or Timothy Archer? (Any others in the running for best PKD book?)

 

 

Hi Zonker......

 

You named four of my favorites right there.....ever hear the Opera made out of Valis? (no joke). Timothy Archer is a special book, I think it was his last. When was good he was sublime, when he was off, he was damn awful.

 

I'd add Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Confessions of a [!@#%^&^] Artist (made into the French film Barjo), Martian TIme Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney, and the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Radio Free Albemuth (kind of an alternate universe version of Valis) is good too.

 

Guess there's a lot of them I like.

 

Also, I have read both The Stars My Destination (Gully Foyle) and the Demolished Man. 1970's Silverburg is also a fave.

 

[Mister_Comics]

There use to be a show on cable that I use to watch called TREASURES IN THE ATTIC. It would show all kinds of subject matter that people collect. You'd be surprised at some of the stuff people collect. Some of the collections that I thought were really strange were...

tombstones

fans

rugs & carpets

barb wire

and

fruits & veggies in the shape of male and female body parts

 

There was another cable show about collections but I can't remember the name. I do remember the host was John Burke. Anyone know what that show was called?

[Red Hook]

I've got a pretty good PKD (Philip K. - and no jokes, dudes!) collection of first editions......and alot of other SF first editions....not worth nearly as much as my comic collection. And I actually read them (books and comics).

 

I'm seriously jealous. Please give me all your first editions and make me happy. I have a (very) few first editions by the man and a pile of very large, well thumbed paperbacks. Do you have anything autographed ? I met a guy once with a Man In The High Castle autographed first edition that must be worth a fortune.

 

Yeah, wish I had that too. What I do have is a first of Flow my Tears, A Scanner, several Gregg Press first HCs of his paperback work, etc. I also have a nice PB first of The Simulacrum. I love the jacket art on some of the PBs too. Not the new ones, the older ones.

 

A nice website is, appropriately enough, www.philipkdick.com

 

 

[Red Hook]

I like a bizzare tale as much as the next person, but I had to give up on Valis! I guess I wasn't in the mood for it when I read it.

 

Chris

 

Valis is a toughy, no doubt about it. The middle section where he goes off on his agnostic tangents is like reading the long section on whales in Moby . Uh, no pun intended.

 

I was a paying member of the PKD Society back in the 80's and have all the newsletters which were very imformative. I think you can still order copies.

 

Try http://paulwilliams.com/pkds.html for these......

[ScarFace-migration]

ScarFace is in da Hizzo ! ! !

 

I collect guns (I consider them my "little friends")

[OldSchoolTerry]

Do you "Say Hello to my little friends!!"?

[garthgantu]

[

 

Valis is a toughy, no doubt about it. The middle section where he goes off on his agnostic tangents is like reading the long section on whales in Moby . Uh, no pun intended.

 

Was it Valis or Radio Free Albemuth that is a somewhat autobiographical tale of a guy in Berkeley who starts receiving messages from an extreterrestrial intelligence? I loved that story.

 

I can't believe it took so long for someone to mention "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" !!! I just read this book for the first time a couple months ago, and it blew me away. Having seen every version of Blade Runner many times, I found the book very different and in most ways better than any version of the film. The fact that the book takes place in a suburb of San Francisco, rather than a post-apocalyptic city setting, was one of the bigger and better surprises.

 

And what about "We Can Remember it For You Wholesale" ? The short story that became "Total Recall" on the big screen? Anyone read that, and is it (presumably) better than the movie?

[Red Hook]

The movies that have been made from PKD short stories so far have really just borrowed the basic ideas from the stories and left major details of the plots and characterization behind. Total Recall - We Can Remember it For You Wholesale, Minority Report -from the story of the same name, Paycheck -again, from the story of the same name.

 

Screamers - from the story Second Variety was pretty close to the story. I didn't see Imposter yet. My favorite of all the PKD based films is still Bladerunner - even though the plots of the book and film split off from each other fairly early. Barjo, the French film made from the non-sf novel Confessions of a [!@#%^&^]-artist, came closest to portraying the absurdist element found in much of PKDs writing. And none of the films have yet to transmit his pretty wry sense of humor.

 

I wasn't impressed with Minority Report, but I will give it a second viewing eventually. Not a big Tom Cruise or Ben Afleck fan.

[garthgantu]

I've seen Impostor, with Gary Sinise, and liked it. Not as good as Blade Runner, but then almost nothing is, when it comes to great noir sci-fi. Worth a watch, but don't get your hopes up too high...