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Philip K. Dick’s Search for God through Fantasy
Fantasy / By Michael Bertrand / 7 minutes of reading
Philip K. Dick, born 1928, was an American science fiction writer. Active from 1951 to 1982, PKD produced 44 novels, 121 short stories, and 14 short story collections. While he was best known for writing in the science fiction genre, PKD wrote several literary novels, only one of which was published while he was alive. Philip died in 1982 from complications from a stroke, just as his novels were receiving wider recognition and acclaim from a global audience. Since then, eight films have been made from his works (including Ridley Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner) and at least two television series.
Shortly after his birth in Chicago to Dorothy and Joseph Dick, the family moved to California. Philip’s parents divorced in the 1930s. He grew up in his mother’s house in the Berkeley area surrounded by artists and academics. According to his family, Philip began talking at an early age and was frequently described as intelligent by school administrators and teachers. PKD began writing in high school. He self-published several newspapers and sold his first short story, “Roog”, to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1951.
A Song of Joy by Caroline Furlong 
I got some PKD story collections dirt cheap at a closing book store.
I don’t enjoy every story he does, but one thing I HIGHLY respect him for is that he will play with ANY idea and follow it through. No joke in one book there were two stories back to back involving people with psychic powers in a scifi future. In one story, a person with a certain power set was pretty much an unbeatable Gary Stu.
In the very next story another psychic person with the exact same power set was completely helpless and unable to do anything.
That alone, that he could take the same idea in two vastly different directions earned my lifelong respect for his craftsmanship.
And I will note: Looper is the best PKD movie (even though it is not actually a PKD movie) and “the variable man” is the story I would most love to adapt to a movie.
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He brought forward unique concepts to sci-fi.
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