...like Caine in Kung Fu.: Intro to PKD 101

Intro to PKD 101

Philip Kindred Dick - Kindred was his mother's maiden name

Born December 16, 1928 in Chicago and died in 1982

He lived most of his life in Berkeley, California

He suffered from asthma, paroxysmal tachycardia and bouts of eczema

Had a twin sister named Jane Charlotte that died not long after birth

His 1965 novel "Dr. Bloodmoney" has a character that lives inside another character and communicates telepathically.

When he was a child he had an imaginary playmate named "Jane".

Dr. George Engel coined the term "Twinning" referring to the deep connection twins have, and the particular trauma of losing a twin sibling.

PKD won the Hugo Award in 1963 for his novel "The Man in the High Castle".

The Hugo Award is named after Hugo Gernsback - a publisher of SF pulp magazines.

He is considered a "Soft SF" writer - more concerned with challenging the cognitive construct by which we order our lives, versus "Hard SF" which is more technical in nature.

A PKD protagonist is one who saves the world through empathic awareness of its suffering and perceptive insight into its ultimate irreality.

Films
1. Blade Runner (1982)
2. Total Recall
3. Impostor
4. Paycheck
5. A Scanner Darkly
6. The Minority Report
7. The Adjustment Bureau

Edgar Allen Poe - Proto SF?
"The Case of M. Valdemar"
"The Mystification"

PKD had a series of visions between Feb-March 1974. He referred to those as "2-3-74".

PKD was very fond of elaboration, extrapolation, reinterpretation and outright putting people on.

PKD gave an interview to Rolling Stone in November 1974.

Works
1. Eye in the Sky 1957
2. Time Out of Joint 1959
3. Confessions of a Crap Artist 1959 (published 1975)
4. The Man in the High Castle 1962
5. Martian Time-Slip 1964
6. A Crack in Space 1964
7. Simulacra 1964
8. Dr. Bloodmoney 1965
9. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch 1965
10. Ubik 1969
11. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said 1974
12. A Scanner Darkly 1977
13. Valis 1981
14. Divine Invasions 1981
15. The Transmigration of Timothy Archer 1982

VOCABULARY
1. Ganymedean

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_%28mythology%29

2. Hermetic

http://gnosis.org/hermes.htm
3. Epigrammatic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigram
4. Ratiocination

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ratiocination
5. Anima

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus

6. Gnosticism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism

7. Logos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos

8. Demiurge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge