Honorable Mentions:
“The Transmigration of Bishop Timothy Archer” - the final book in the VALIS trilogy and the last that PKD wrote before his death. The only book that I know of his that is written solely from a female perspective and that does not contain any elements of science fiction. This book is devastatingly sad but absolutely beautiful.
“The Devine Invasion” - The second book in the VALIS trilogy (which takes place approximately a century after the first) - This books is probably his most dense in religious allegories and symbolism and is a bit difficult for that reason.
“Dr Bloodmoney” - A dream-like surrealist post-apocalyptic novel that is easily one of the strangest of his works.
TOP 10:
10-Now Wait of Last Year (1966)
In this novel there’s an interplanetary drug that has the affect of perceived time travel - it deals heavily with addiction, suicide, and schizophrenia - but also has a lot of humor.
9-Time Out of Joint (1959)
The only 1950s PKD book on this list - It's an epistemological thriller and has some super Kafkaesque moments.
8-VALIS (1981)
The first in the VALIS trilogy is the most autobiographical novel PIKD wrote which deals with his hallucinations that he believed were actually intelligence being transmitted to him from a space probe called VALIS. To me this is after PKD started to loose his grip on reality to an extent that affected his writing in a negative way - but it still stands as one of his best novels because of the personal nature of the work.
7-Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968)
The most well known PKD book because of the film adaptation (“Blade Runner”) - This dystopian thriller explores the concepts of AI, morality, empathy and the question of what it means to be human.
6-The Man in the High Castle (1962)
This is the book that put PKD on the map - An alternative history in which Japan and Germany won WWII and rule over the US.
5-Martin Time Slip (1964)
Although it has elements of sci-fi like time travel and such - it focuses more on mental illness and schizophrenia and the characters that these pathologies affect.
4-Flow My Tears the Policeman Said (1974)
A dystopian mindfuck about a pop singer / TV star who wakes up in a reality in which has never existed - It deals with the idea of solipsism and gets pretty meta in light of how PKD’s twin sister died at birth and the affect that had on him.
3-The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965)
I don’t think any PKD book has as many twists and turns and shifts of reality / unreality as this one. It’s one of the first of Dick’s work to hit on religious themes and also has quite a lot of humor. It’s perhaps the most unfilmable novel he has written, as the imagery in this is not only surreal as fuck - but totally unlike anything I’ve ever read, heard or seen.
2-A Scanner Darkly (1977)
This is the first PDK book I read and the one that got me hooked. It’s a semi-autobiografical novel that deals with drug culture and addiction in a way that’s paranoia inducing, mind bending, and completely heart-breaking.
1-Ubik (1969)
This is his most acclaimed novel and for good reason. It’s one of the more difficult of his books because of how fast paced it is, and how warped the reality is - It’s a wild psychedelic existential nightmare - but as much of a mindfuck and as unsettling as it is, it’s truly a lot of fun as well. No book that I’ve ever read has ever felt as much like a dream, affected me so deeply, and inspired me as much as this has.
No comments:
Post a Comment