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'The Game Players of Titan' - book review
I suspect Philip K Dick is one of those love him or hate him writers and I suspect I'm going to fall into the latter category.
On the evidence of this book, he appears to like the weird for the sake of it being weird and not to worry too much about making it all hang together rationally.
One of the central concepts of the book is who is human and who is alien, but the writer appears to be very inconsistent as to whether humans are being replaced by aliens or simply shifting their allegiance to be aligned with aliens, or are being telepathically controlled by aliens. The mish-mash leads to confusion on the reader's part.
My other main complaint is that the book focuses on the game that is played by the Titanians and is central to their culture and is played avidly by many humans as well. Now, I know this book was written back in 1963 back before the modern revolution in board games, but I'm still vastly disappointed by futuristic board game that is on the level of "A roll of seven lands you on 'Your rich grandmother dies and leaves you $20,000'". The only skill element in the game is the option to bluff about you die roll.
As games go, even for that period, this is greatly lacking in both imagination and playability. It hasn't got anything approaching the tactical/skill level of bridge or poker, both of which were around at the time (and still are, precisely because they are interesting games).
On the evidence of this book, he appears to like the weird for the sake of it being weird and not to worry too much about making it all hang together rationally.
One of the central concepts of the book is who is human and who is alien, but the writer appears to be very inconsistent as to whether humans are being replaced by aliens or simply shifting their allegiance to be aligned with aliens, or are being telepathically controlled by aliens. The mish-mash leads to confusion on the reader's part.
My other main complaint is that the book focuses on the game that is played by the Titanians and is central to their culture and is played avidly by many humans as well. Now, I know this book was written back in 1963 back before the modern revolution in board games, but I'm still vastly disappointed by futuristic board game that is on the level of "A roll of seven lands you on 'Your rich grandmother dies and leaves you $20,000'". The only skill element in the game is the option to bluff about you die roll.
As games go, even for that period, this is greatly lacking in both imagination and playability. It hasn't got anything approaching the tactical/skill level of bridge or poker, both of which were around at the time (and still are, precisely because they are interesting games).
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Also the film adaptations often don't make sense(coughminorityreportcough)...
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Of course Total Recall, though credited to We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, is actually more based on Paycheck, which means the movie of Paycheck is totally superfluous cos there's already been a much better version...
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Actually, I don't think he is. My experience with him is certainly not vast, but it's definitely varied. Like many authors of his time, he has a very signigicant short story output, and I find some of his best work is in that format rather than at novel length.
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Novel-wise you really want Man In The High Castle and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, and maybe The Simulacra and The Zap Gun. You might get away with VALIS so long as you remember it's semi-autobiographical about his wildest visions and paranoiac moments.
Beyond The Wub and Second Variety are good collections
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Me too. I haven't read a lot of Dick, but I can't remember liking it much.
On the evidence of this book, he appears to like the weird for the sake of it being weird and not to worry too much about making it all hang together rationally.
My impression isn't that it's "for the sake of being weird", but more that one of his favourite themes is "nobody knows what reality is anyway". So he's weird for the sake of pointing out that the universe is insane. So of course his stories make no sense, because his thesis is that the universe makes no sense.
For someone like me who considers that the universe does make sense, I tend to dislike his stories.
I suspect that the people who like his work, like it because it's "mindblowing".
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On the other hand, I did love The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch when I read it many years ago. It's the only book I've ever read that made me feel that I was on drugs - didn't know what was real and what wasn't. Would be interesting to re-read that one, though I might hate it now.
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One of the things I remember reading about him though, is that his books tend to be 'not quite there' but hugely inspiring to other SF Authors.
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I've read a fair amount of PKD and some of it I like and some of it I don't, but I like more than I dislike.
Certainly a lot of it is wierd, but it also makes you think about what you believe to be be "real" or "reality" and how much of it you simply accept because "well, that's what's there, isn't it"?
Personally I find his short stories better than his longer works and his earlier works especially are more readable.
As for the film adaptations, with the sole exception of "A Scanner Darkly" which is visually stunning *and* actually pretty true to the original, the rest (even though they may be very good) bear very little resemblence to the original stories.
(Footnote: One forum I used to use had such over-stringent "censorship" software that it changed his name to Philip K Masculine Area...!!)