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I'm reading a bit of K. Dick recently and watching/listening to a few old programs about him.
I LOVE his short story The Hanging Stranger, which is one of my all time favourites and i'd love to see as like an hour long Twilight Zone episode or something. But i'm finding that i'm not a massive fan of his short stories, the more i read. I'm tending to like the idea or set up but finding the execution falling a bit short. (I do think i have the ability to appreciate when the stories were written in and how sci-fi was back then).
The Man in the High Castle i loved the concept and idea of, but it was like he'd built this amazing world then didn't really play in it (for me, anyway). A Scanner Darkly i enjoyed very much and found very humorous. Do Androids i liked a lot. Some very interesting scenes in that and it was interesting to see how little they took from it for the film.
I also have Ubik, which i'm going to read soon.
His writing style sometimes draws me in very easily and other times i just find his stuff doesn't feel very well written at all. He does mention at one stage in his career he churned out rubbish for 2 years and appreciated stronger editors who helped him. i don't know what those stories are, but i may have just read a couple from what he considers himself a weak patch.
I do really enjoy listening to him speak though. and there's a radio show called HOUR 25 or The 25th HOUR where he chats for ages about writing and publishing and his new novel A Scanner Darkly and it's just a great interview.
Overall, a great sci-fi thinker (and general thinker) and some great tales to enjoy. But listening to him talk about his work i'm finding is more or as interesting as the work itself.
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Yah that's pretty nice. i like a lot of crumb stuff.
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I'm halfway through UBIK, and i'm enjoying it a lot. It has a very interesting premise and i'm not sure where it's going to go, but i'm surprised it hasn't been adapted for film. One odd thing is his description of clothing, which is utterly bizarre for each of the characters. Like, beyond clown outfits. I just wondered if there was a specific reason known for that?
Next, I'm going to read Martian Time-Slip. I've no idea what it's about but once i read a bit of Philip K, I tend to get hooked on the mood his stuff brings. He does sometimes have what i think is tremendously clunky dialogue, though.
Still, my favourite article or piece on K Dick is the Hour 25 Interview from about 1978? with him which is almost 2 hours long and talks about his writing and how publishing works and other authors. It's an excellent interview.
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UBIK sort of tailed off again for me. Great set up, interesting ideas and world, some nice humour but overall it just gets muddled. The very ending seems out of place, too. Like something a studio exec would tack onto the end of a film and i wasn't quite sure how to take it.
There's a description of how UBIK works by a female character near the end of the book that i found absolutely mind-numbing to read. His dialogue is noticeably not great to read every now and again, which i find surprising.
There's a group of 10 or so potentially interesting characters that are for the most part vastly undeveloped, though we are thoroughly introduced as to how they look and what they're wearing. They all have bizarre dress-sense for some reason (it's pretty funny, reminded me of character introduction in American Psycho taken up a notch).
There's tons of ideas, but everything feels discarded before it's been thoroughly thought out. The villains are discarded and new ones appear. There are some neat twists with that, but the initial psychic villain we never know or see and then is just dropped.
There is a really great bit of a character climbing stairs as he physically starts to disintegrate and is being goaded by another person.
I enjoyed the first 80 pages and the set-up. there's some good humour in a person being trapped inside his own apartment because he can't afford the 5 cents to get out or the cash to get food from his fridge, and the arguments he has with them. the main task of 12 psychics going into a space colony to root out an evil psychic was interesting. And i don't want to spoil what happens there next but it's a good set-up, which is almost entirely dropped.
Despite a couple of twists and good moments, the book just tailed off in entertainment value for me. Possibly it's also because i'm not a huge fan of books/films where anything can happen - like ghost stories/films or films that happen in the mind - but this did have some rules it stuck to in that regard, sort of.
I'm reading another one of his soon. Martian Time-Slip i think it's called.
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