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PERSONALITIES
PHILIP K DICK
Science Fiction Visionary
Since his untimely death at age 53, there has been an extraordinary growth of interest in his writings, which during his lifetime were largely ignored by serious mainstream critics and readers. Such is no longer the case, and the novels of Philip K. Dick frequently appear on university curricula devoted to modern American literature. But that is only the beginning of the transformation. Since 1982, when Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (based on Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) made its debut, eight feature films based on Dick's fiction have appeared, the other seven being Total Recall, The Minority Report, Screamers, Impostor, the French film Confessions d'un Barjo (based on Dick's mainstream novel, Confessions of a Crap Artist), Paycheck, A Scanner Darkly and the upcoming Next (April 2007). That's an average of roughly one movie every three years since Dick's passing - a rate of cinematic adaptation exceeded only by Stephen King. And there are other big-money film options currently held by Hollywood studios.MORE: http://www.philipkdick.com/aa_biography.html
Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose published work during his lifetime was almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states. In his later works, Dick's thematic focus strongly reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology. He often drew upon his own life experiences and addressed the nature of drug abuse, paranoia and schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences in novels such as A Scanner Darkly and VALIS.[1]
The novel The Man in the High Castle bridged the genres of alternate history and science fiction, earning Dick a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963.[2] Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, a novel about a celebrity who awakens in a parallel universe where he is unknown, won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel in 1975.[3] "I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards," Dick wrote of these stories. "In my writing I even question the universe; I wonder out loud if it is real, and I wonder out loud if all of us are real."[4] Dick referred to himself as a "fictionalizing philosopher."
In addition to thirty-six novels, Dick wrote approximately 121 short stories, many of which appeared in science fiction magazines.[5] Although Dick spent most of his career as a writer in near-poverty,[6] nine of his stories have been adapted into popular films since his death, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly and Minority Report. In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik one of the one hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923.[7] In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series.[8][9][10][11]
MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick
Mind-Shattering Novels of Philip K. Dick
Best space/time mind puzzles you're going to
enjoy this side of eternity
Philip K. Dick was
abducted by... his own mind, and wrote about it for as long as SF industry would
publish it. Which is extremely lucky for millions of his fans, me included.
THE BOOK THAT INSPIRED THE FILM BLADE RUNNER COMES TO BOOM with backmatter by Warren Ellis! Worldwide best-selling sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick's award-winning DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? has been called "a masterpiece ahead of its time, even today" and served as the basis for the film BLADE RUNNER.
The unbilled costar of Paycheck, the latest Hollywood thriller from the battered typewriter of Philip K. Dick, is a bullet. A crack engineer named Jennings, played by Ben Affleck, finds himself in a jam, as Dick's characters invariably do, and the bullet is headed his way. Spiraling through the air in superslow motion, it pierces his chest in a plume of red and bores into his heart. Or does it? Though the image recurs throughout the film, it's hard to tell whether it's actually happening or not. Philip K. Dick liked nothing better than to toy with the fundamentals of human existence, reality chief among them, so what better for the movie than a bullet that may or may not be tearing through the main character's flesh? Like other Dick protagonists - Tom Cruise in Minority Report, Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall, Harrison Ford in Blade Runner- Affleck finds himself struggling for equilibrium in a world where even the most elemental questions are almost impossible to answer. Can the senses be trusted? Are memories real? Is anything real?
MORE: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.12/philip.html
QUOTES OF PHILIP K. DICK
- The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.
- So we and our elaborately evolving computers may meet each other halfway. Someday a human being, named perhaps Fred White, may shoot a robot named Pete Something-or-other, which has come out of a General Electric factory, and to his surprise see it weep and bleed. And the dying robot may shoot back and, to its surprise, see a wisp of gray smoke arise from the electric pump that it supposed was Mr. White's beating heart. It would be rather a great moment of truth for both of them.
MORE: http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Philip_K._Dick/
PKD Android: A robotic portrait
Philip K Dick was brought back to life as a fully autonomous conversational android.
A team of roboticists, computer scientists, designers, and science fiction fans built a "robotic portrait" of the sci-fi author. The project was a collaboration between Hanson Robotics, the University of Memphis, and the Automation and Robotics Research Institute (ARRI) at the University of Texas, Arlington. The android used cameras to track visitors and turn to face them while talking. It used speech recognition and speech synthesis software to listen and respond, and AI routines that drew on Dick's body of work to hold a natural conversation with visitors.
MORE: http://www.pkdandroid.org/
MORE: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/philip-k-dick/
TOTAL RECALL
BLADE RUNNER
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