I guess I should start by saying what I want to do with this newsletter.
I want to reread the novels of Philip K Dick. I want to read them in order of publication, and I want to write about it. Pretty simple really.
If you’re not already aware of him, Dick was an incredibly prolific sci-fi writer in the ’50s and ’60s who wrote until his death in 1982. But even if you haven’t read his books, you likely know him from the adaptations of his work, from movies like Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly, or maybe the TV series The Man in High Castle. He would receive some recognition in his life—a Hugo award, some Nebula nominations, etc.—but he wouldn’t live to enjoy all of that film money, dying just months before Blade Runner was released, and would forever struggle with mental health and financial difficulties. I won’t attempt to tell his whole story here.
I’m pretty sure that I came to his writing through Blade Runner. It’s not an especially unique origin story, I’m sure a lot of people did. In my case, I was lucky to have parents who had many of his books—maybe all of them?—waiting to be found on their shelves. Those same books, in all their delightfully pulpy-covered glory, have since been moved onto mine, but they haven’t been touched in a while.
I must have first read Dick’s books in high school, grade 9 or 10 maybe. I remember lending a few of them out to friends in the library—which, yes, does sound a little nerd-ish adjacent now that you mention it—and I really hope I got them all back. But high school was an incredibly long time ago, a comfortably large chasm in time and memory that shows no sign of getting any smaller.
I remember some of the books in pretty vague detail with a little of the general plot or concept, some in highly specific moments or highlights, some of them not at all. There are likely a few of the books that I never actually read in the first place. I may or may not come to that realization when I get to them in my re-reading, but who knows. Memory is tricky.
As for what I’ll actually write about these books, I’m not entirely sure yet. Most of my writing is either about medieval history (which you can mostly find on my podcast Human Circus: Journeys in the Medieval World) or is fiction (which you can find here and there, with more to come). I’m excited about this as an outlet for writing of a different sort, and I hope you’ll come along with me to find out what that is.
I guess on a basic level, I’m wondering if I’ll still enjoy these books as much as high-school me did. I’m interested in the history around them. I’m wondering what they’ll have to say to us here in 2024 and what it means to read this famously paranoid author in times when paranoia is hardly required to have a pretty bleak picture of the world and where it’s going. I suspect my approach will vary quite a bit from book to book.
Up next, Dick’s first published novel, Solar Lottery. I think I remember the basic idea of this one, but there are a lot of blanks to be filled in. Time to get started on that!