Twyla LaSarc wrote:It was through my hubby that I came to appreciate Dick. I'd read science fiction since I could read, but somehow had missed out on Dick's body of work. But better late than never--it really spoke to me, since I'd lived a strange life by then, among mobsters, other low-life and rich, corrupt men who all lived in a kind of parallel reality to most American's lives.
I'm glad your husband turned you on to his stuff. He's one of those authors I literally give books away just to get friends to read them. I even got my sister (who is very straight and not really into SF) to read his stuff, which she wound up liking...
Phil's work has been a huge part of my life. My first job at 14 was working in a library as a page. I got fired for reading. I'm pretty sure the book in question was 'Scanner Darkly'. For better or for worse, Phil Dick taught me about people, the inherent weirdness of life and mortality. I can identify with a life led in some parallel world to the one that is accepted as real. I dunno if I went there because I read Dick and Burroughs at an impressionable age, or if reading those authors taught me the inherent absurdities of life and the secret world that exists behind the veil of 'normalacy'. Either way, I am far richer for both the literature and the experience (which the literature helped me survive... ).
You said it right there, Twyla! So well said. And I also have so many PKD books that I will never ever see again. You're here in Seattle no? I know a few peeps who have expressed interest along with myself in starting a PKD club. I don't know how existentially fucked up such a thing would be though. PKD utterly changed however, how I view just about anything and guess what? Jeff Wells of all people too. And a little 9/11 and George Bush -- which are perfectly unconnected to PKD and the good proprietor of this site.