Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s

Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s
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Known in his lifetime primarily to readers of science fiction, Philip K. Dick is now seen as a uniquely visionary figure, a writer who, in editor Jonathan Lethemâ€™s words, â€œwielded a sardonic yet heartbroken acuity about the plight of being alive in the twentieth century, one that makes him a lonely hero to the readers who cherish him.â€

This Library of America volume brings together four of Dickâ€™s most original novels.Â The Man in the High CastleÂ (1962), which won the Hugo Award, describes an alternate world in which Japan and Germany have won World War II and America is divided into separate occupation zones. The dizzyingÂ The Three Stigmata of Palmer EldritchÂ (1965) posits a future in which competing hallucinogens proffer different brands of virtual reality, and an interplanetary drug tycoon can transform himself into a godlike figure transcending even physical death.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?Â (1968), about a bounty hunter in search of escaped androids in a postapocalyptic society where status is measured by the possession of live animals and religious life is focused on a television personality, was the basis for the movieÂ Blade Runner. UbikÂ (1969), with its future world of psychic espionage agents and cryonically frozen patients inhabiting an illusory â€œhalf-life,â€ pursues Dickâ€™s theme of simulated realities and false perceptions to ever more disturbing conclusions, as time collapses on itself and characters stranded in past eras search desperately for the elusive, constantly shape-shifting panacea Ubik. As with most of Dickâ€™s novels, no plot summary can suggest the mesmerizing and constantly surprising texture of these astonishing books.

Posing the questions â€œWhat is human?â€ and â€œWhat is real?â€ in a multitude of fascinating ways, Dick produced worksâ€”fantastic and weird, yet developed with precise logic, marked by wild humor and soaring flights of religious speculationâ€”that are startlingly prescient imaginative anticipations of twenty-first-century quandaries.

LIBRARY OF AMERICAÂ is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nationâ€™s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, Americaâ€™s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
Country USA
Brand Library of America
Manufacturer Library of America
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber 9781598530094
Color Black
ReleaseDate 2007-05-10
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781598530094

Country	USA
Brand	Library of America
Manufacturer	Library of America
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	9781598530094
Color	Black
ReleaseDate	2007-05-10
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781598530094

Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s

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