Philip K. Dick’s Opus: Artifice as Refuge and World View

Abstract

The chronology of Dick’s publications, taking into account only his books, looks as follows:¹ Though I rather enjoy some of Dick’s stories, from ‘The Preserving Machine’ (1953) and ‘Nanny’ (1955) to ‘Oh To Be a Blobel’ (1964), they are clearly secondary to his novels, where the themes of the most interesting stories are developed more fully. The novel format allows Dick to develop his peculiar strength of alternate-world creation by means of arresting characters counterposed to each other in cunningly wrought plots. Therefore, after 1956 Dick returned to writing notable stories only in his peak 1962–5 period; his later tries at forcing himself to write them are not too successful, e.g. the story in Dangerous Visions. In this chapter I shall concentrate on discussing his novels.