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Philip K. Dick

Soon we will have Blade Runner 2049 & a science fiction television anthology series based on the works of Philip K. Dick. The series will consist of ten standalone episodes based on Dick's work, written by both British and American writers. Meanwhile three novelists give us their views on a favourite PKD work.

The Philip K Dick book I love most…
In the 35 years since he died, the sci-fi writer’s probing of the nature of reality seems ever more prescient. Ahead of a Blade Runner sequel and new C4 series, three novelists pick their favourite works

Time Out of Joint

Chosen by Michael Moorcock

Time Out of Joint is not the first Philip K Dick novel to explore his now-familiar ideas, neither is it the best, but it was the first story I read of his and it made me an admirer. Without doubt, it’s a good introduction to Dick’s increasingly complex, intelligent metaphysical obsessions.

Ragle Gumm, apparently an ordinary guy in an ordinary 1959, lives conventionally in a small town with ordinary people. The only extraordinary thing about him is his consistent ability to win a newspaper contest in which he guesses where a little green man is hiding. Regularly winning Where Will the Little Green Man Be Next? makes him a minor celebrity. He enjoys a pleasant, comfortable life with his winnings. The middle-American town has all the nostalgic safety Donald Trump supporters yearn for, but attentive readers might notice certain discordant elements. The Tucker car, for instance, has become a standard production model and no one has heard of Marilyn Monroe. Soon Gumm himself sees a food truck disappear before his eyes, to be replaced with a slip of paper reading “SOFT DRINK STAND”. ...

Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams airs on Channel 4 in September. Blade Runner 2049i s in cinemas 6 October

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/27/philip-k-dick-best-novels-blade-runner-minority-report
 
First episode of Electric Dreams was The Hood Maker. Retro style future with telepaths. One being used by police with a Rick Deckard style partner. The Telepaths are hated by the "Normals". Good production design, acting , script, direction. Maybe a bit too Blade Runneresque but the cars were 70s/80s style. 8/10
 
It was quite Blade Runner-ish, yes.
 
Have to disagree, I thought it was really dull and gave no indication as to what attracted the makers to the short story at all. Looked very drab, too. I wanted something mindbending!
 
GNC said:
Have to disagree, I thought it was really dull and gave no indication as to what attracted the makers to the short story at all. Looked very drab, too. I wanted something mindbending!
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The drabness was deliberate. It was a rundown city with shanty towns next to arcologies. A city on the verge of eruption.
 
ramonmercado said:
The drabness was deliberate. It was a rundown city with shanty towns next to arcologies. A city on the verge of eruption.
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You could say the same of Blade Runner and that doesn't look drab.
 
GNC said:
You could say the same of Blade Runner and that doesn't look drab.
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A different type of drab. Look at condition of street people in BR. It just worse in THM, people sifting rubbish dumps on the outskirts of a first world city.
 
I wouldn't have had an issue with the art direction if the story had been more engaging: it was more than the look of the thing that was drab.
 
We watched the Hood Maker today. It was very good although we would have preferred a different ending. Did anyone else see this? There's more to come in the series.
 
Just caught up with The Hood Maker, on catch up. Not a bad SF story, though perhaps not uniquely PKD. I though the trashed retro future, was actually more like the world of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, than Blade Runner is, alternatively iit could be a "somewhere in the 20th century" world like the of Brasil. Now Terry Gilliam doing PKD would be worth seeing Ubik, or Galactic Pot Healer, perhaps.
 
Episode 2 a bit better, however there's a difference between enigmatic and confusing and I don't think this managed the former. A lot of treading water too (literally, at the end). Futuristic porn isn't very exciting, is it? But the story was worth it for Geraldine Chaplin in a spacesuit.

There are more executive producers on this show than actors.
 
GNC said:
Episode 2 a bit better, however there's a difference between enigmatic and confusing and I don't think this managed the former. A lot of treading water too (literally, at the end). Futuristic porn isn't very exciting, is it? But the story was worth it for Geraldine Chaplin in a spacesuit.

There are more executive producers on this show than actors.
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A bit confusing but I liked the retro future feel again.
 
At last this series pays off! Really decent episode last night, maybe it was Timothy Spall lifting it, but I found it a very effective look at grief, when the grief starts while the terrible situation is still happening. (Er, there's probably a word for that, trauma? Maybe). Nothing flashy, but simple and thought-provoking. More like this one and this will be worth sticking with.
 
GNC said:
At last this series pays off! Really decent episode last night, maybe it was Timothy Spall lifting it, but I found it a very effective look at grief, when the grief starts while the terrible situation is still happening. (Er, there's probably a word for that, trauma? Maybe). Nothing flashy, but simple and thought-provoking. More like this one and this will be worth sticking with.
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It was quite original in its concept. I enjoyed it too.
 
I thought this was the best yet & Timothy Spall was excellent in it. Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad was executive producer.

There was a nice coincidence in it - the waitress gives him some of her homemade cake & he loves it, saying "it's divine". The next ad break a few minutes later there's an ad for something - yoghurt I think - & the strap line is "it's divine".
 
hunck said:
I thought this was the best yet & Timothy Spall was excellent in it. Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad was executive producer.

There was a nice coincidence in it - the waitress gives him some of her homemade cake & he loves it, saying "it's divine". The next ad break a few minutes later there's an ad for something - yoghurt I think - & the strap line is "it's divine".
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There's a lot of that with ads now. Some ads are targeted specially for viewers of the particular film that's on. That must be a little more costly for the advertisers, I'm sure.
 
Mythopoeika said:
There's a lot of that with ads now. Some ads are targeted specially for viewers of the particular film that's on. That must be a little more costly for the advertisers, I'm sure.
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Really? Is that a thing now? I had no idea. So the ad agencies must look at the programme schedules some weeks ahead & think the Electric Dream audience like a yoghurt, let's do that one. Then they watch the programme, find a phrase, dub it onto the ad, then slot it in a break shortly after it's been said. Blimey.

There's me thinking it was just a little coincidence. I haven't had a yoghurt in the interim & couldn't tell you what brand it was.
 
hunck said:
Really? Is that a thing now? I had no idea. So the ad agencies must look at the programme schedules some weeks ahead & think the Electric Dream audience like a yoghurt, let's do that one. Then they watch the programme, find a phrase, dub it onto the ad, then slot it in a break shortly after it's been said. Blimey.

There's me thinking it was just a little coincidence. I haven't had a yoghurt in the interim & couldn't tell you what brand it was.
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Yeah, I've seen a few specially-made ads now, made to tie-in to a film that's on. There may also be existing ads that have similar phraseology or theme to the film or program, and they just slot them in. Clever stuff.
 
This week's was the first that truly gave the impression I get of reading a PKD story, that weirdness, not being sure if you "get" it, the sense that the characters have a better grasp of what's going on than the reader. Plus Steve Buscemi in a lead role!
 
GNC said:
This week's was the first that truly gave the impression I get of reading a PKD story, that weirdness, not being sure if you "get" it, the sense that the characters have a better grasp of what's going on than the reader. Plus Steve Buscemi in a lead role!
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Yeah! I liked it. They got the retro-future look spot on.
 
We've recorded them and watched a couple last night. Minutes into one I stopped the TV and said 'I bet this happens...' and described the whole plot, and I was right.

I thought it was a bit obvious, but later realised that I'd probably read the story as I was a huge sci-fi fan in my youth. Durr.
 
Last night's episode confused me a bit. There were things I didn't 'get'.
 
The injection in the head. QCs? The pig-woman. The artificial nature of the landscape.
 
Mythopoeika said:
The injection in the head. QCs? The pig-woman. The artificial nature of the landscape.
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The injection in the head was to put in the QC, a Quantum Consciousness, which made the Jacks & Jills sentient and gave life to their vat-grown bodies. The pigwoman was 60% pig, 40% human, genetically engineered worker.

While things had a retro-future look, as imagined in 50s/60s, the artificial landscape may be all that survived from Sales Pitch, the story it was based on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_Pitch_(short_story)
 
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