Philip K Dick: Exhilaration and Terror of the Postmodern

Christopher Palmer discusses the SF of Philip K. Dick from two angles: historical and formal. The first is a consideration of his fiction as a depiction of and response to postmodernity, and investigates a clash between humanism and postmodernism, which is seen as the inscription of Dicl’s own historical predicament. The second considers Dick’s form and genre. The intention is to braoden our understanding of Dick’s fiction and to emphasize the immediacy of his brand of SF. The first three chapters provide an overview of Dick’s SF style, while the remaining nine chapters concentrate on particular stories and novels, like The Man in the High Castle , Martian Time-Slip , A Scanner Darkly , Valis and the short stories.