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"Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful." http://www.radiofreealbemuth.com/ After spending approximately Forever (3 years) in post-production Hell, and a successful Kickstarter, the latest film adaptation of a PKD novel is finally appearing in US theaters, with a DVD release to follow immediately after. I've heard mixed but mostly positive reviews; yes, it's low budget, but it's also as close to the source material as A Scanner Darkly was, and PKD's daughter is very, very happy with how it turned out. That's a good enough endorsement for me. This is also the general PKD thread. I'll be boring and say my favorite of his is Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, but I also have to give props to usually underrated titles like Dr. Bloodmoney, The Game-Players of Titan, and Clans of the Alphane Moon. Whatever you're interested in (as long as it's weird) there is bound to be a PKD novel that's up your alley. I wouldn't say there is any definitive one place to start with his work; opinions on his best and worst novels are extremely varied. Much of his early work was written in a state of amphetamine psychosis while he was living on dog food (literally), and it shows. Much of his later work was written after converting to Gnosticism because a pink laser beam from a space-God enlightened him and told him his son had a potentially fatal hernia (which turned out to be actually true and saved his son's life). More about this in his famous speech: http://deoxy.org/pkd_how2build.htm 
precision fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 18:23
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One of my favorite short story collections of his is I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon, which has "Rautavaara's Case" and some excellent atypical stories of his, like "What'll We Do With Ragland Park?", "Strange Memories of Death", and "The Exit Door Leads In".
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Jun 15, 2014 00:11
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All his female characters are based off women he knew, it's just that the vast majority of them are his ex-wife or some girl he used to score drugs from that broke his heart. Has anyone actually seen Radio Free Albemuth? It's not playing anywhere within 6 hours of me.
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Jun 30, 2014 21:42
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CountFosco posted:Oh good god is that a terrible trailer. The acting seems high-school level. Like, it reminds me of those new Ayn Rand movies in badness. There were enough good reviews that I paid for the "digital rental" and... uh... yikes. Some of the movie is quite watchable (and strangely better than the scenes they chose for the trailer). The guy who plays Nicholas has a bizarrely smug look on his face all the time and it's just weird. The guy who plays Phil does pretty well though. But every now and then there will be just a completely terrible scene. Alanis Morrisette is introduced by the film literally just coming to a complete halt while she sings a song (a really, astoundingly terrible song performed terribly) and the main characters literally sit on a couch in a dream and listen to her and say things like "there's something subversive about her music". It's faithful to the book, but in a way that skips large chunks; the entire first half of the novel takes maybe 20 minutes of screen time, if even that. I think there's one shot of Nick at the record store and then minutes later he's rich in LA already. And sometimes the way they adapted everything to modern technology works. I got a chuckle out of the CD thing in the beginning. Yet they left in things that read fine but sound stupid onscreen, such as the FAP girl referring to weed as "grass" constantly in this really stilted way. Her and the woman that play Rachel are just awful. I don't know if Dick's daughter and all the investors just have Stockholm Syndrome or wanted to salvage a disaster but it seriously sometimes is like watching The Room: Sci Fi Edition. What a story!
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Aug 9, 2014 19:04
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