This boxed set includes all three Library of America volumes collecting Philip K. Dick’s best science fiction novels:
The Man in the High Castle • The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? • Ubik • Martian Time-Slip • Dr. Bloodmoney • Now Wait for Last Year • Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said • A Scanner Darkly • A Maze of Death • VALIS • The Divine Invasion • The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’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.
Philip Kindred Dick was a prolific American science fiction author whose work has had a lasting impact on literature, cinema, and popular culture. Known for his imaginative narratives and profound philosophical themes, Dick explored the nature of reality, the boundaries of human identity, and the impact of technology and authoritarianism on society. His stories often blurred the line between the real and the artificial, challenging readers to question their perceptions and beliefs. Raised in California, Dick began writing professionally in the early 1950s, publishing short stories in various science fiction magazines. He quickly developed a distinctive voice within the genre, marked by a fusion of science fiction concepts with deep existential and psychological inquiry. Over his career, he authored 44 novels and more than 100 short stories, many of which have become classics in the field. Recurring themes in Dick's work include alternate realities, simulations, corporate and government control, mental illness, and the nature of consciousness. His protagonists are frequently everyday individuals—often paranoid, uncertain, or troubled—caught in surreal and often dangerous circumstances that force them to question their environment and themselves. Works such as Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly reflect his fascination with perception and altered states of consciousness, often drawing from his own experiences with mental health struggles and drug use. One of Dick’s most influential novels is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for Ridley Scott’s iconic film Blade Runner. The novel deals with the distinction between humans and artificial beings and asks profound questions about empathy, identity, and what it means to be alive. Other adaptations of his work include Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle, each reflecting key elements of his storytelling—uncertain realities, oppressive systems, and the search for truth. These adaptations have introduced his complex ideas to audiences well beyond the traditional readership of science fiction. In the 1970s, Dick underwent a series of visionary and mystical experiences that had a significant influence on his later writings. He described receiving profound knowledge from an external, possibly divine, source and documented these events extensively in what became known as The Exegesis, a massive and often fragmented journal. These experiences inspired his later novels, most notably the VALIS trilogy, which mixes autobiography, theology, and metaphysics in a narrative that defies conventional structure and genre boundaries. Throughout his life, Dick faced financial instability, health issues, and periods of personal turmoil, yet he remained a dedicated and relentless writer. Despite limited commercial success during his lifetime, his reputation grew steadily, and he came to be regarded as one of the most original voices in speculative fiction. His work has been celebrated for its ability to fuse philosophical depth with gripping storytelling and has influenced not only science fiction writers but also philosophers, filmmakers, and futurists. Dick’s legacy continues to thrive in both literary and cinematic spheres. The themes he explored remain urgently relevant in the modern world, particularly as technology increasingly intersects with human identity and governance. The Philip K. Dick Award, named in his honor, is presented annually to distinguished works of science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. His writings have also inspired television series, academic studies, and countless homages across media. Through his vivid imagination and unflinching inquiry into the nature of existence, Philip K. Dick redefined what science fiction could achieve. His work continues to challenge and inspire, offering timeless insights into the human condition a
Nothing is as it seems in Dick's literature and parallel realities vie with each other. The Library of America edition of PKD's four works, including The Man in the Castle and Ubik supply the reader with plenty of perplexity, fascinating characters and POVs, settings, and themes. A fan and writer of speculative fiction, I appreciate his genius and the mind-alterations he must have experienced that produced such a huge body of stunning work. Look for more in-depth comments at susanbassmarcus.net/2018/07/30/parall...
This was a really great experience, and I'd have to say after this that PKD is one of my favorite authors. I think if I wrote, I'd shamelessly rip him off. After giving each a brief try, I put down each of the VALIS novels. In his last stories, he gets away from sci-fi and really digs into his philosophy on religion and death. Maybe I'll come back to these one day, but it's not for me right now. I gather from some searching that "Transmigration..." in particular is really good, if it's what you're looking for.
In particular, the books in the second volume, plus the first book of the third (Maze of Death) are really great. This surprised me because I'd really only known about "Androids..." and "A Scanner Darkly." For me, the best ones deal with time-travel and alternate realities. "Martian Time-slip" and "Now Wait for Last Year" are really fantastic, so look for those individually as an e-book if you're not into the anthology idea. "Ubik" is more open-ended, where it might be a better experience if you had someone to discuss it with.
None of the books are dumb or lazy, all pretty challenging. His style seems to be that, from the start, there is a central mystery or apparent contradiction and you find the answers slowly. Or not at all. In the good way.
I went into reading this without realizing just how much reading this requires of you. Just to have a general idea, I read for at least a half an hour every night for the past three months and I just recently finished the collection. It's absolutely not a bad thing but just something to keep in mind.
The vast majority of the short stories kept me wanting more. There is a reason why he is known as the father of science fiction after all. He tries to create stories about problems of the world without making it super obvious. This makes reading his stories extremely interesting. Be aware, however, that unless you know way too much about the cold war then some of the connections in the stories may not be as apparent.
With that said, there were more than a few stories that were very predictable and left me quickly reading through it just to get it over with. They weren't necessary horrible but boring when compared to his other stories. However, I'm very happy to read them. You can really see his growth throughout his writing career and you learn a lot about the psyche of one of the greatest literary minds in American History.
The magisterial Library of America thought Philip K. Dick important enough for inclusion and a boxed set. The author is important, certainly, in cinematic history: movies like "Blade Runner," "Total Recall," "Minority Report" and "Adjustment Bureau" -- among others -- were from his inspiration, and Dick's novel "The Man in the High Castle" (now a successful TV miniseries) was a pioneer in the alt-history literary genre. The stories in this collection are all brilliant and those who love sci-fi will prize this set. The Library of America books are in a convenient, compact size and its typeface is elegant and readable. Highest recommendation.
Since this is a collection of many novels, I'll give separate ratings:
Book One (Four Novels of the 1960s) The Man in the High Castle **** The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch ***** Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? **** Ubik *****
Book Two (Five Novels of the 1960s & 70s) Martian Time-Slip **** Dr.Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb **** Now Wait for Last Year *** Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said **** A Scanner Darkly ****
Book Three (Valis and Later Novels) A Maze of Death **** Valis ** The Divine Invasion *** The Transmigration of Timothy Archer **
finished half of this collection, enjoy it a lot although not as much as his short stories. even if you have seen movies of his works, they are all worth reading as hollywood seems to change them all in significant enough ways as to alter their meanings, dick's intent, and the wonderful sixties vision of the future where the stories are set.
I loved 12 of these 13 stories. The endings are so great. Each one is a pretty quick 5 - 60 minute read with most about 30 minutes. You can read them in any order. The Russians are the bad guys, which these days doesn't seem so far off. Anyway, if you liked the Electric Dreams show then you should enjoy these stories
This collection, conferring the Library of America's Pléiade wannabee status on PKD was much commented on at the time. The short version was that it was high time that Dick's work was recognised for being more than quirky and original sci-fi which had decidedly pulpy origins. But what this three volume series shows is the amount of pulp that was there in the 1960s was still pretty high. Dick always managed to disguise this to some extent by throwing in a learned reference or two: Wagner, Teilhard de Chardin, Dowland. But the 1960s volume does chart the course of a singular mind treading a pretty well worn path. The one outlier - the earliest - is The Man in the High Castle but actually if you take away the - at the time - innovative alt-history premise even that can be quite a pedestrian read (and makes for even more pedestrian drama as the Prime Video series proved). 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' is included more one assumes because of its cultural influence and the pervasiveness of the Ridley Scott film than literary merit. And whatever one's views of the film, the feel of it, is much more conventional than the unsettling aspects of the story (which is its greatest virtue in my opinion). Does 'The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch' come off? I love the way you are left guessing at the end but this almost feels like two stories stitched together, confidently at times so there are passages where it works brilliantly but also times when the join is obvious and creaky. Ubik, in this volume is arguably the culmination of Dick's acheivements in the 1960s. A completely unsettling and sinister piece of SF which haunts you afterwards as well as more prosaically wondering what just happened.
By the last volume one is dealing with novels which have crossed the boundary from quirkiness to something else. You could variously describe it as prosletyisng , unbalanced (in a couple of senses) even pyschotic. Some of these books are hard work and maybe not worth the effort. I do wonder if LOA would be memorialising them if it wasn't for what had gone before and the desire to show where Dick's trajectory led.
But the middle volume is something else. In different ways 'Flow My Tears...' and 'A Scanner Darkly' are masterpieces, do utterly transcend the genre and show an astonishingly gifted writer perfectly delivering a profoundly new vision.
I am grateful for seeing those books in the wider, fascinating context of the PKD universe, with the usual presentational virtues that LOA always brings, albeit there is not much that Jonathan Lethem needs to add in terms of textual annotations.
All three books criss-cross a bit in terms of chronology. The first three novels in Volume 2 come before the last two in Volume 1 and 'A Maze of Death' in Volume 3 predates the last 2 books in Volume 2. I can't think of any logical reason for this other than LOA were justifiably keen to build on what might have been the unexpected popularity of the first volume. My strong advice though is to go with the chronology.
Finally, 'Time Out of Joint', arguably the most influential of all of Dick's works seems an odd omission. It's early and rawer than any of the books included and famously also has plotlines which perhaps don't entirely come together but nevertheless is so important for a better appreciation and understanding of the later work and its impact on late 20th century culture (from 'The Truman Show' to 'The Matrix' etc) is huge. Why this was not included rather than 'A Maze of Death' which is mess of several ideas, none of which is fully developed, is a mystery.
The Man in the High Castle *** -- Many interesting, non-intuitive ideas -- art defining contemporary society, alternate narratives of history, historicity, racism, predicting the future, etc. -- interweave this strange and frustrating book.
I’m not a fan of alternative history, and this is certainly more than the run-of-the-mill alternate history book, bursting with ideas. However, it didn’t really pull me in. It might have been better focusing on fewer ideas. The character never came to life, and the plot never pulled me in until the last third.
I finished it, but it was kind of tough. I believe Dick has better books than this. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you are a Dick fan or you really like alternate histories.
*** SPOILER ALERT ***
The most interesting part to me was that the alternate history (in The Grasshopper) in which the U.S. wins the war was not our history as we know it. It plays out different. I’m not sure if we’re meant to think that there is another alternate history in some other universe, or if it was an error of the writer interpreting the I Ching.
My wife had this collection from the library so I took time out to read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" (I had already read "Man in the High Tower"). I was aware of the work but had never actually sat down to read it. I enjoyed "Androids" and appreciate the depth of exploration that Dick mines in trying to craft an important question about values using the various tropes of science fiction.
**** The Man in the High Castle (1962) ***** The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) ***** Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) ***** Ubik (1969)
*** Martian Time-Slip (1964) *** Dr. Bloodmoney or How We Got Along After the Bomb (1965) *** Now Wait for Last Year (1966) *** Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974) **** A Scanner Darkly (1977)
***** A Maze of Death (1970) *** VALIS (1981) The Divine Invasion (1981) The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982)
I wish I had read this when I was a teenager. These stories are filled with wild fantastic ideas and twists. Each story is a bleak reminder of our human frailty as the human race drives forward into our future, showing that, even with all of our technology, we cannot escape our origins and fears.
This is a wonderful collection of dark science fiction.
what i would change: dr bloodmoney -> penultimate truth now wait for last year -> clans of the alphane moon otherwise superb. not the biggest fan of scanner darkly would like to see more added to this, maybe a 5 volume set with 23 novels. but this is an excellent 'greatest hits' by PKD
One of the greatest and most unique scifi writers of all time. Not all of the books in this collection were my thing, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Boring! I understand that this book was written in the 60s and writing style was different then. But these stories are a struggle. I've finished The Man in the High Castle and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. These two make up half of this volume. High Castle seemed to have no plot at all. Stigmata sort of had a long, meandering plot where I was wondering what the point of all of this is. I'm only continuing to read this novel for research, out of curiosity of what made so many of his stories so famous. Honestly, I think that the directors who created great movies out of his many stories (like Next, Total Recall, and Blade Runner) must have taken just a small particle of cleverness and expanded on it creating their own special take on Dick's ideas.
I'd just finished assembling a 28 disc filmography of motion pictures inspired by the works of Philip K Dick when my friend showed me his copy of this wonderful Collection.
I confessed that I have not yet read any of his books, and he assured me that this is the best PKD collection ever printed.
I researched his bibliography and came to the same conclusion. Fortunately, this set is still in print and widely available from any retailer.
The only drawback of going to this friend's house is that I inevitably come home and order more books.