Michael’s Comments (group member since Sep 04, 2020)

Michael’s comments from the Philip K Dick group.

Simon wrote: "I've read 2 books by John Brunner, "Telepathist" and "Stand on Zanzibar".

The first is very interesting and insanely ahead of its time, there are many things in the plot that were clear influence..."

"Stand on Zanzibar" made Brunner a darling of the 1970s New Wave SF movement, along with "Shockwave Rider" and "The Sheep Look Up". "Times Without Number" is a much earlier work (1961) with a more traditional style, but still has an imaginative alt-history premise.

Themistocles wrote: "Was the book any good? Love those kind of premises..."

I enjoyed it. It's a "fix-up" novel - 3 novellas set in the same world with same main character - that get progressively deeper into time travel and alternate history paradoxes.

I just read John Brunner's "Times Without Number". It has a similar premise to Dick's award winning "Man in the High Castle". Both are alternate history worlds that turn into multiverses when the main character finds a way from their alternate world to our normal one. In Dick's case, it was an alternate history where Allies lost WWII. In Brunner's case, the Spanish Armada defeated England and by 1980s we all live in the Spanish Empire.

Brunner's and Dick's books both came out in 1962. It's possible they communicated (they exchanged letters at times and admired each other's writing) or maybe there was "something in the water" that gave them similar ideas?

I don't quite agree with Gibson but it's an interesting observation and makes a good sound bite. Dick and Pynchon are my two favorite authors of SF and literary fiction, respectively. Their genres and styles are pretty different, so it's apples & oranges. That said, their themes, bold ideas, and quirky perspectives are similar. Dick's early work as a pulp paperback writer wouldn't stack up against anything Pynchon wrote, but his later stuff might. When Dick was alive, I believe critics often compared him more to Vonnegut. I suspect Pynchon is a PKD fan.