For example, here is a list of what I see as the top ten conundrums we are asked to ponder: Dick’s autobiographical novel of spiritual odyssey, a novel where the narrator begins by laying out the major issues he must deal with as he attempts to gain a measure of sanity along with a sense of purpose and the meaning of life: drugs, a desire to help others, the pull of insanity, suicide and death, time and place (Northern California in the 60s), split-identity (the narrator alternately identifies and disidentifies with one Horselover Fat), God and occlusion (he receives otherworldly messages via a beam of pink light prompting him to explore ancient Gnosticism) – all in all a 60s California-style version of the novels of Hermann Hesse, novels like Siddhartha, Damion and Steppenwolf. “A question we had to learn to deal with during the dope decade was, How do you break the news to someone that his brains are fried?” So says the first-person narrator in VALIS, Philip K. In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series. In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik one of the one hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923. Although Dick spent most of his career as a writer in near-poverty, ten of his stories have been adapted into popular films since his death, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck, Next, Screamers, and The Adjustment Bureau. In addition to 44 published novels, Dick wrote approximately 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. Dick died on March 2, 1982, in Santa Ana, California, of heart failure following a stroke. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year in 1974 for Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. He won the Hugo Award for the best novel in 1962 for The Man in the High Castle and the John W.

In 1952, he began writing professionally and proceeded to write numerous novels and short-story collections.

Dick was born in Chicago in 1928 and lived most of his life in California.

VALIS by Philip K. Dick