I
have just finished viewing a wonderful documentary produced by Deutsche
Welle called “The World According to Philip K Dick” and hosted all
around the place; I watched on YouTube.
He
led the field in so many ways, specifically the notion of other-worlds
and the idea that in ours is not all is as it seems. He was the Father
of so many ideas that made their way into Hollywood hits throughout the
1980’s, 1990’s, 2000’s and beyond.
His
life was one fraught with mental illness and depression, but perhaps
that was the place where he wrote his best, trying to escape from that
mind-set into another world, one where we can thankfully read about in
his vast library of Novels and Novella’s.
In
my opinion, one of the most memorable lines of the Documentary was a
description of his writing style, given by David Brin (a brilliant
Science Fiction writer in his own right) is as follows:
Science
Fiction was badly named; it should have been “Speculative History”
because we are constantly obsessed with how history might have been
different.
This
Documentary is a short 45 minutes or so long; but is filled to the brim
with all you could want to know about the brilliant Philip K Dick. 5/5
