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After a short break due to some academic shenanigans, I am back again with another issue of Pub Convos. This week we take a look into Phillip K. Dick, eccentric science fiction author and two of his most famous works which have been adapted into films and television show that we know and love.

Phillip K. Dick’s Life and Career:

• Phillip Kindred Dick was born on December 16, 1928, in Chicago, US. Him and his twin sister were born six weeks prematurely, but she, unfortunately, died six weeks after they were born.

• Dick was an average student and scored a ‘C’ on written composition while at school. He went on to attend the University of California, Berkeley but dropped out shortly due to mental health issues.

• In 1951, Dick wrote and sold his first story called “Roog” and for the next decade, he wrote novels and short stories but never gotten mainstream success. That is until 1962 when he wrote “Man in the High Castle”

• Dick was married 5 times, was an abusive husband and attempted suicide while also claiming to have paranormal experiences. I feel that it is important to highlight these things but also respecting the greatness of his writing.

Man in the High Castle:

• Arguably one of Dicks most famous works, Man in the High Castle is a depiction of an alternate history where the Axis powers won WW2. Nazi Germany would rule the eastern seaboard while the Japanese Imperial government would rule the pacific coast of mainland America. The Rocky Mountain States would serve as a buffer zone between the two main powers who were fighting a geopolitical Cold War.

• The story is centred around a few main characters and their lives as they discover a novel that depicts an alternate reality where the Allies win the war. (I know, very meta!)

• The Man in the High Castle won a Hugo Award for Best Novel and was adapted by Amazon Prime into a TV series that delves deeper into the idea of alternate realities and how small actions affect the course of history.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep:

• In 1968, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was published. This novel proved to be another product of Dick’s wildly imaginative writing, taking inspiration from L. Ron Hubbard (founder of the Church of Scientology).

• This novel is set in a post-apocalyptic world where people are encouraged to move to off-earth colonies and the reward would be an android servant (draw your own parallels to the vaccination drive).

• Due to their rarity, owning real animals are now a status symbol. The protagonist, a bounty hunter is tasked with killing 6 androids that have escaped Mars and ventured to Earth. He hopes to earn enough money to buy a real animal through this job. The book details his journey and the secrets that lie behind this dystopian world.

• If all this sounds a little familiar, that’s because it was adapted to the 1982 film Blade Runner and its subsequent sequel Blade Runner 2049.

Phillip K Dick eventually died of a stroke in 1982, just 4 months before the release of the Blade Runner film. His body was buried next to his twin sister, her tombstone bearing both their names since she died at infancy. The man who had a tombstone since he was born was finally put to rest and may his legacy of weird and eccentric imagination live on. Who knows, maybe androids do dream of electric sheep!

Before you go...

• Check out Issue #4 of Pub Convos where we talked about Fyodor Dostoevsky 📚
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This series is brought to you by Adrian Fok (@adfok15). He will be writing about fascinating stuff that will help you to have a more insightful conversation in pubs or mamaks.