Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick is a popular author of Science Fiction novels and short stories. Dick was born on December 16, 1928 in Chicago and passed away on March 2, 1982 due to heart failure. His books earned him several nominations for the Hugo Award and Nebula Award, including winning the 1963 Hugo Award for The Man in the High Castle about an alternate future in which Germany and Japan had won World War II and divided the United States between them, Germany ruling the East Coast and Japan the West Coast.
Dick was an atheist who had a number of spiritual experiences, visions, and revelations, but attributed them to his drug use, or mental illness. He routinely asserted the weakness of faith, such as when he said, "reality is that which, when one stops believing in it, doesn't go away." Many of his stories involve intervention into human affairs by fantastic, space-dwelling deities.
In spite of his general left wing outlook, Dick was staunchly pro-life, and wrote a story, "The Pre-Persons" in the wake of Roe v. Wade, in which Congress in a future USA rules that a child does not have a soul until he or she is able to perform algebra, and may be terminated at any time up to that.
Writings Made Into Movies
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) - Blade Runner (1982)
- "We Can Remember it For You Wholesale" (1966) - Total Recall (1990)
- Confessions of a Crap Artist (1975) - Confessions d'un Barjo (1992)
- "Second Variety" (1953) - Screamers (1995)
- "The Minority Report" (1956) - Minority Report (2002)
- "Impostor" (1953) - Impostor (2002)
- "Paycheck" (1953) - Paycheck (2003)
- A Scanner Darkly (1977) - A Scanner Darkly (2006)
- "The Golden Man" (1954) - Next (2007)
