PKD's problem as a novelist is his attention span. He'd no sooner introduce one set of ideas than another would catch his mind and he had to scoot after that instead. I think it's The Penultimate Truth which spends most of a chapter developing a brilliant device to murder someone and implicate an innocent party, only for the ruse to be dismissed in just a handful of lines. The short story often proved a more focussed format for Dick, as he didn't have enough room to get bored.
I actually think that's a deliberate strategy, modelled on van Vogt's calculated approach of introducing a new idea or plot twist every 800 words. Which isn't to say that the approach isn't a cover for ADD ...
Or a combination of both. The case I mentioned was one of the most glaring, since this particularly twist looked like changing the whole route of the narrative, then was tossed aside like used Kleenex.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?dfordoomMarch 1 2006, 10:44:06 UTC
Still one of the very few written SF stories that have been elevated to a higher plane by being turned into a movie (and it's still my all-time favourite - the original, not the pointless director's cut).
I agree absolutely with all of the above! Hated the Director's Cut.
I'm a big fan of PKD but Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? really didn't do it for me. Favourite PKD novel - Ubik!
Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?dfordoomMarch 1 2006, 11:08:52 UTC
Could be, in my case, because it was the first PKD book I read, and it was so overwhelmingly different from anything I'd read before (this was a long, long time ago). After that nothing else of his had quite the same impact.
Least favourite PKD book - The Man in the High Castle.
Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?randy_byersMarch 1 2006, 16:39:03 UTC
I love Ubik because it's the best of his novels at giving you no final answer -- and making that the story. That is, it's a story about how there are no final answers and no ultimate reality. The very last paragraph pulls the rug out from under you once more. Of course, you have to enjoy the feeling of ontological free fall.
But you guys are utterly mad to prefer the theatrical cut to the director's cut of Blade Runner. Dumping the paint-by-numbers voice over and the "happy" ending (both of which were forced on Scott by Universal) is a real improvement. I suppose I could do without the unicorn dream. And actually, Scott has said he doesn't consider it a director's cut, because he didn't have time to smooth out the rough edges after mostly just removing stuff. (E.g., there are deadspaces that existed only to hold the voiceover.)
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I agree absolutely with all of the above! Hated the Director's Cut.
I'm a big fan of PKD but Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? really didn't do it for me. Favourite PKD novel - Ubik!
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Aargh! I'm still perplexed as to why people like it. Please explain and put me out of my misery.
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Least favourite PKD book - The Man in the High Castle.
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But you guys are utterly mad to prefer the theatrical cut to the director's cut of Blade Runner. Dumping the paint-by-numbers voice over and the "happy" ending (both of which were forced on Scott by Universal) is a real improvement. I suppose I could do without the unicorn dream. And actually, Scott has said he doesn't consider it a director's cut, because he didn't have time to smooth out the rough edges after mostly just removing stuff. (E.g., there are deadspaces that existed only to hold the voiceover.)
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