Prometheus 6

Philip K. Dick: A Sage of the Future Whose Time Has Finally Come
By BRENT STAPLES

Philip K. Dick was still an obscure pulp novelist known mainly to teenage boys when a friend predicted that he would one day have more impact on the world than celebrated writers like William Faulkner, Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut. The prediction seemed almost delusional in the 1960s, when Dick was popping pills around the clock and churning out novels in a science fiction ghetto from which he seemed destined never to escape.

He did get out, but only posthumously. And with his recent celebration as the sage of futurism, and his pervasiveness on bookshelves and in Hollywood, the early predictions about the growth of his influence have come to seem prescient.

My favorite Philip K. Dick book was Valis. The kid Horselover Fat found when he searched for God was my favorite character because of the way he handled the test question Horselover's friend asked. I paraphrase:

Q: When I was a kid, my kitten jumped out of my arms, ran into the street and was killed by a car. Why did my kitten have to die?

A: Too stupid to live, as evidenced by its runniing in front of a car.

I often feel that way when I see road kill. Especially pigeons.