The Folio Society has released a series of four volumes of Philip K. Dick’s collected short stories in limited edition and I am seriously considering selling my plasma to buy a copy.
Each volume is bound in fluorescent colors, with 2,560 pages of text containing approximately 118 stories. There are 24 illustrations by 24 different artists, and the set itself has a theme inspired by the symbols found on Zener maps – known in the 20th century for testing telepaths (mind reading is a recurring theme in Dick fiction).
The collection is absolutely stunning, like so many special editions of The Folio Society, but has a hefty price tag of £ 495 ($ 679). There are also only 750 copies for sale and they seem to have sold out quickly.
Philip K. Dick is an undisputed titan of science fiction, and I have long been a particular fan of his short stories. Not only because it contains some of the most iconic stories of the genre, but also because it offers a capsule history of Dick himself.
He was famously productive as a writer and lived in a time when it was possible to earn a decent living by pumping out fast-paced fiction hits. He published four stories in 1952 and accelerated thereafter in 1953 (his love of amphetamines also contributed to this productive production.) A sense of writing as drag flows into Dick’s stories, often containing resentful toilers, such as the redevelopment of tires in Our friends of Frolix 8 taking bare, worn tires and carving fresh grooves with a red hot iron in it.
Despite the tender nature of the work, Dick’s fiction is endlessly imaginative. His short stories are still retold today and are especially loved among Hollywood. ‘We can remember it for your wholesale’ becomes 1990s Total revocation; the short “The Minority Report” of 1956 was transformed into the Tom Cruise Ceremony of 2002 of the same name; while the “Adaptation Team” became 2011s The Adaptation Bureau, and so on.
As we progress through Dick’s career in the ’70s and’ 80s, his production slows down. In 1974, Dick experienced a series of visions in which an entity that may have been God, but which he called the Fixed Active Living Intelligence System or VALIS, fired a ray of pink light directly at him, at his head and his eyes. His stories from this era, especially his novels, consequently move away from standard scientific herds in post-modern themes, and delve into the stream of consciousness, alternative realities and hidden, incredible truths.
Reading Dick’s short fiction chronologically presents his own narrative: the story of this magnificent writer and thinker. The new set from the Folio Society looks like a fantastic accompaniment to this intellectual history. Excuse me now, I have a bit to do with Google on “infallible fast rich schemes.”