Well might you ask. I’m a ‘young’ (26) writer living in Northam, Western Australia. I also teach high school English. I’ve recently completed work on my first novel, “The Kingdom of Four Rivers,” which might be described as a work of science fiction. I am hoping to get it published. I thought I might write some essays and reviews on some books that I especially like and post them here.
Guy Salvidge: reader, writer, editor, and book reviewer
Welcome to Yellowcake Springs
Hi Guy, how’s it going? I was just idling around the data highway and came aross your blog! I thought it was a great idea, another blog on PKD. I’ve only encountered one other one from Total Dickhead in California.
Anyway, I plan on reading your words as you progress. Is there anyway I can contribute? I’ve often thought of doing a blog but reckon it would take up too much time.
I see that you like to read biographies and would like to recommend my own Philip K. Dick biography (PINK BEAM: A Philip K. Dick Companion) to you. You can find it on lulu.com. Even though I’ve titled it a ‘companion’, because I dealt with PKD’s career it inevitably has a high biographical sense.
Well, er, keep up the good work! — Dave
Hey Lord RC – I’ve seen something about your book on the philipkdickfans forum. It does look very interesting but unfortunately I’m just a poor teacher with virtually no funds. In fact, I usually use a site here in Australia called Fishpond (which is like a Australia/New Zealand Amazon) for buying books. Anyway, it has ‘Pink Beam’ at $58, which is really expensive! I can see from Lulu that they only want $30 US, which is much better. It’s absurd, the exchange rate at the moment is like 94:100, which means that it would only be $33 Aust or so. In actual fact it’s the same price on Amazon. Maybe I can order this to be sent when the Ubik Screenplay comes out? (Have you heard about this?)
In terms of helping with the blog, I will happily put up anything you care to write. I know your reputation in the world of PKD fans. I know there are thousands of PKD fans around, but the official forum seems a bit sick at the moment, doesn’t it?
Hi Guy,
I understand that the dollar is worthless these days – it costs us a lot here in the USA to buy anything but foreigners get their money’s worth when they visit us. And gasoline is going up… we’re in ’stagflation’ here and soon to be recession.
I hope you do manage to get a PINK BEAM eventually. As for the PKDfans forums and website I think that Jason is busy these days and doesn’t have a lot of time to devote to it (nor do I) Also, perhaps the ‘forum format’ has been superseded by blogs like yours. Technology moves on.
My mind is blank as to PKD at the moment (I’m at work) but I’ll ome up with something for your blog. I’m glad you’re doing it (I could also contribute to Total Dickheads blog if I can think of something to say…)
I’m about to reread TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER with an eye to having my sister read it. She’s not a sf fan and when I gave her EYE IN THE SKY last year she couldn’t make it through it. So I thought a more ‘mainstream’ novel might suit her better.
I guess this brings up a topic: why is it that some people can read sf and some can’t? Has it to do with that old snobby attitude that sf is junk? I wonder. And, a further point, in PINK BEAM I came to the conclusion that with VALIS (an aknowledged masterpiece) PKD turned the world of publishing on its head. From VALIS on the category of ‘mainstream’ fiction is now subsumed in to the category of ’science fiction’. The larger, more encompassing field of sf *includes* as a subset of itself the category ‘mainstream’ – not the other way around. This is in line with accepted scientific theory. Perhaps its a paradigm shift? I dunno but interesting to ponder.
Gotta go do some work! ‘best – Dave
Well, you can’t go wrong with TTA I don’t think, so maybe your sister will like that. VALIS on the other hand…I am re-reading that now, and I have to say that it’s nuts.
In terms of having something to say about PKD, I find that I go through phases, about every 2 years, when I feel like re-reading some PKD novels. I just felt that I had all this PKD knowledge kicking around in my head that I might as well write something down about it. But I suspect that there are at least 20 or so PKD novels that I’ll never re-read again: certainly not the likes of Vulcan’s Hammer or Dr Futurity, but maybe not even the likes of The Penultimate Truth either. I tried to re-read this recently and couldn’t get through it.
If you feel like writing something about TTA then go ahead. My vague plan at the moment is to re-read one PKD novel a week and write an essay on the weekend. I’m doing VALIS this week, so TTA would be a natural follow up to that.
Cheers and I hope work doesn’t get you down!