Dick, Philip K(indred)

(US, 1928–82)

Dick has a huge following amongst science fiction fans. This is not only because he deals with many of the standard ingredients of the genre—robots, space travel, alternative worlds—but also because he writes in a witty, laconic style that is a model for many of his contemporaries in science fiction. His best-known book is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), which was filmed as Blade Runner. This novel reworks the Frankenstein theme, blending it with the conventions of the detective novel. In The Man in the High Castle (1962), which won the Hugo science fiction award, Dick uses an old idea, that Hitler has won the Second World War, to explore the crisis of identity in a paranoid world.

Kurt Vonnegut, Isaac Asimov, J. G. Ballard, William Gibson.

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