Fans of Blade Runner (based on the short story 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale') may recall that the evil Androids are the Nexus-6 model. Google's new phone is the Nexus One, running the Android OS. Philip K Dick's estate is suing, while Google claim it's pure coincidence…
Their corporate motto ('Don't Be Evil') has been quietly redefined to allow censorship so that they can operate in China (along with Apple and every other US company), but associating themselves with killer robots is a bit much. No doubt some geek at headquarters thought that the name was a witty homage to Dick - why not admit it and laugh off the lawsuit?
Is anyone a fan of Phil's work? I must admit to being frequently baffled by the devotion of his fans. Some of his books are stunning - I particularly admire The Man In The High Castle, but others are gibberish or junk churned out for the money.
4 comments:
Yeah, but you have to remember this guy had episodes of mental illness and allegedly took a lot of drugs. I'm a big fan, but don't like all of his stuff, for instance 'A Scanner Darkly'.
Try his short stories...
Wasn't it 'Do androids dream of electric sheep'? I think 'We can remember it for you wholesale' was made into the Arnie classic Total Recall...
Yes, you're right. I hang my head in shame.
Are you fishing here? The innacuracy at the start, the baiting of a writer you know I own quite a few of...
It needs to be remembered that quite a few of the bad ones were not actually published during his lifetime but 'rescued' from his notes.
Adam is right. Check out the short stories, many are excellent. In these, and the better novels (Ubik, Valis, The Divine Invasion, The Man In The High Castle etc) he has amazing amounts of fun with ideas. I'm happy to admit that his prose is often pretty tiresome and feels churned out on occasion but when he plays with reality his brain far exceeds most of his contemporaries. In Ubik, for example, the reader is led down a series of false trails as the reality of the text shifts time and again.
OK he wrote too much and some is best forgotten, but isn't that true of other writers such as Wodehouse, Dickens, Pratchett, Auden, Christie, Jerome, Milne, Barrie, Kipling, Delaney, Ballard, Murukami, etc all of whom are important writers.
So yes I am a fan of his work, but I agree that it is not all brilliant.
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