alt Hacker NewsThe link isn’t loading for me, but I definitely relate to the title at least. PKD’s stories definitely have a tendency to untether you to reality, and you finish them feeling both extremely creative and kind of mentally lost in space.
The interesting thing though is how it seems like he developed this over time. Many of his stories are just straight up bad, goofy cliche messes. When you read an anthology of his short stories, for example, at least half of them read like bad jokes an AI came up with.
At some point I need to read his works in chronological order, just to observe his growth as a writer more directly.
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He also reinterpreted his experiences several times - and was open about it. Crumb gives a mostly Buddhist take, but PKD often gave far more Gnostic Christian takes on it (or surprisingly orthodox Christian ones)
My local library had them so I read through most of his works in high school. My favorite is Ubik which if I remember correctly follows an anti-psychic contractor who dives into the world of his comatose boss' brain after an explosion on a moon base in order to get some important information, which is trying to communicate itself via in-world advertising.
I'm going through this collection right now, and loving it: https://www.loa.org/books/311-the-philip-k-dick-collection-3...
Sometimes he wrote his worst trash in between some of his best books. He was ultimately a pulp fiction author, and often just pushed stuff out for a paycheck.
His early stories were churned out because he needed money, and if you read them chronologically you'll also see them for on very much in the zeitgeist. E.g. his early stories are dominated by "easy" post-apocalyptic stories with simple structures and a straightforward reveal.
His more complex stuff came later. But then too his need for money would lead to churning out something publishable over something polished.
I think PKD might well have been tickled by the idea of whether he might have been an AI sent back in time to become a sci-fi author.