In his afterword to a 1977 paperback collection called The Best of Philip K. Dick, PKD writes about the notion of questioning reality. At one point, Dick says the world made “sense” to him:
“I used to dig in the garden, and there isn't anything fantastic or ultradimensional about crab grass...unless you are a sf writer, in which case, pretty soon you're viewing crabgrass with suspicion. What are its real moties? And who sent it in the first place? The qustion I always found myself asking was, What is it really?”
Looking back on his work today, on the 84th anniversary of Dick’s birthday, the escape from the conspiracy of the mundane is a concept that certainly dominates the oeuvre of perhaps the most famous science fiction author ever. And why not? Don’t we all wish our lives were a little more interesting, a little more fantastic than perhaps they are?
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