Who was Dick? A freaked-out junkie who took too many drugs? An explorer of madness who go too close to his subject and ended up claiming to have met God? A practical joker? The most consistently brilliant SF writer in the world? At a time when most SF was about cowboys in outer space, Dick explored the landscapes of the mind, conjured fake realities and was able to make you believe six impossible things before breakfast. He embodied the counter-culture a decade before the 1960's. Perhaps best known for Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? - the novel which inspired Blade Runner - Dick's world is one where God speaks through cat food commercials and comes in a handy aerosol can. And where you might be a figment of someone else's imagination... As well as an introductory essay, this pocket sized volume from 2007 reviews and analyses each of Philip K Dick's novels and provides a listing of the many other books and articles which have grappled with this genius.

Andrew M. Butler is the author of the Pocket Essentials Cyberpunk and Terry Pratchett and the coauthor of Postmodernism.