Philip K. Dick Is Dead, Alas

by Michael Bishop

Paperback, 1988

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Publication

Grafton (1988), Paperback, 416 pages

Description

It is 1982. The United States has a permanent Moonbase. Richard M. Nixon is in the fourth term of the imperial presidency. And an eccentric novelist named Philip K. Dick has just died in California. Or has he? Psychiatrist Lia Pickford, M.D., is nonplussed when Dick walks into her office in small-town Georgia, with a cab idling outside, to ask for help. And Cal Pickford, a longtime Dick fan stunned by the news of his hero's death, is electrified when his wife tells him of the visit. So begins a sequence of events involving Cal in the repressive Nixon regime, the affairs of an aging movie queen, a hip but frightened Vietnamese immigrant and an old black man who works as a groom--all leading up to a fateful confrontation between Dick, Cal, and Nixon himself on the moon.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member wirkman
This is my favorite of Michael Bishop's novels. Like most sf writers, Bishop excels in the short form, but here he lets his admiration of Philip K. Dick -- the book is an homage and a riff on Dick's modus operandi, modus vivendi, modus pocus -- rise as a leavened lump, transcending his limitations
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to produce a true, weird classic.

And, let's not forget, the book did give us a memorable bit of doggerel:

Philip K. Dick is dead, alas,
So let's queue up to kick God's ass.
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LibraryThing member jaked
Very bad Dick pastiche. I'm not sure why I pulled it out of the giveaway box I passed on the street, except that I have read most of P. K. Dick and I was between books.

I think the problem is that Dick's awkward dialog and bizarre plots are charming because they aren't like anything else, and they
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seem unstudied. There is nothing charming about Bishop's rehash.
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LibraryThing member dbsovereign
Ultimately a bit too whacky for me, though I usually like Bishop. Interesting to make all these characters interact in a new way and under such familiar yet different circumstances.

Awards

Arthur C. Clarke Award (Shortlist — 1989)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1987

Physical description

416 p.; 17.6 cm

ISBN

0586201513 / 9780586201510

Local notes

Omslag: Luis Rey
Omslaget viser Philip K. Dick siddende i en lænestol. I baggrunden ses en parodi på Richard M. Nixon i rollen som enevældig konge
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi

Pages

416

Rating

½ (63 ratings; 3.5)

DDC/MDS

813.54
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