h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: A Philip K Dick-tionary, Not Wrapped in Wub Fur - A87896443
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni - U1590784

Tomorrow, friends, the new 'Blade Runner' film starts showing. Awix has promised us a review for next Sunday.

In the meantime, I felt that I needed to do something about the lack of Philip K Dick material in the Edited Guide.

So here's a glossary of PKD-talk.

I! Dare's the Wub!

I admit it - I haven't read any Philip K Dick. I should probably rectify this omission. The stories sound as if they are either funny or terrifying, or both at once.

Certainly, some of these things sound very familiar. I particularly like kipple. My house is full of kipple and it breeds, I swear it does!

I don't think I have any useful crits to offer

You'd like Philip Dick, MVP, I swear. Thanks for reading!

The fight against kipple is a life-long struggle.

Thanks Dmitri. I like the idea of a Philip K Dictionary

I haven't read PKD, but have listened to three radio dramas (Electric/Sheep, Remember/ Wholeale & Beyond/Wub). Unfortunately they lost a lot of his language innovation in those adaptations.

I just checked the OED for his quotations. He's not first listed for any words, but he does illustrate 10 entries (none are among the ones you covered here). Perhaps the most sci-fi among them is 'psionic' (from Counter Clock World).

Icy

I hadn't thought about 'psionic'. It sounds, well, sort of normal, though I guess it really isn't. The precogs and teeps and inertials in 'Ubik' have psionic powers, I think...I'll check it out.

Ah, I did - and it appears that the term 'psionic' was around before PKD used it.

W*k*pedia thinks it's bunk - but W*k*pedia goes around editing any article that deals with fringe science or speculative philosophy to say it's bunk. W*k*pedia is a narrow-minded website.

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says of psionics, 'The term seems to have first appeared in print in Jack Williamson's story "The Greatest Invention" (July 1951 Astounding).'

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/psionics

Come to think of it, though, aren't tinfoil hats anti-psionic devices?

Gutenberg.org; http://www.gutenberg.org/

has a substantial number of out of copyright Philip K. Dick stories available for download free of charge.

Good find!

You can also check some out through archive.org.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=philip+k+dick&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22&page=2

Sorry:

http://archive.org/search.php?query=philip+k+dick&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22&page=2

great idea for an entry

There's an electric dreams series just started on one of my cable channels, I watched the first one, and I have two stored to watch when life is less hectic. Did anyone ever invent a machine to make time go slower? Or, I could do with some of that Ubik.

I have a tendency to quote sci-fi authors in my daily speech, grok, live long and prosper, appy polly loggy, smeg, frak off, etc, which always confuses the young 'uns, and my siblings, and my friendsI know, I hang out with the wrong types. But I like the whooshing sound as my comments go over their heads... Ian understood me, as do the denizens of h2g2. I even got Ian into watching Star Trek.

Whooshings always good GB!

Thanks for those links, finally found a copy of a few old (ancient) books I've misplaced and missed reading til they crumble!

'Electric Dreams' is supposed to be on Amazon Prime. But it hasn't started yet. *grumble* I check every day...

My first experience with PKD was in 1983. I'd been in the US for three weeks on a family visit, and I was headed back to Europe and stuck in Kennedy Airport. I pulled out a dogeared second-hand copy of 'The Unteleported Man', which I'd picked up in a bookstall in upstate New York for about 50 cents...

The next few hours flew by, and reality took several left turns in the meantime.

I watched "The Impossible Planet" last night - very good it was too.

I still have two more to watch so I will catch up tonight.

I know this is a long shot Dmitri, but here's a link to the TV channel I am recording them from, I know you can't see BBC programmes outside the UK but I'm not sure about C4.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/electric-dreams/on-demand/62621-002

Thanks, GB! I'm not sure - right now, there's an error message, but it might work if I updated the Flash player.

Amazon Prime's getting the series - but it looks like we have to wait a few months.

Great entry!
I watched an episode of 'Electric Dreams' last night called 'The Commuter'. It was set at Woking Station back in the good old days when we had South West Trains and not South Western Railways and strikes…

<BB<

Oo, one of my old haunts (I still pass through twice a day)

Did they feature the Martian?

Alas, the chances of the Martian being spotted in the episode are a million to one.

<BB<

Incidentally, did you want to watch that new television series before this goes any further?

<BB<

No. The television series isn't authoritative. This is about Dick's writing, not what filmmakers make of it - which is usually pretty awful.