These 27 stories are not perfect. It would be a disservice to the truth and to Philip K. Dick's literary reputation to contend that they represent the full flowering of the mature talent to come. But they too are a series of windows, windows into the past, into the beginnings of a great spirit's long and mighty journey, and windows too into the future, into the fully developed vision of the mature master the talented young apprentice who wrote them was one day destined to become.
Norman Spinrad October, 1986
Paranoia, in some respects, I think, is a modern-day development of an ancient, archaic sense that animals still have -- quarry-type animals -- that they're being watched... I say paranoia is an atavistic sense. It's a lingering sense, that we had long ago, when we were -- our ancestors were -- very vulnerable to predators, and this sense tells them they're being watched. And they're being watched probably by something that's going to get them...
And often my characters have this feeling.
But what really I've done is, I have atavized their society. That although it's set in the future, in many ways they're living -- there is a retrogressive quality in their lives, you know? They're living like our ancestors did. I mean, the hardware is in the future, the scenery's in the future, but the situations are really from the past.
many ways they're living -- there is a retrogressive quality in their lives, you know? They're living like our ancestors did. I mean, the hardware is in the future, the scenery's in the future, but the situations are really from the past.
The Cookie Lady
"Where you going, Bubber?" Ernie Mill shouted from across the street, fixing papers for his