BY LAWRENCE SUTIN

This is a first-time collection, in book form, of significant nonfiction writings -- essays, journals, plot scenarios, speeches, and interviews -- by Philip K. Dick from throughout his career. These writings establish, I believe, that Dick was not only a visionary creator of speculative fiction but also an illuminating and original thinker on issues ranging from the merging of quantum physics and metaphysics; to the potential scope of virtual reality and its unforeseen personal and political consequences; to the discomforting relation between schizophrenia (and other psychiatric diagnoses) and societal "joint hallucinations"; to, not least, the challenge to primary human values posed in an age of technological distance and spiritual despair.

The bulk of these writings have either never before been published, or have appeared only in obscure and out-of-print publications. Dick saw himself first and foremost as a fiction writer, and there can be no question that it is in his stories and his novels -- both science fiction (SF) and mainstream -- that Dick's most permanent legacy resides. As for his nonfiction writings, those few essays and speeches that he published in his lifetime attracted scant attention. In certain cases, this was justified -- their style and quality were markedly uneven; indeed, the same may be said with respect to the contents of this volume, many of which -- the Exegesis entries -- Dick had no intention of publishing in his lifetime and hence no reason to revise and polish. (He may -- there is no direct evidence in his private writings to support the supposition -- have hoped that they be discovered and published after his death.)

But the lack of attention paid to Dick's nonfictional works is due to factors that go beyond unevenness of quality. To this day one finds, in SF critical circles, sharp resistance to the notion that Dick's ideas -- divorced from the immediate entertainment context of his fiction -- could possibly be worthy of serious consideration.