There is a current coin-of-phrase that touts Philip K. Dick as the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Well, that and a trajectory to Lagrange-5 are hyperbolic. The returns simply are not all in. The best is a tale that has yet to be written.

There are some things, though, that might make us feel a little more secure about Phil Dick’s contribution to this planet, not that his reputation needs any particular help today. The scope, the integrity and the intellectual magnificence of Phil’s work are internationally revered. He is regarded by many as the most “serious” of the modern science fiction authors, and the interest in his works has continued to mount since his untimely death in 1982. His reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of scholarly criticism. If we take a measured look at his accomplishments there are three powerful themes that permeate almost every novel and story.

The first and most prominent theme today, can be seen in Phil’s watershed work on the question of what divides humanity from all the intricacies of its creations. This is part of the central preoccupation of all consequential writers. But Phil rephrased the question What does it mean to be human? to What is it like not to be human? He posed the problem intellectually, after his fashion, but then he made us feel his answers. In the best and really highest tradition of Mary Shelley he struck on empathy as the difference; in his own word, caritas. I do not have to be a futurist to predict that both his search and his discovery will become ever more important to us as we rush along the strange road that science calls progress.