When I was approached to write this introduction I declined. It had nothing to do with my attitude toward Phil Dick’s work. It was, rather, because I felt that I had already said everything I had to say on the subject. It was then pointed out to me that I had said these things in a variety of different places. Even if I had nothing to add, a judicious rehashing in a place such as this might do a service for readers who, in all likelihood, hadn’t seen or heard it all before.

So I thought about it. I also looked at some of the things I had written earlier. What might be worth repeating, what worth adding, after this time? I had only met Phil on a few occasions, in California and in France; and it had almost been by accident that we had once fallen into collaborating on a book. During our collaboration we had exchanged letters and spoken often on the telephone. I liked him and I was very impressed by his work. His sense of humor generally came through in our phone conversations. I remember once when he mentioned some royalty statements he’d just received. He’d said, “I’ve gotten so-and-so many hundred in France, so-and-so many hundred in Germany, so-and-so many hundred in Spain… Gee! this sounds like the catalog aria from Don Giovanni!” It was always a more immediate form of verbal wit than the cosmic ironies he played with in his fiction.

I’d said something about his humor before. I’d also remarked on the games he played with consensus reality. I’d even generalized a bit about his characters. But why paraphrase when after all these years I’ve finally found a legitimate reason for quoting myself?

These characters are often victims, prisoners, manipulated men and women. It is generally doubtful whether they will leave the world with less evil in it than they found there. But you never know. They try. They are usually at bat in the last half of the ninth inning with the tying run on base, two men out, two strikes and three balls riding, with the game being called on account of rain at any second. But then, what is rain? Or a ballpark?