Exciting news Dick-heads! Philip K Dick's second volume from the Library of America is due to be released July 31, 2008. As previously reported this volume of PKD's work from the 60s & 70s will include:Martian Time Slip
Dr Bloodmoney
Now Wait For Last Year
Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
A Scanner Darkly
All great novels. I can't help but notice Lethem's saved some works for a now-seemingly-inevitable volume of Dick's final novels.
Perhaps something on the order of:
VALIS
The Divine Invasion
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
What do you think should round out the final volume? I know Lethem prefers VALIS to Radio Free Albemuth but perhaps Radio could round out the final volume, or maybe some of the Exegesis....
Pre-order your copy of volume two from Amazon here.
Update: Be sure to read Lethem's awesome short story, "The King of Sentences" published in the December 17th issue of The New Yorker.
I personally think there should be two more volumes. The penultimate volume could include...
ReplyDeleteThe Penultimate Truth
Eye in the Sky
The Simulacra, and
Maze of Death
Those 5 titles are excellent. I am particularly pleased that 'Now Wait for Last Year' has been recognised for being one of PKD's finest books, which it is. Dr Bloodmoney is the only one of these I have slight doubts about.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to say what would be included in the VALIS volume (if there was one) seeing as Scanner has already been collected. I would prefer to see a 'Novels of the 50s' volume including Eye in the Sky, TOOJ, and maybe The World Jones Made and Confessions of a Crap Artist (if that scrapes into being a 50s novel).
I just reading Radio Free Albemuth last night and i must say that i prefer it to valis. Valis is packed with lots of ideas but is very difficult to read, certain chapters being impenetrable. Maybe i'll change my mind the second time i read it
ReplyDeleteA "Novels of the 70's and 80's Volume" could and probably will include either A Maze of Death and/or Confessions of a Crap Artist. Both were written in the 60's but published in the 70's. I don't think they're going to give him TWO more LOA volumes, I think that would be asking too much, and it's possible they will begrudge him a third, deeming the later stuff too far from the Dick 'selling points' that got him into the series in the first place, i.e. "he's this awesome predictive Sci Fi writer, one of the best of the genre and we haven't had a sci fi dude yet to fill out the Chandler/Lovecraft pulp inclusiveness agenda..." BUT Lethem IS a big fan of VALIS/DI/TOTA... And since these PKD volumes seem to sell so well, a third, and maybe fourth might happen like we imagine... A 50's volume might not be a completely bonkers hope. Hell, they're publishing everything Philip Roth ever blew his nose on. Keep your fingers crossed. But there's one thing I'm willing to bet money on, and that's that the 'by decade' naming convention is set in stone and nothing else published during the 1960's will be gracing the covers of a LOA volume.
ReplyDeleteOh and there's no way in hell LOA is going to publish so much as a word of the Exegesis. If they need filler it'll be a sampling of short stories.
ReplyDeleteI'm also excited by the addition of "Now Wait For Last Year," which had so many great classic PKD elements - creative uses of drugs, bizarre visions of the future (and alternative presents), and characters in an unbreakable death spiral struggling against forces they can't even begin to comprehend. I think i'll go read it again!
ReplyDeleteI think a good case could be made for including "Radio Free Albemuth." It's a very different novel than "Valis" and may provide scholarly types a lot of extra insight into Dick's final works. There's actually a bit of a precedent, too, as one of LOA's Nabakov volumes includes both "Lolita" and the screenplay for "Lolita."
ReplyDeleteI think some stuff from the Exegesis would be neat, but it would have to presented very carefully. Can anyone tell me if any enterprising soul out there is working to put together something from the Exegesis? I'd like to get down to Fullerton to take a look myself, but it would be a lot less expensive to pick up an edited volume (less scattered than "In Pursuit of Valis").
Buy last chaos gold is the chance. Since I buy last chaos gold ; I had not had the bad memory. At present, I want to say thanks to the people who stole my account, if he did not to do that, I would not play it, I would not have lastchaos gold . Although I have little lastchaos money , I will on the way of the game for long time. I am a pessimistic person, but when I have cheap lastchaos gold , it changes my attitude of life.
ReplyDelete