Wired 11.12: The Second Coming of Philip K. Dick

How and Why PKD is conquering Hollywood.

Paycheck, opening Chrismas Day is based on a 1953 short story Dick sold to a pulp magazine for less than $200, will bring close to $2 million to his estate.

Interesting quotes: In response to a 1969 questionnaire, Dick described SF's greatest weakness as "its inability to explore the subtle, intricate relationships that exist between the sexes," adding that as a result it "remains pre-adult, and therefore appeals - more or less - to pre-adults."

In a 1978 essay he wrote: "We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudorealities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives. I distrust their power. It is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing."