History Creator / PhilipKDick

Many of his stories have been adapted into movies. Some turned out good (''AScannerDarkly'', ''Film/BladeRunner'', ''Film/TotalRecall1990'' ([[Film/TotalRecall2012 twice]]), ''MinorityReport'', ''TheAdjustmentBureau'') and some received a more mixed reception (''Next'', ''{{Paycheck}}'', ''Impostor''). His largest work is to date unpublished [[http://www.amazon.com/The-Exegesis-Philip-K-Dick/dp/0547549253 save a few excerpts]] - over 7000 pages of notes speculating on Greek philosophy, early Christianity, theology, mental illness, and the implicate structure of the universe itself. This work, titled the "Exegesis," spans thousands of years of metaphysics and occult literature. Written during the final few years of his life, it is either his greatest triumph of skeptical empiricism or a deep descent into incomprehensible insanity.

** Let's put it this way: if the novel is not set AfterTheEnd, a ScavengerWorld, or JustBeforeTheEnd you are looking at books based on Dick's own introspection (so most likely either ''AScannerDarkly'' or ''Literature/{{VALIS}}'').

* BlackComedy: Dick's preferred literary mode. One of the major reasons why his work as a whole is such a MindScrew is the deadpan, almost nonchalant way in which he presents the most bizarre and terrifying events. In ''AScannerDarkly'' a character tries to commit suicide by washing down a lot of pills with a very expensive bottle of wine. [[spoiler: It doesn't work, and instead the character enters a drug-induced coma in which he hallucinates that he spends thousands of years having his sins read to him by a bizarre alien. His response is "At least I had the wine."]]

* PragmaticAdaptation: Due to the incredibly dark, reality-challenging, and ideologically expansive nature of most of his works, it is almost ''impossible'' to create a faithful adaptation of one of [=PKD's=] full novels. The entire novel simply can't be pulled down into a 3-hour or less movie. For this reason, a lot of his shorter stories rather than full-length novels are made into movies: ''MinorityReport'', ''Film/TotalRecall1990'', ''{{Paycheck}}'' etc. There are only two movies based on his actual novels that were well-made and critically-acclaimed: ''Film/BladeRunner'', based on ''Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?'', which, even on a severely curtailed script Ridley Scott travelled through [[DevelopmentHell Pre- and Post-production Hell]] with; and the ''AScannerDarkly'' adaptation, which was incredibly faithful to the book but mostly because A) the director was [[CrazyAwesome incredibly creative]], and B) it is set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. God help the director who takes it into his mind to tackle VALIS.

* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: He was known for finishing many of his novels in less than a week, a feat he usually achieved by taking amphetamines and writing non-stop. ''AScannerDarkly'', however, which is ''about'' drug addicts, was written after he became sober.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: ''The Golden Man'' contains several {{magic realism}} stories (such as a man obsessed with the model town in his basement having it change the town he lives in itself), an [[AuthorTract anti-abortion story]] (where a scientist challenges the abortion requirement that a fetus who cannot do simple math is eligible for abortion, demanding to be aborted because he claims he's forgotten simple math) and, surprisingly, a humorous (somewhat darkly) war against... alien midgets.[[hottip:*:Fun fact: the anti-abortion story actually scared Dick - a radical feminist wrote a letter to dick that ''literally offered to punch him in the face''.]]

* DownerEnding: Many. ''Second Variety'', ''Sales Pitch'', ''Faith of Our Fathers'', ''The Unreconstructed Man''...

** There's a mild version of this in "The Unreconstructed Man" - the Banishment System throws guilty parties into backwater galaxies with no access to anything they owned, and no way to get back home.

** The War with the Fnools ALMOST goes this way - the eponymous fnools, who resemble human midgets, get taller and taller when exposed to human vice (more specifically, tobacco and alcohol). The protagonists despair - until the last fnool gets drunk and keeps drinking, making them inhumanly tall and easier to pick out of a crowd once more. This is all played for laughs.

** Also What Measure Is A Human - pick a book, any book...

* AfterTheEnd - One short story dealt with survivors of a nuclear war, trying to build an escape rocket, and buying supplies from a modern day general store owner.

* AndIMustScream - There are a lot of short stories that have this component to them, although generally this is mercifully subverted in the full-length novels with the protagonist ''at least'' escaping from their reality into complete insanity. And yes, complete insanity is what qualifies as mercifully subverted in this case, because even with not much space to write them in, PKD wrote short stories revolving around GoMadFromTheIsolation, TheAloner, and FateWorseThanDeath that could develop to AndIMustScream.

* ArtificialHuman - ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'', ''Second Variety'' and many others
* AuthorStandIn - [[spoiler: Horselover Fat (a pun on Philip Dick) in ''[=VALIS=]'', as well as Nicholas Brady in the discarded early draft that was posthumously published as ''Radio Free Albemuth.'' In both, however, he also includes a ''separate'' character [[MindScrew named Philip K. Dick]].]] Feel free to blather now.

* BrokenAesop / FamilyUnfriendlyAesop (or maybe MisaimedFandom) - Oh lord, ''Electric Sheep''. While Dick considered artificial people the most horrific excess of a degenerate society obsessed with escaping reality, many readers came to sympathize with the robots, including the people who adapted it to film. [[RogerEbert One critic]] went so far as to compare Deckard to [[GodwinsLaw "A Nazi measuring noses"]] & the general consensus among AI advocates is that if truly intelligent robots ever appear, the book will probably be looked back upon in a similar manner as ''BirthOfANation'' is today.

* BrokenMasquerade - ''Time Out of Joint'', ''Ubik'' and others. Many a reader has been left unsure exactly which masquerade has been broken and whether it's really a masquerade at all.

* ChekhovsGun - ''Paycheck'' is a deconstruction of the concept.
* DoAnythingRobot - ''Sales Pitch'' is about a DoAnythingRobot that serves as its own salesman and touts its ability to do absolutely anything, so you don't have to do anything at all.
* DownerEnding - Many. ''Second Variety'', ''Sales Pitch'', ''Faith of Our Fathers'', ''The Unreconstructed Man''...

* FisherKingdom - The various worlds of ''Eye In the Sky'' started twisting visitors to match their worldviews. [[spoiler:Because each "world" was in fact inside someone's head in a sort of shared hallucination.]]
* GenreSavvy - The majority of Philip Dick's protagonists are paranoid enough to consider the possibility that they are unreal constructs of a hallucination, subjects of an experiment of a higher power, or constantly slipping between alterable states of reality. Exhibit A: in ''Cosmic Puppets'' the male protagonist returns to his home town to find that what he remembered never existed and the ''first'' thing he thinks of is the possibility that someone implanted false memories into his mind in order to manipulate him for nefarious causes... unfortunately he isn't GenreSavvy ''enough'' to listen to his first instinct that he should leave the town before he gets stuck there.

* UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}} - Philip K. Dick is a textbook case. Questions about the fundamental nature of self and reality, personal revelations from God, and an overbearing sense of existential paranoia. Philip K. Dick was explicitly influenced by the [[http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhlcodex.html Nag Hammadi]], which had been recently discovered and translated towards the end of his life.
* GodIsEvil - Considering his obsession with Gnosticism, this isn't surprising. "Faith Of Our Fathers" was the first really well-known GodIsEvil SF story.

* HumansAreBastards - Depending on the story. This is part of The Golden Man's motivation - it knows humanity will always try to kill things like it, so it decides on the path that ensures it - and his progeny - survive.
* IntangibleTimeTravel - ''Paycheck'', with its "timescope"

* KarmaHoudini - "The Unreconstructed Man" frames an innocent man for a murder. The murder was committed via a killer drone that climbed a wall, snuck into an apartment very quietly, fired an explosive pellet into a man, left enough incriminating forensic evidence to convict said man, and folded neatly into an inconspicuous television.

* MadOracle - A RealLife one, according to some.
* MandatoryTwistEnding - Yes, there is going to be a twist, but if Philip Dick doesn't want you to have any idea of what the twist is going to be, you are likely to be hit over the back of the head by it while it crawls out of a hole from another dimension.
* MeaningfulName - Palmer [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch]], Felix Buckman in ''Flow My Tears'', etc.

* MechanicalEvolution - In "Second Variety," when the United Nations is losing a war with the Soviet Union, they create automated factories to produce robotic "claws" to fight back. The claws later self-produce more effective designs which mimic human beings and infiltrate the human ranks.

* MindControlConspiracy - [[GenreSavvy Himself]], and also in ''VALIS''.

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: a {{Meta}} example. All of Dick's novels have rather cryptic names that relate to the soul core of the book and the concepts it is trying to relate, usually with an implied association about the kind of suffering the protagonists will go through, or the depressing reality they will have to face (and you can be assured that they ''will'' suffer through it). And then there is one book called "A Maze Of Death." ... Guess how many protagonists die within the first 24 hours? Guess how many ''[[AndIMustScream times]]'' [[AndIMustScream they die within the span of the book]]?

* PsychicPowers - [[SpiderSense Precogs]] being one of the the most common, as in "The Minority Report". ''Ubik'' centers on a group of ''anti-''psychics, people whose presence blunts the efficacy of psi powers -- useful against terrorists who happen to be psychic.

* RealityWarper: many, with their powers constantly becoming more intricate and elaborate throughout the decades of P.K.D's writing career until you get to ''The Divine Invasion'', at which point you may need a pen, paper and a flow chart.
* RobotWar - His most famous story of this kind, "Second Variety", was made into the film ''{{Screamers}}''.
* SelfFulfillingProphecy - [[spoiler:Minority Report, both versions.]] In [[spoiler:Paycheck]] the government's discovery of a future-seeing device causes it to bring about the disasters the machine prophecies.
* ShownTheirWork - many of his stories, but especially ''V.A.L.I.S.''; I hope you know your Taoism, Gnosticism and mythology well. Some working knowledge of Koine Greek doesn't hurt either.
* TheyLookLikeUsNow - ''{{Screamers}}'' with human looking robots. As well as many stories with artificial human-looking robots or aliens, some who have no idea that they are not human - an [[ParanoiaFuel some who are terrified that they are]].

* UpTheRealRabbitHole - Characters in his books are frequently discovering the world in which they live to be a simulation or otherwise not entirely real. An obvious source of inspiration for Film/TheMatrix, along with TheInvisibles by GrantMorrison.
* WateringDown - One of the minor characters in ''Eye in the Sky'' is a hostess at a club who waters down her own alcoholic drinks (as a large amount of her job is drinking with customers) so as to not get drunk herself.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic - He wrote ''entire books'' that resemble extended, fictional meditations on Judeo-Christian and Gnostic semiotics. ''The Divine Invasion'' comes to mind especially.

* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs - He was known for finishing many of his novels in less than a week, a feat he usually achieved by taking amphetamines and writing non-stop. ''AScannerDarkly'', however, which is ''about'' drug addicts, was written after he became sober.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman - ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?''

* [[/index]]''[[DangerousVisions Faith Of Our Fathers]]''[[index]]

* [[/index]]"[[DangerousVisions Faith Of Our Fathers]]"[[index]]

For the newly prospective or particularly insane reader, as a lot of [=PKD's=] works were guided by the RealitySubtext of his life, reading his works in the order they were published (or written) from oldest to most recent gives probably the best overall understanding of the development of his mind and ideas over time [[hottip:*: with the added advantage that it prepares the reader for the continuously escalating levels of MindScrew and paranoia that occur in his later books]]. However, be warned that trying to read them all in progressive succession ''may'' [[MindScrew break your mind]]. Literally.

* ''{{Ubik}}''

Works with their own pages:

* ''AScannerDarkly''

* GreyAndGrayMorality: All humans and sentient creatures have both redeemable and damnable qualities (with generally more time spent musing on the damnable). There is no black and white, only mixed shades of grey, and if you think you've finally come across someone who fits into either a pure white or black category, then you are probably about to find out something about them that dilutes them to grey again. The only exception from this rule are those that are manifestations of the demiurge, and even then the psychosis backing the CompleteMonster always has a dimension of understanding to it that makes the reader unable to label them as definitively evil.

* ''DoAndroidsDreamOfElectricSheep''

* ''[[DangerousVisions Faith Of Our Fathers]]''
* ''TheManInTheHighCastle''

Many of his stories have been adapted into movies. Some turned out good (''AScannerDarkly'', ''Film/BladeRunner'', ''Film/TotalRecall1990'' ([[Film/TotalRecall2012 twice]]), ''MinorityReport'', ''TheAdjustmentBureau'') and some received a more mixed reception (''Next'', ''{{Paycheck}}'', ''Impostor''). His largest work is to date unpublished save a few excerpts - over 7000 pages of notes speculating on Greek philosophy, early Christianity, theology, mental illness, and the implicate structure of the universe itself. This work, titled the "Exegesis," spans thousands of years of metaphysics and occult literature. Written during the final few years of his life, it is either his greatest triumph of skeptical empiricism or a deep descent into incomprehensible insanity.

* ArcWords - "The Empire Never Ended", which originally came from a dream he had when he was young; also "Ubik" in ''Ubik''

* DownerEnding - Many. ''Second Variety'', ''Sales Pitch'', ''Faith of Our Fathers''...

* HumansAreBastards - They really, really are.

** The War with the Fnools ALMOST goes this way - the eponymous fnools, who resemble human midgets, get taller and taller when exposed to human vice (more specifically, tobacco and alcohol). The protagonists despair - until the last fnool gets drunk and keeps drinking, making them inhumanly tall and easier to pick out of a crowd once more.

* GreyAndGrayMorality: all humans and sentient creatures have both redeemable and damnable qualities (with generally more time spent musing on the damnable). There is no black and white, only mixed shades of grey, and if you think you've finally come across someone who fits into either a pure white or black category, then you are probably about to find out something about them that dilutes them to grey again. The only exception from this rule are those that are manifestations of the demiurge, and even then the psychosis backing the CompleteMonster always has a dimension of understanding to it that makes the reader unable to label them as definitively evil.
* HumansAreBastards - they really, really are.

* MandatoryTwistEnding - yes, there is going to be a twist, but if Philip Dick doesn't want you to have any idea of what the twist is going to be, you are likely to be hit over the back of the head by it while it crawls out of a hole from another dimension.

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: a {{Meta}} example. All of Dick's novels have rather cryptic names that relate to the soul core of the book and the concepts it is trying to relate, usually with an implied association about the kind of suffering the protagonists will go through, or the depressing reality they will have to face (and you can be assured that they ''will'' suffer through it). And then there is one book called "A Maze Of Death." ...Guess how many protagonists die within the first 24 hours? Guess how many ''[[AndIMustScream times]]'' [[AndIMustScream they die within the span of the book]]?

* GenreSavvy - the majority of Philip Dick's protagonists are paranoid enough to consider the possibility that they are unreal constructs of a hallucination, subjects of an experiment of a higher power, or constantly slipping between alterable states of reality. Exhibit A: in ''Cosmic Puppets'' the male protagonist returns to his home town to find that what he remembered never existed and the ''first'' thing he thinks of is the possibility that someone implanted false memories into his mind in order to manipulate him for nefarious causes... unfortunately he isn't GenreSavvy ''enough'' to listen to his first instinct that he should leave the town before he gets stuck there.

* AndIMustScream - there are a lot of short stories that have this component to them, although generally this is mercifully subverted in the full-length novels with the protagonist ''at least'' escaping from their reality into complete insanity. And yes, complete insanity is what qualifies as mercifully subverted in this case, because even with not much space to write them in, PKD wrote short stories revolving around GoMadFromTheIsolation, TheAloner, and FateWorseThanDeath that could develop to AndIMustScream.

Dick's characters typically spend much of his work wondering who they are, and whether their memories are real or fake. His stories often dealt with reality as illusion, [[UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}} Gnosticism]], crazy people, drugged up people, people who seem crazy but are in fact drugged up, people who seem drugged up who are in fact crazy, [[GovernmentConspiracy government conspiracies]], [[CorruptCorporateExecutive evil corporations]], simulacra, [[CosmicEntity Cosmic Entities]], [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]], and enough combinations of the above that a permanent state of [[MindScrew Mind-Screwed-ness]] becomes an occupational hazard for his readers. Twist endings and world-shattering revelations are also characteristic of his work, reflecting what can only be described as his [[RealitySubtext rich inner life]]. Similarly a common theme in his works is a comparison between an objective "Real" reality and a subjective "Perceived" reality, debating the dividing line between the two and whether it is even worth contemplating the difference; a theme that reflected his own mental state.

He is known for writing some of the first GreyGoo stories and for writing about PostModernism before it caught on in the academic world. He wrote serious existential and theological treatises within the context of futuristic science-fiction stories, when science-fiction novels were still in their infancy and considered as childish and peripheral by the majority of the literary world. He was one of the first authors to use fantasy and science-fiction to discuss taboo and socially risqué subjects, contemplating ideas that wouldn't be discussed in mainstream academia for decades. He mixed, deconstructed, and reconstructed philosophical and psychological ideology from everything from Carl Jung and his theories on collective consciousness through to Jean-Paul Sartre and his theories on individualism, constantly searching to define and challenge reality and the human mind. Some of his stories have been cited by big-name philosophers like Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj Zizek.

Many of his stories have been adapted into movies. Some turned out good (''AScannerDarkly'', ''BladeRunner'', ''Film/TotalRecall1990'' ([[Film/TotalRecall2012 twice]]), ''MinorityReport'', ''TheAdjustmentBureau'') and some received a more mixed reception (''Next'', ''{{Paycheck}}'', ''Impostor''). His largest work is to date unpublished save a few excerpts - over 7000 pages of notes speculating on Greek philosophy, early Christianity, theology, mental illness, and the implicate structure of the universe itself. This work, titled the "Exegesis," spans thousands of years of metaphysics and occult literature. Written during the final few years of his life, it is either his greatest triumph of skeptical empiricism or a deep descent into incomprehensible insanity.

* ''{{Literature/VALIS}}''

** In a glaring example, the very first line of ''MinorityReport'' has Anderton think "I'm getting old. Old and fat and bald." In the movie, he's played by TomCruise.

** Let's put it this way: if the novel is not set AfterTheEnd, a ScavengerWorld, or JustBeforeTheEnd you are looking at books based on Dick's own introspection (so most likely either ''AScannerDarkly'' or ''{{Literature/VALIS}}'').

* AuthorStandIn - [[spoiler: Horselover Fat (a pun on Philip Dick) in ''[=VALIS=]'', as well as Nicholas Brady in the discarded early draft that was posthumously published as ''Radio Free Albemuth.'' In both, however, he also includes a ''separate'' character [[MindScrew named Philip K. Dick]].]] Feel free to blather now.

*** Also, BladeRunner? Wow, talk about complete inversions of the subject material (we get it, everyone has feelings!)
** And also considering that in some of his stories robots are the ones that display human traits and the humans are just unbelievable bastards, you could argue he was just using the good ol' [[MindScrew mind screw]]

* BrokenMasquerade - ''Time Out of Joint'', ''Ubik'' and others. Many a reader has been left unsure exactly which masquerade has been broken and whether it's really a masquerade at all.

* GenreSavvy - the majority of Philip Dick's protagonists are paranoid enough to consider the possibility that they are unreal constructs of a hallucination, subjects of an experiment of a higher power, or constantly slipping between alterable states of reality. Exhibit A: in ''Cosmic Puppets'' the male protagonist returns to his home town to find that what he remembered never existed and the ''first'' thing he thinks of is the possibility that someone implanted false memories into his mind in order to manipulate him for nefarious causes... unfortunately he isn't GenreSavvy ''enough'' to listen to his first instinct that he should leave the town before he gets stuck there.

** By the time we get to the appearance of "[[LightIsGood The Pink Light]]", the manifestation of Sophia (in different forms), and alternate interpretations of the Torah (which are then used to validate multiple levels of existence), it becomes "Aion Telos is trying to help but can't get through to humans because Yaldaboath is blocking the entrance to the Iron Fortress." [[TakeAThirdOption That said]], what we're really talking about here is the intervention of the ''Advocate'' versus the Adversary, because the Godhead itself tends to be either [[NeglectfulPrecursors too bored to pay attention]] or... well, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero broken.]]
* GreyAndGrayMorality: all humans and sentient creatures have both redeemable and damnable qualities (with generally more time spent musing on the damnable). There is no black and white, only mixed shades of grey, and if you think you've finally come across someone who fits into either a pure white or black category, then you are probably about to find out something about them that dilutes them to grey again. The only exception from this rule are those that are manifestations of the demiurge, and even then the psychosis backing the CompleteMonster always has a dimension of understanding to it that makes the reader unable to label them as definitively evil.
* HumansAreBastards - they really, really are.

* LighterAndFluffier: His short stories in comparison to his full length novels. Mostly because the short stories tend to have less introspection and dissection of the human condition.

** In ''A Maze Of Death'', you have the subverted dumb-blonde "Susie Smart", the lying hypochondriac "Dr. Babble", and the JerkAss bully "Ignatz Thugg".

** Could be argued to have if not invented, at least cemented the trope in popular media.

* PragmaticAdaptation: Due to the incredibly dark, reality-challenging, and ideologically expansive nature of most of his works, it is almost ''impossible'' to create a faithful adaptation of one of [=PKD's=] full novels. The entire novel simply can't be pulled down into a 3-hour or less movie. For this reason, a lot of his shorter stories rather than full-length novels are made into movies: ''MinorityReport'', ''Film/TotalRecall1990'', ''{{Paycheck}}'' etc. There are only two movies based on his actual novels that were well-made and critically-acclaimed: ''BladeRunner'', based on ''Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?'', which, even on a severely curtailed script Ridley Scott travelled through [[DevelopmentHell Pre- and Post-production Hell]] with; and the ''AScannerDarkly'' adaptation, which was incredibly faithful to the book but mostly because A) the director was [[CrazyAwesome incredibly creative]], and B) it is set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. God help the director who takes it into his mind to tackle VALIS.

* RealityWarper: many, with their powers constantly becoming more intricate and elaborate throughout the decades of P.K.D's writing career until you get to ''The Divine Invasion'', at which point you may need a pen, paper and a flow chart.

* SelfFulfillingProphecy - [[spoiler:Minority Report, both versions.]] In [[spoiler:Paycheck]] the government's discovery of a future-seeing device causes it to bring about the disasters the machine prophecies.

* TheyLookLikeUsNow - ''{{Screamers}}'' with human looking robots. As well as many stories with artificial human-looking robots or aliens, some who have no idea that they are not human - an [[ParanoiaFuel some who are terrified that they are]].

* UpTheRealRabbitHole - Characters in his books are frequently discovering the world in which they live to be a simulation or otherwise not entirely real. An obvious source of inspiration for TheMatrix, along with TheInvisibles by GrantMorrison.

** ''The Divine Invasion'' [[ParanoiaFuel will have you desperately leafing through translations of the Torah just to make sure the End Of Days isn't coming next week.]]
* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs - He was known for finishing many of his novels in less than a week, a feat he usually achieved by taking amphetamines and writing non-stop. ''AScannerDarkly'', however, which is ''about'' drug addicts, was written after he became sober.

** Also What Measure Is A Human - pick a book, any book...

** Occasionally a BittersweetEnding may be evident, but you'll never find a HappilyEverAfter on [=PKD's=] side of science-fiction.

* PragmaticAdaptation: Due to the incredibly dark, reality-challenging, and ideologically expansive nature of most of his works, it is almost ''impossible'' to create a faithful adaptation of one of [=PKD's=] full novels. The entire novel simply can't be pulled down into a 3-hour or less movie. For this reason, a lot of his shorter stories rather than full-length novels are made into movies: ''MinorityReport'', ''TotalRecall'', ''{{Paycheck}}'' etc. There are only two movies based on his actual novels that were well-made and critically-acclaimed: ''BladeRunner'', based on ''Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?'', which, even on a severely curtailed script Ridley Scott travelled through [[DevelopmentHell Pre- and Post-production Hell]] with; and the ''AScannerDarkly'' adaptation, which was incredibly faithful to the book but mostly because A) the director was [[CrazyAwesome incredibly creative]], and B) it is set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. God help the director who takes it into his mind to tackle VALIS.

Many of his stories have been adapted into movies. Some turned out good (''AScannerDarkly'', ''BladeRunner'', ''TotalRecall'', ''MinorityReport'', ''TheAdjustmentBureau'') and some received a more mixed reception (''Next'', ''{{Paycheck}}'', ''Impostor''). His largest work is to date unpublished save a few excerpts - over 7000 pages of notes speculating on Greek philosophy, early Christianity, theology, mental illness, and the implicate structure of the universe itself. This work, titled the "Exegesis," spans thousands of years of metaphysics and occult literature. Written during the final few years of his life, it is either his greatest triumph of skeptical empiricism or a deep descent into incomprehensible insanity.

He has a strong cult-following pan-globally which has been growing since his death in the early 1980s, encouraged by the relevance that a lot of his works have to modern day society. A lot of his more thought-provoking works continue to be the subject of analysis today, although exactly ''what'' that analysis can mean [[YourMileageMayVary varies from person to person]].

* BrokenAesop / FamilyUnfriendlyAesop (or maybe MisaimedFandom, YourMileageMayVary) - Oh lord, ''Electric Sheep''. While Dick considered artificial people the most horrific excess of a degenerate society obsessed with escaping reality, many readers came to sympathize with the robots, including the people who adapted it to film. [[RogerEbert One critic]] went so far as to compare Deckard to [[GodwinsLaw "A Nazi measuring noses"]] & the general consensus among AI advocates is that if truly intelligent robots ever appear, the book will probably be looked back upon in a similar manner as ''BirthOfANation'' is today.