In Counter-Clock World, one of the most theologically probing of all of Dick’s books, the world has entered the Hobart Phase–a vast sidereal process in which time moves in reverse. As a result, libraries are busy eradicating books, copulation signifies the end of pregnancy, people greet with, “Good-bye,” and part with, “Hello,” and underneath the world’s tombstones, the dead are coming back to life. One imminent old-born is Anarch Peak, a vibrant religious leader whose followers continued to flourish long after his death. His return from the dead has such awesome implications that those who apprehend him will very likely be those who control the fate of the world. Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Mary Anne Reynolds is a young and vulnerable woman, determined to make her own way in the world. But Pacific Park, California, in the 1950s is not really the place for Mary. Her relationship with a black singer offends against the small town's views on sexual mores and exposes its bigoted views on race. This is a powerful portrayal of the claustrophobia of small-town California, and Mary Anne Reynolds is one of the most memorable characters Dick ever created.

Precorrendo i temi cari al moderno cyberpunk, Philip K. Dick proietta sé stesso nel mondo che immagina: il suo pensiero di visionario, insieme alle ossessioni e alle angosce dell'uomo moderno. Chi o cosa è Valis? È un'imperscrutabile entità intelligente che vive nello spazio. O forse un meccanismo, una formula o un essere vivente vero e proprio, che entra in contatto con alcune persone per dirigerne i pensieri e i passi sul sentiero della conoscenza. In questo primo romanzo della trilogia, un uomo viene improvvisamente colpito da una sorta di raggio di colore rosa, che gli si materializza nella mente, cambiando per sempre la sua vita. Si tratta di un messaggio celeste, o semplicemente di un disturbo mentale? Storia della ricerca di verità supreme, Valis pone al lettore una serie di interrogativi propri della geniale indagine di Dick: cosa siano la realtà e il divino, se una o l'altro esistano davvero e non siano semplici invenzioni della nostra mente.

Gather Yourselves Together is one of Philip K. Dick’s earliest novels, written when he was just twenty-four years old. It tells the story of three Americans left behind in China by their employer, biding their time as the Communists advance. As they while away the days, both the young and naïve Carl Fitter and the older and worldly Verne Tildon vie for the affections of Barbara Mahler, a woman who may not be so tough-as-nails as she acts. But Carl’s innocence and Verne’s boorishness could end up driving Barbara away from both.

In the future, most of humanity lives in massive underground bunkers, producing weapons for the nuclear war they've fled. Constantly bombarded by patriotic propaganda, the citizens of these industrial "anthills" believe they are waiting for the day when the war will be over and they can return aboveground. But when Nick St. James, president of one anthill, makes an unauthorized trip to the surface, what he finds is more shocking than anything he has been told.

Jennings, one of the world's most skilled electricians, wakes up to find himself getting paid a large sum of money for a two-year contract job he has just completed. His employer, the Rethrick Corporation, has erased his memory of the past two years as security measure. But when he goes to collect his paycheck, he discovers his earlier self had signed a release that replaced the money with a cloth bag filled with seemingly meaningless objects. Soon Jennings is being pursued by Security Police (SP) who demand that he tell them the nature of his work for the past two years and he realizes that he is trapped in a vast conspiracy.

When the Lindahls meet the Bonners, their marriage is already in deep trouble. This meeting is a catalyst for a complicated series of emotions and traumas, set against the backdrop of suburban Los Angeles in the early '50s.

Confessions of a Crap Artist is one of Philip K. Dick's weirdest and most accomplished novels. Jack Isidore is a crap artist -- a collector of crackpot ideas (among other things, he believes that the earth is hallow and that sunlight has weight) and worthless objects, a man so grossly unequipped for real life that his sister and brother-in-law feel compelled to rescue him from it. But seen through Jack's murderously innocent gaze, Charlie and Juddy Hume prove to be just as sealed off from reality, in thrall to obsessions that are slightly more acceptable than Jack's, but a great deal uglier. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Bruce Stevens is a young buyer for a big discount house when he meets the recently divorced Susan Faine. She suggests that he might like to manage her ailing typewriter store and he leaps at the suggestion. Then he realizes that Susan was his teacher when he was in fifth grade. In spite of that, they are married within days. And then the odd compulsions and instabilities start to interfere with their plans. Milton Lumky, the paper salesman in whose area they live, is uneasy about their future...

Many thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K. Dick Society is devoted to the study and promulgation of his works. This collection includes all of the writer's earliest short and medium-length fiction (including some previously unpublished stories) covering the years 1954-1964. These fascinating stories include Service Call, Stand By, The Days of Perky Pat, and many others. Contents: Autofac -- Service call -- Captive market -- The mold of Yancy -- The minority report -- Recall mechanism -- The unreconstructed M -- Explorers we -- War game -- If there were no Benny Cemoli -- Novelty act -- Waterspider -- What the dead men say -- Orpheus with clay feet -- The days of Perky Pat -- Stand-by -- What'll we do with Ragland Park? -- Oh, to be a Blobel! --

Dr. Eric Sweetscent has problems. His planet is enmeshed in an unwinnable war. His wife is lethally addicted to a drug that whips its users helplessly back and forth across time -- and is hell-bent on making Eric suffer along with her. And Sweetscent's newest patient is not only the most important man on the embattled planet Earth but quite possibly the sickest. For Secretary Gino Molinari has turned his mortal illness into an instrument of political policy -- and Eric cannot tell if his job is to make the Male better or to keep him poised just this side of death. Now Wait for Last fear bursts through the envelope between the impossible and the inevitable. Even as ushers us into a future that looks uncannily like the present, it makes the normal seem terrifyingly provisional -- and compels anyone who reads it to wonder if he really knows what time it is. From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Skull in the Photograph was Labelled *Neanderthal Man...* He is too excitable and too pushy. His wife drinks too much. He may be a man of principle, but Leo Runcible of Runcible Realty is an outsider in Carquinez, Marin County. When he gets into an argument with his neighbour Walt Dombrosio, the resulting ramifications follow a bizarre logic of cause and effect to lead in entirely unexpected directions... The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike is a dazzling novel by a writer famous for his power to surprise and delight. The greatest American novelist of the second half of the 20th century - Norman Spinrad One of the most original practitioners writing any kind of fiction, Philip K. Dick made most of the European avant-garde seem navel-gazers in a cul-de-sac. - Sunday Times Front cover illustration by Neil Breedon.

Theoretically, you could find this type of humor anywhere. But only a topflight science-fictionist, we thought, could have written this story, in just this way. . . . Start here: It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet. As yet, I haven't done anything about it; I can't think of anything to do. I wrote to the Government, and they sent back a pamphlet on the repair and maintenance of frame houses. Anyhow, the whole thing is known; I'm not the first to discover it. Maybe it's even under control. "All of his work starts with the basic assumption that there cannot be one, single, objective reality," writes science fiction author Charles Platt.

Philip K. Dick's searing metaphysical comedy of death and salvation is a tour de force of panoramic menace and unfettered slapstick, in which the departed give business advice, shop for their next incarnation, and run the continual risk of dying yet again. From the Trade Paperback edition

In the years following World War III, a new and powerful faith has arisen from a scorched and poisoned Earth, a faith that embraces the architect of world wide devastation. The Servants of Wrath have deified Carlton Lufteufel and re-christened him the Deus Irae. In the small community of Charlottesville, Utah, Tibor McMasters, born without arms or legs, has, through an array of prostheses, established a far-reaching reputation as an inspired painter. When the new church commissions a grand mural depicting the Deus Irae, it falls upon Tibor to make a treacherous journey to find the man, to find the god, and capture his terrible visage for posterity. From the Trade Paperback edition.