Confessions of a Crap Artist


Book Description

Jack Isidore is a 'crap artist', a collector of crackpot ideas and worthless objects. His beliefs make him a man apparently unsuited for real life and so his sister, an edgy and aggressive woman, and his brother-in-law, a crass and foul-mouthed businessman, feel compelled to rescue him from it. But, observed through Jack's murderously innocent gaze, Fay and Charley Hume are seen to be just as obsessed as Jack. Their obsessions may be a little more acceptable than Jack's but they are uglier. And, in the end and thanks to Jack's intervention, theirs lead to tragedy ...







Confessions of a Crap Artist--Jack Isidore (of Seville, Calif.)


Book Description

Jack Isidore, a young man living with his sister and her family in California, joins a UFO group that believes the world will end on April 23, 1959.




Time Out of Joint


Book Description

"Marvelous, terrifying fun, especially if you've ever suspected that the world is an unreal construct built solely to keep you from knowing who you really are. Which it is, of course."--"Rolling Stone" Ragle Gumm has a unique job: every day he wins a newspaper contest. And when he isn't consulting his charts and tables, he enjoys his life in a small town in 1959. At least, that's what he thinks. But then strange things start happening. He finds a phone book where all the numbers have been disconnected, and a magazine article about a famous starlet he's never heard of named Marilyn Monroe. Plus, everyday objects are beginning to disappear and are replaced by strips of paper with words written on them like "bowl of flowers" and "soft drink stand." When Ragle skips town to try to find the cause of these bizarre occurrences, his discovery could make him question everything he has ever known.




Total Recall


Book Description

The inspiration for the film Total Recall, starring Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale, and directed by Len Wiseman. This ebook-only edition of Philip K. Dick’s classic short story tells the story of Douglas Quail, an unfulfilled bureaucrat who dreams of visiting Mars, but can't afford the trip. Luckily, there is Rekal Incorporated, a company that lets everyday stiffs believe they’ve been on incredible adventures. The only problem is that when technicians attempt a memory implant of a spy mission to Mars, they find that real memories of just such a trip are already in Quail's brain. Suddenly, Quail is running for his life from government agents, but his memories might make him more of a liability than he is worth. Originally published as "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale."




Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said


Book Description

Altered reality, genetic enhancement and drugs combine to create one of the most popular and enduring science fiction novels from award-winning novelist Philip K. Dick.




The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike


Book Description

Small town America tears itself apart in this realist novel from one of the greats of science fiction Leo Runcible - of Runcible Realty - is too excitable and too pushy. His wife drinks too much. He may be a man of principle, but Liberal Jewish Leo is an outsider in the lilywhite Carquinez, Marin County. When he gets into a pointless argument with a customer over his neighbour Walt Dombrosio's house guests, the resulting ramifications follow a bizarre logic of cause and effect to lead in entirely unexpected directions ... And can Leo really have found the skull of a Neanderthal man in middle America? THE MAN WHOSE TEETH WERE ALL EXACTLY ALIKE is a dazzling novel by a writer famous for his power to surprise and delight.




Humpty Dumpty In Oakland


Book Description

Set in the San Francisco Bay area in the late 1950s, Humpty Dumpty in Oakland is a tragicomedy of misunderstandings among used car dealers and real-estate salesmen: the small-time, struggling individuals for whom Philip K. Dick always reserved his greatest sympathy. Jim Fergesson, an elderly garage owner with a heart condition, is about to sell up and retire; Al Miller is a somewhat feckless mechanic who sublets part of Jim's lot and finds his livelihood threatened by the decision to sell; Chris Harman is a record company owner who for years has relied on Fergesson to maintain his cars. When Harman hears of Fergesson's impending retirement he tips him off to what he says is a cast-iron business proposition: a development in nearby Marin County with an opening for a garage. Al Miller, though, is convinced that Harman is a crook, out to fleece Fergesson of his life's savings. As much as he resents Fergesson he can't bear to see that happen and - denying to himself all the time what he is doing - he sets out to thwart Harman.




Divine Invasions


Book Description

A biography of one of the most culturally significant authors in the world. Philip K Dick loosened the bonds of the genre, ultimately making his reputation as a literary writer who happened to write speculative fiction.




The Best of Philip K. Dick


Book Description

Thirteen short stories by the legendary author of The Man in the High Castle and other science fiction classics. Philip K. Dick didn’t predict the future―he summoned the desperate bleakness of our present directly from his fevered paranoia. Dick didn’t predict the Internet or iPhones or email or 3D printers, but rather he so thoroughly understood human nature that he could already see, even at the advent of the transistor, the way technology would alienate us from each other and from ourselves. He could see us isolated and drifting in our own private realities even before we had plugged in our ear buds. He could see, even in the earliest days of space exploration, how much of our own existence remained unexplored, and how the great black spaces between people were growing even as our universe was shrinking. Philip K. Dick spent his first three years as a science fiction author writing shorter fiction, and in his lifetime he composed almost 150 short stories, many of which have gone on to be adapted into (slightly watered down) Hollywood blockbusters. Collected here are thirteen of his most Dickian tales, funhouse realities with trap doors and hidden compartments.