I started reading his books not too long ago and I really like him. It sucks how modern day sci-fi has succumbed to the woke monster but I’m really enjoying discovering authors from the past. I knew about movies based on his books but never took the time to read his work. I’m currently reading a scanner darkly and have read an anthology of short stories, minority report, flow my tears the policeman said, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Heinlein is my favorite Sci fi writer but PKD is rising on my list.
Can anyone recommend any other books of his? Or like him?
They decrease in quality the further you go. He's no Tolkien, but Dune is an absolute masterwork.
That's an understatement.
I finally finished Chapter House Dune (book 6) a couple of weeks ago after picking at it for nearly a year. I swear, Herbert just wrote the last two books so he could give clinical sounding descriptions of his characters having sex. Not to mention the whole bit where the Teg ghola is awakened by Sheena. From the description, she did nothing special, but for some reason she had to train extensively with Murbella for it?
Anyway, from God Emperor on, I found the stories mostly uninteresting and uneventful, and the characters increasingly grating. Also, it gets tiresome that his characters are constantly getting amazing insights from the smallest of details, but as the reader you're left feeling like you must be missing something because these amazing insights seem to come out of nowhere.
Movies were entertaining but really nothing like the books.
Cool. Thanks! Did the 84 movie do it justice? You going to see the new one?
God no. There's a reason it's an Alan Smithee movie. The problem with trying to adapt Dune to the screen is that's it's largely a tale of psychological metamorphosis. Hard to translate. Also what makes the book so damn good.
Messiah is still a good scifi book, but it never really competes with the original.