Am I living in a PKD novel?

Philip K. Dick was one of the great geniuses of SF writing. I recently splurged on a six paperback collection of his short stories, so I could have everything together, stuff I’ve read and loved before plus a bunch of stuff that was new to me. PKD was known for his constant questioning of objective reality, his illumination of the inner experiences of the mind, his paranoid musings on government control, his (and his characters’) excessive use of drugs (which partly led to his eventual madness and death), and his generally bleak settings (I think 99.9% of his fiction is set post-WWIII or at least post-nuclear holocaust of some sort). Nowadays, he’s a favorite of Hollywood and his stories are often adapted into films (generally crapified, watered-down versions, of course).

So here I am in the mornings with my cup of coffee, checking my e-mail, checking the weather, and checking the radiation sensors in Shizuoka…

Radiation sensors? Yes, indeed. http://gebweb.net/japan-radiation-map/

Yes, I really am checking the radiation levels in the mornings before starting my day.

Although, contrary to popular belief, it is not the job of the SF writer to predict the future, PKD’s writings predicted things about our current day and age. I’ve often been disturbed by how accurate some of his stuff regarding government censorship and surveillance was, as well as impressed by how some of his musings on the nature of reality have been taken up by philosophers and scientists alike. I just never thought his nuke stuff (he was, after all, a product of the early cold war, before governments basically realized that any use of nuclear weapons would be suicidal) would find a way to come to fruition, kind of, as well.

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