Philip K. Dick

Born in Chicago in 1928, Philip K. Dick became one of the most distinctive voices in American science fiction. He wrote dozens of novels and more than a hundred short stories, often mixing everyday life with paranoia, altered realities, and deep questions about what it means to be human.

Much of his best-known work explores unstable worlds and unreliable perceptions, including The Man in the High Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ubik, and A Scanner Darkly. His fiction was once seen as pulp by some critics, but over time it earned wide respect for its imagination, emotional intensity, and philosophical reach.

Dick died in 1982, just before the release of Blade Runner, the film based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Since then, his reputation has only grown, and he is now widely regarded as one of the essential writers of modern speculative fiction.