Top 33 Philip K. Dick Books

A Scanner Darkly is objectively the better written book in my opinion.

A Maze of Death was a big surprise to me. It gets bundled into that mid-tier mix as if it wasn't anything special, but I recommend this to absolutely everybody.

The first book on the list where I predict a second reading will bump it up a lot higher. I wasn't quite ready for this one.

These are the ones that I found to be the messiest, the most incoherent reading experience, and the ones that fell out of my memory banks the easiest. The Similac, The Crack in Space, and Counterclock World.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is the perfect blend of pulp contemplation and its peak dickness?

Regardless of the plot and the core characters, this has one of my favorite ideas and images from all of PKD's work.

This is a really good example of a Philip K. Dick book that almost turns into complete and utter waffle, but not quite. I really liked it.

Eye in the sky, which was another big surprise to me. This should be named in the same breath as the big famous Philip K. Dick novels is simply marvelous.

It has an amazing dystopian background and a bombshell ending and it's one of the best examples of Philip K. Dick harnessing the weirdness. It's properly edited and controlled.

Galactic Pot Healer, which I found remarkably straightforward for a Philip K. Dick book.

Then about a decade later, he wrote a whole new middle act where the protagonist takes a load of weird drugs and goes on a very bad but very cool trip. And I love how these two stories separated by so much time crash together here.

Now, this has some of the best world building I've ever seen by Philip K. Dick.

This one just about pulls it off, but I admit that memory plays a big part in its position in the rankings.

Well, our friends from Frolics 8 is my current favorite of that crazy bunch.

But best of all, I find the writing quite special and unique.

They're just okay. Solar Lottery, his very first published book, lacked a good ending, like many of his books do, and up until that point, it didn't really impress me that much.

This is a book that I've seen take a savage beating from other reviewers, but it's one that I'm particularly fond of.

These are the ones that I found to be the messiest, the most incoherent reading experience, and the ones that fell out of my memory banks the easiest. The Similac, The Crack in Space, and Counterclock World.

I still have to applaud the science fiction version of the second coming of Christ or whatever it is he's doing here. I think it's a brilliant idea. But I think it needed a lot more than Dick's gnostic dream therapy.

The game players of Titan may be my first controversial ranking. A lot of people love this and I too love the idea of an alien creature ruling the earth, humanity, but I think he done it so much better in lots of other books.

The man who japed, another very underrated book.

And it's actually quite delicately done. This is a very smooth read.

These are the ones that I found to be the messiest, the most incoherent reading experience, and the ones that fell out of my memory banks the easiest. The Similac, The Crack in Space, and Counterclock World.

If we were talking cold, hard quality, this would probably be top three.

I think the zap gun is one of the best examples of Philip K. Dick writing about real world politics in his own unique way.

The penultimate truth is a welltrodden path. Post-apocalyptic, people living in underground bunkers discover that the surface isn't quite as hostile as they were led to believe. But that would be a bit bloody simple, wouldn't it?

Three stigmata nails all of those dick cliches with spectacular flare while also creating something that is much more than the sum of its parts.

A man has the power to see a year into the future. Will he save humanity or will he [ __ ] everything up? And did Ursula Leguin write a better version of this with the lathe of heaven? Yes.

This has one of the strongest vibes of all the Philip K. Dick books. Maybe because it's a reconstruction of a man's past built to keep him obliviously comfortable.

It's the best of its type. apart from the other nine books on the list.

But I still believe it's one of his very best written books. It has a wonderful energy and he spends a lot of time fleshing out the characters rather than just using the same old working schlub.

I hear the label worst Philip K. Dick book ever been thrown at Vulcan's Hammer, but no way, not a chance. It's at least midlevel dick.

It's just a very sharp tonal shift. A very brilliant sharp tonal drift.