I can state with perfect confidence that the entire Philip K Dick catalog fits into a suitcase. I know this because I used to store his novels this way, slowly filling up a Samsonite until all 45+ titles were represented in the collection; then I promptly delivered the suitcase to my neighborhood bookshop and delighted the buyer by offering it to her at a bargain price. I had read each of the novels multiple times and knew them back and forward, and why not pass them on to fledglings. After all, I had gotten my start years ago discovering one of PKD's novels -UBIK- in a bookseller window and it gave me a little charge knowing that I would enable someone to have the same experience.
Lo and behold, that bargain dump did not mark the end of my relationship with the great author. So powerful and enthralling are his stories, in certain instances I cannot stop myself from going back and revisiting them. Recently I picked up
Now Wait For Last Year, a novel of the future that touches on all of PKD's signature themes: conspiracy, questionable reality, body doubles, perception experiments, and the non-linear nature of time. It's the last theme in particular that comes to mind as I read the book this week.
Having experienced PKD's entire body of output, it's interesting to see what he does with his pet interests. Like other great artists -Woody Allen leaps to mind- he is not so much inventing a story as telling the same one over again and investing it with progressions of his themes. This touches on the non-linearity of time, as you can see him developing concepts of how time really works and the impact it has on characters in each iteration.
Since this a middle period novel, I can touch on later books and see where he went with the idea of overlapping time; I can also go back to earlier works and see where PKD first introduced his idea. This is one aspect of the author where he gets short shrift: he was a bonafide scholar working out a thorough schematic of perception, totally earnest and many times brilliant in his insight.
In
Now Wait For Last Year, a narcotic is responsible for opening characters' perceptions to the overlapping nature of time. Once ingested, the drug causes them to recede chronologically; for the duration of the drug's effects, a character is literally in the past and can affect the present while they are there, sometimes literally plucking a past self and transplanting them to take over their life. One character who takes full advantage of being able to do this is Gino Molinari.
Here is the unforgettable introduction:
"The guest; the man they had come here to see. Reclining, his face empty and slack, lips bulging dark purple and irregular, eyes fixed absently on nothing, was Gino Molinari. Supreme elected leader of Terra's unified planetary culture, and the supreme commander of its armed forces in the war against the reegs.
"His fly was unbuttoned."
The Mole, as the character is commonly known, is a great portrait of a hypochondriac; he literally lives to be sick, having such a sensitive nature that he assumes the ailments of people around him; he is a wounded clown who rules from the gurney. I cannot do the complexity of the character justice here, except to say that he makes for very enjoyable reading. His exchanges with an 18-year-old mistress, who dominates him with crude bantering, are a prime example of PKD's antic powers.
What you see here is called the Compact Muon Solenoid. It is a massive particle detector, part of the Large Hadron Collider that is set to go online September 10th. This will be a day long remembered in the history of our planet. 
"He fights for the users."
From the desk of Bruno Taylor, New York bus stop reconceptualizer:
Though you can no longer find the pirated video on Youtube (yanked by Disney), it is true that test footage from the sequel to Tron was screened at San Diego Comic-Con this last weekend (thanks for the hot tip, Jeff!). I got a peek at it before the plug was pulled and what I saw was amazing.
I went into Dark Knight with the wrong attitude: I let myself have high expectations. As a general rule I don't allow myself to do that, for the sake of being able to squeeze some enjoyment out of a movie if it is mediocre or worse. Fortunately The Dark Knight was much better than I could have ever anticipated and made for a viewing experience on par with seeing Die Hard for the first time.
The fabulous Rollerblog has bestowed upon me the Arte Y Pico Award, an award shared among bloggers to recognize others who inspire with their art and creativity. Let me just say that Rollerblog is a definite source of inspiration for me and if there is anything like a "Right Back At You" award, she deserves it.
I will always think of the 70's as the "brown decade" -brown polyester, brown mustaches, brown air, brown shag... there was a lot of brown in those days. It is a time I remember with fondness. As a kid I used to buy comics at a Bait and Tackle shop in downtown Redwood City, or at the local Alpha Beta. Sadly, comics from that time get a bad rap from just about everybody, as if they belong in a big pile of brown. It isn't entirely just: some great books were created, and artists and writers famous today were cutting their teeth lo those nearly forty years ago.
To help me get a grip on the novel's central characters, I "cast" them with actors. Here we have Chiaki Kuriyama as "Yumiko"; I first saw her in Battle Royale, but she's more famous for swinging a spiked ball on a chain at Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol 1;
Lana Parilla as "Sally", whom I've seen in supporting roles on 24 and Lost, and currently resides in Swingtown;
and Keith David as "Ozzy", an actor who carries so much grace and dignity in voice and form, there was no better choice for the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
Another prominent location in the novel is Edinburgh, city of destiny and the arts. My family is a sept of the Macgregor clan and when I visited Scotland for the first time a few years back, it set my native blood singing (which sounds like a disturbing experience but was actually quite pleasant). The hostel where I spent most of my stay was an incredible spot and left such an impression on me that I decided to use it as a location in the book. 
While I did take photos of it on real film, unfortunately I don't have any digital copies, so I can't share it with you. However, I do have some other images that give you a fair taste of what Edinburgh looks like. It really is an incredible city and I recommend a visit to everyone, whether you're Scottish or not.
Lastly, a look inside The Elephant House, the "birthplace of Harry Potter". Legend has it that JK Rowling did some early writing here, and the staff confirm it as fact. It is a brilliant writing spot, full of students and funky community tables, with the castle on full display through the windows; most importantly, they can pull a mighty decent shot of espresso, roasted locally.
I can state with perfect confidence that the entire Philip K Dick catalog fits into a suitcase. I know this because I used to store his novels this way, slowly filling up a Samsonite until all 45+ titles were represented in the collection; then I promptly delivered the suitcase to my neighborhood bookshop and delighted the buyer by offering it to her at a bargain price. I had read each of the novels multiple times and knew them back and forward, and why not pass them on to fledglings. After all, I had gotten my start years ago discovering one of PKD's novels -UBIK- in a bookseller window and it gave me a little charge knowing that I would enable someone to have the same experience.
A central point of interest in the book is a monastery in the Ethiopian capitol of Axum. Though it is greatly changed in the future setting of my book, the monastery itself is intact and frames a couple of important sequences. It takes its name from Abba Pentalewon, one of the Nine Saints who fled to Ethiopia to escape persecution after the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon proclaimed Monophysitism a heresy. 
With Iron Man already a big hit this year, there is no doubt that this great actor is on the rebound from some troubled times. Speaking of which, another man in this category is Tom Cruise, who makes a cameo appearance in Tropic Thunder, looking like this:
The former star has hit bottom, but with a belly like that, rebounding shouldn't be too tough.
I have gone about writing my novel in a piecemeal fashion. It has been the absolute worst trial-and-error-in-your-free-time approach that I would not recommend to anyone; counterproductive and at times like pouring lye on a bare patch of skin. The opposite of how to effectively compose a work of 70,000+ words. That being said, at the end of three years of work it looks like I might have produced something coherent. My readers will be the final arbiters.