The Lattice-Work Gun-Stinging Insect: the Story of Genre in the Science Fiction Novels of Philip K. Dick

Аннотация

This dissertation examines the authorial techniques used by Philip K. Dick to establish his work as science fiction. It focuses on four of his novels (two relatively minor novels in The Cosmic Puppets and Solar Lottery, and two major novels in The Man in the High Castle and Valis). These novels represent four important stages in Dick’s career, and in his conception of science fiction as a genre of storytelling. Throughout this dissertation, emphasis is placed on how these novels express their science fiction identity on the language level, from the structure of their sentences, to the organization of their chapters, to the specific generic elements (including pseudotechnology, pseudohistory, and pseudotheology) that each novel includes.