I find his works a mixed bag. I thought “A Scanner Darkly” was quite good. I really liked the crazy, out-there nature of “Ubik”. But then I found “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, and some short story collection I read, to be pretty ordinary.
Completely agree. As a stylist he is crude and clunky. But his plots and ideas are transcendental and have been mined by others for decades since he developed them.
He's sort of like punk rock or Van Gogh. He's definitely not about the polish.
Interesting biographical note. He wanted to be a serious novelist, and wrote an unreadable Tome I think called Confessions of a crap artist.
Meanwhile, the science fiction novels he dashed off to make a little money were becoming popular. When he was in dire straits financially, he would agree to write another book for a few thousand dollars to make the rent.
He would drink himself into a Fugue State and dash another novel or story off in a couple of weeks. He never took that part of his career very seriously, except maybe towards the end of his life when he integrated more of his novelistic ideas into books such as Valis and the Stigmata book.
He died before his name had anywhere near the status it has today.
