The Folio Society Release Stunning Edition of Philip K. Dick’s ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ & ‘A Scanner Darkly’ * **
With the arrival of ‘Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams‘ on Channel 4 last Sunday and the hotly anticipated release of ‘Blade Runner 2049’ coming to cinemas in October, adaptations of the famed author’s work seem to be all over the place right now. Whilst it’s great to see Dick’s work on screen, we should also take some time to look at the original work, and to that end, The Folio Society has been in the process for two years creating a two title combination of Philip K Dick’s outstanding sci-fi novels.
For this beautiful special The Folio Society edition they have brought together two classic titles – ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ and ‘A Scanner Darkly’ – in an appropriately mind-bending format: read one, then turn the book upside down to enter the altered reality of the next!
Bound in the tête-bêche binding style popular with early pulp publishers, the two titles are presented upside down relative to each other, and each features a different illustrator. For Androids, Chris Skinner has summoned the seedy neon-drenched noir of Dick’s original vision. Andrew Archer’s images for A Scanner Darkly are appropriately hallucinatory, offering a glimpse of the horrors and the wonders of a bad trip. A unique collaborative double-page illustration at the centre of the book brings these visionary worlds together, creating the ultimate collector’s edition of two science-fiction classics.
Both novels, written with Dick’s trademark energy and prescience, explore many of the author’s personal obsessions. His twin sister died when only a few weeks old, and his characters often find themselves at odds with ‘phantom twins’ and multiple identities, while his habitual drug use inspired A Scanner Darkly. As he writes in the poignant foreword, included with this edition: ‘I am not a character in this novel; I am the novel.’
Philip K. Dick has been one of the most influential sci-fi authors of a generation. Not only did his stories and novels win awards and inspire an entire legion of science-fiction writers, but many of his works have been adapted for screen themselves. Alongside Ridley Scott’s genre-changing ‘Blade Runner’, inspired by ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’, you have films such as ‘Total Recall’, ‘Minority Report’, ‘The Adjustment Bureau’, ‘Paycheck’, and ‘A Scanner Darkly’. Then there are the television series such as ‘The Man in the High Castle‘, and of course ‘Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams‘, all which owe their existence to his imagination.
The Folio Society edition of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and A Scanner Darkly illustrated by Chris Skinner and Andrew Archer is available exclusively from www.foliosociety.com/PKD
* Android Illustration by Chris Skinner from The Folio Society of ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ by Philip K Dick ©Chris Skinner 2017
** Eyeball Illustration by Andrew Archer from The Folio Society of ‘A Scanner Darkly’ by Philip K Dick ©Andrew Archer 2017
